Human with three legs

A portrayal of the life of one of the most important samba musicians in Brazil, Bahian sambista Oscar da Penha, popularly known as Batatinha (1924 -1997). Through memories of their father, his nine children share their perspectives, as well as interviews with family, friends and musicians, to tell the story of Batatinha’s life, history and work.

In Peru, Sergio García Locatelli visits both those places where human life is fragile and personal fate is uncertain and those where death reigns, places where everything is already lost, where appeal is not possible. A walk in search of the meaning of death that is actually a celebration of life and the living.

Following the death of their parents, Harriet and her siblings must unpack their childhood fears as they prepare to sell their dragon-filled Oxfordshire home. Between the clutter and the boxes, the siblings find themselves haunted by the memories of their late parents: a dragon-obsessed father and an exacting mother, and the esoteric collections of objects they left behind.

Back To Africa

Michael Mosley transformed the lives of millions of people. In this programme, we look back at an extraordinary broadcasting career which spanned almost 40 years. Fronting series such as Trust Me I’m a Doctor and the hit podcast Just One Thing, Michael used his warm, often funny approach to deliver important, life-changing health messages. He started behind the scenes as an award-winning science journalist and producer, before becoming a much-loved presenter. His programmes have made a lasting impact on the nation’s health habits, from intermittent fasting to the benefits of a cold shower. Michael also shared his own struggles with audiences worldwide. As a chronic insomniac, he made programmes about sleep and, ever curious, he would also go to extremes in the pursuit of science, even infecting himself with a tapeworm. Celebrating Michael’s career, this programme marks the enormous impact he made, touching the lives of so many.

Filmmaker Evie Wray travels to rural Kansas in an attempt to reconnect with her mentally unstable mother, Evie, for the first time since Evie’s psychotic breakdown five years earlier. She finds a parent still chasing her demons, both real and imagined, struggling to make a career for herself as an abstract artist and searching for the Geodetic Center of the United States, the finding of which, Evie says, will bring about world peace.

High school graduation doesn't come around often. Not only is it a day of celebration, but also a day of tears and apprehension. Milestone No. 1 follows Jack, a senior at the local high school, who is getting ready for his day of graduation, and the various tasks he needs to complete before arriving at the venue.

Elogio a la Sonrisa

What happens when your child comes out to you? In this feature documentary, parents of lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans-gender individuals in Turkey intimately share their experiences with the viewer, as they redefine what it means to be parents in this conservative society.

Chelsea Bledsoe and her husband Graig throw a surprise intervention for her old high school boyfriend, Henry, with a mismatched group of acquaintances from back in the day to fill out the guest list.

In Uganda, AIDS-infected mothers have begun writing what they call Memory Books for their children. Aware of the illness, it is a way for the family to come to terms with the inevitable death that it faces. Hopelessness and desperation are confronted through the collaborative effort of remembering and recording, a process that inspires unexpected strength and even solace in the face of death.

Following Shamim Khan’s and his co-workers’ daily care for the Islamic Delhi Gate Cemetery over the last two years, the film attempts to comprehend an event unprecedented in the recent history of the world – the COVID-19 pandemic – through the eyes of a keeper of the dead.

Nearly a decade in the making, The House We Lived In is a strikingly candid portrait of a family transformed by a father’s brain injury. In 2011, 61-year-old Tod O’Donnell awoke from a coma with a case of total amnesia that doctors assured his wife and children was temporary. But when it proved permanent, and for no discernible reason, the O’Donnell’s were left to themselves to untangle the mystery — a struggle for answers that would only raise more questions as they came to realize, painfully, that the real mystery was Tod himself.

A compilation of various accidents, mayhem, death, gore, and human feats caught on tape.

A Perilous Quest to Save the World’s Children tells the inspiring story of Dr. Maurice R. Hilleman, a man with a singular, unwavering focus — to eliminate the diseases of children. From his poverty-stricken youth on the plains of Montana, he came to prevent pandemic flu, develop the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine, and invent the first-ever vaccine against human cancer.

Thomas Haemmerli is about to celebrate his fortieth birthday when he learns of his mother's death. A further shock follows when he and his brother Erik discover her apartment, which is filthy and full to bursting with junk. It takes the brothers an entire month to clean out the place. Among the chaos, they find films going back to the 1930s, photos and other memorabilia.

Saucedo explores the emotional journey of boxing champion Alex Saucedo who suffers a career ending brain injury, forcing him to redefine his identity, find new purpose and take care of his family. This cinema verité feature documentary is a raw and intimate portrait of resilience and redemption.

Earth to earth, water to water. The body weight of a newborn child is up to 85 percent water, but in adulthood, the ratio can be cut into half. In a way, people dry up as they grow older. In Claudia Tosi’s documentary, people drink water, watch the rain and wait for their death. The Perfect Circle depicts a man and a woman, Ivano and Meris, who spend their final days at a hospice in the hills of Reggio Emilia, Northern Italy. Their illnesses are in the terminal stage and they know that death is only a matter of time. But the ever-nearing end may fleetingly be forgotten, like when they close their eyes and get lost in the music – until the bodies being carried out next door once again remind them of the inevitable. Death also becomes a part of life for the patients’ loved ones, who want to spend the last available moments with the soon to be departed.

A portrait that follows Nan, my uncle and the last two years he and his parents live together. In long, tightly framed shots, a picture emerges of three intimately interwoven lives: the gentle and touching bickering between Nan and his mother, the evenings in front of the television when time seems to stand still, and the minutes ticking by as Grandpa silently peels an apple. In the film, disability is not only seen as symptoms on individual bodies, but as social, physical, and temporal relationships. It is a meditation on time, disabilities, and the economies of care in contemporary China.

An Oscar nominated documentary about a middle-class American family who is torn apart when the father Arnold and son Jesse are accused of sexually abusing numerous children. Director Jarecki interviews people from different sides of this tragic story and raises the question of whether they were rightfully tried when they claim they were innocent and there was never any evidence against them.