När Franco stal Eurovision

Rylan Clark-Neal narrates a guide to all things Eurovision and takes a sideways look at the greatest singing contest on the planet. The A-Z of Eurovision features all the disasters, the costume changes and memorable musical moments from 65 years of Eurovision.

Greg James and Russell Kane present a look at all the ingredients needed to become a Eurovision winner, celebrating the UK's successes and also its hall of shame.

In 1988, 20-year-old Céline Dion won Eurovision for Switzerland with the song ‘Ne Partez Pas Sans Moi’, a moment that kickstarted her international career and propelled the young Celine to world fame. This documentary looks back through the archives at an event that changed the Quebec singer's life, with interviews from the song’s composer as well as from Scott Fitzgerald, the British singer who was runner up at Eurovision 1988, beaten by just one point.

Caudillo is a documentary film by Spanish film director Basilio Martín Patino. It follows the military and political career of Francisco Franco and the most important moments of the Spanish Civil War. It uses footage from both sides of the war, music from the period and voice-over testimonies of various people.

In the late sixties, Spanish cinema began to produce a huge amount of horror genre films: international markets were opened, the production was continuous, a small star-system was created, as well as a solid group of specialized directors. Although foreign trends were imitated, Spanish horror offered a particular approach to sex, blood and violence. It was an extremely unusual artistic movement in Franco's Spain.

An unprejudiced portrait of Spanish folklore and a crude analysis in black and white of its intimate relationship with atavism and superstition, with violence and pain, with blood and death; a story of terror, a journey to the most sinister and ancestral Spain; the one that lived far from the most visited tourist destinations, from the economic miracle and unstoppable progress, relentlessly promoted by the Franco regime during the sixties.

Franco on Trial is the new film by Dietmar Post and Lucía Palacios. After the success of Franco's Settlers, their first encounter with Franco's dictatorship, they are now setting their sights on one of the darkest chapters of European history: the presumed organized extermination that took place during the coup, the war, and the subsequent dictatorship led by Franco, as well as Argentina's current effort, by invoking the principle of universal jurisdiction, to prosecute Francoists accused of committing crimes against humanity. The film is also a sore reminder of an issue that still stands today: the clear-cut accountability held by Germany, Italy, and Portugal. The film accomplishes to give both sides a voice - those against whom the killing has been directed; and the side of the perpetrators.

A 2008 documentary and debut feature film of Bafta-Award nominated director Jamie Jay Johnson. It follows the lives of the participants of the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2007, specifically the entrants from Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus and Georgia. The film sees them proceed from the national finals that saw them crowned the representatives of their country through to the international song festival itself held in Rotterdam, the Netherlands where they each compete against 16 other acts.

In December 2016 a remarkable chapter in music history was closed as the Finnish punk rock band Pertti Kurikan Nimipäivät (PKN) retired. Punk Voyage is a feature length documentary film about the last years of the band, with all the ups and downs included. After becoming celebrities in Finland, this incredible quartet continued to conquer new fans around the World. In its seven years run PKN played nearly 300 gigs in 16 countries. In 2015 the band was selected to represent Finland in the Eurovision Song Contest, where they played to over 100 million television spectators. However, the busy traveling and success created a lot of pressure within the band: Kari struggled with the temptations and responsibilities brought by publicity; Sami extended his territory to politics and religion; Toni's and the band's roadie Niila's crush to the the same girl caused conflicts; and Pertti, tired of this all, decided to retire.

In Spain, a poor country ruined by the recent Civil War (1936-39), and in the midst of Franco's dictatorship, a film school was created in Madrid in 1947, which became, almost unintentionally, a space of freedom and pure experimentation until its closure in 1976.

The story of a group of actresses who, in the Spain of the seventies, and in the midst of the democratic Transition, decided to appear nude in the films of that time of radical political change, defying the rigid and deeply rooted social rules.

A walk through the golden age of Spanish exploitation cinema, from the sixties to the eighties; a low-budget cinema and great popular acceptance that exploited cinematographic fashions: westerns, horror movies, erotic comedies and thrillers about petty criminals.

A history of the political and social repression carried out by the ruthless regime of Spanish dictator Francisco Franco between 1936 and 1975 that focuses on the lives of gays and lesbians during those dark years and the death of the Spanish gay poet Federico García Lorca.

In 1940's Madrid. Juan plays piano for Pepita and her on-stage partner Mario. Although Mario really wants to steal Juan for himself, Juan is not interested and Mario resorts to a string of lovers as consolation. When he loves (and leaves) a young nobleman, the young man wants revenge.

A history of the Spanish Transition told in first person by the main protagonists: on the one hand, the politicians, idealistic or merely opportunistic, who brought it to a successful conclusion in the tribunes and offices; on the other hand, the citizens who, in the streets, supported it sincerely or fought it with ferocity.

Prades, France, 1940s. The exiled Catalan cellist Pau Casals decides not to perform any more in public until the fall of the dictatorship that oppresses Spain. Pierre, a young Frenchman studying with Casals, tries to convince him to celebrate an extraordinary concert as a tribute to freedom.

Waffen-SS officer Otto Skorzeny (1908-75) became famous for his participation in daring military actions during World War II. In 1947 he was judged and imprisoned, but he escaped less than a year later and found a safe haven in Spain, ruled with an iron hand by General Francisco Franco. What did he do during the many years he spent there?

In a pseudo-futuristic 1994, a square couple enter the corrupt world of the music industry, and subsequently a maze of drugs, sex, and temptation.

Born in Campo de Criptana, a small village in the Spanish region of La Mancha, Sara Montiel (1928-2013) conquered Mexico, Hollywood, and the hearts of people. The recognition of an unparalleled professional career, an intimate dialogue with a tireless worker who took the stage at the age of twelve and never got off. A movie star who seduced millions of viewers around the world, a singer who reinvented a musical genre, a woman who broke the mold…

This definitive music documentary, featuring a greatest hits soundtrack and bounty of classic performance clips, provides an inside look into how Swedish pop group ABBA's music was made, as the former members and various colleagues tell their story from pre-ABBA days onward.