S2006 E1 • Prostitution Behind the Veil

Prostitution Behind the Veil explores a side of Iran rarely seen or talked about. For over a year, director Nahid Persson filmed the everyday lives of two young female prostitutes in Iran as they eked out a living in a country where the profession is banned. The filmmaker often took great risks to follow Minna and Fariba as they sought out customers-men who would often marry them briefly, so as not to violate the laws of Islam by having extramarital sex. The two women are good friends and neighbor, who have experienced the widespread mistreatment of women and the double standards that permeate Iranian society today.

Première diffusion : 26 octobre 2006

S2006 E3 • Hollywood and the Holocaust

How effectively does Hollywood depict reality? Is it possible to reconcile the demands of popular entertainment with a historical event as sombre as the Holocaust? Daniel Anker's film supplies many questions and some answers. He starts back in the 1930s by showing Hollywood's ham-fisted efforts to chronicle the rise of Nazism. Later, in 1945, a planeload of Hollywood executives were shipped to visit the newly liberated concentration camps. When the rushes were screened in Hollywood, many of them were overcome by what they saw. But, for the next 10 years, Hollywood didn't touch the Holocaust.

Première diffusion : 26 mars 2006

S2006 E4 • Before the Flood: Tuvalu

Now that global warming is officially acknowledged, the world's eyes are on which country will be the first to sink beneath the waves. A candidate is Tuvalu, an island in the midst of the Pacific and home to 11,000 inhabitants. This tiny island sold its internet domain name, .tv, to a Californian company for $50 million, but now global warming is causing the island to sink. How are they spending the windfall?

Première diffusion : 21 février 2006

S2006 E5 • Al Franken: God Spoke

In Al Franken: God Spoke, the makers of The War Room capture the emergence of Al Franken as a political commentator. The film is shot over the course of two years and follows Franken from his highly publicized feud with Fox News anchor Bill O'Reilly to his fierce campaign against president George W. Bush during the 2004 election.

Première diffusion : 13 septembre 2006

S2006 E8 • Shakespeare behind Bars

Storyville follows the male inmates of an American prison as they prepare and rehearse a production of Shakespeare's The Tempest.

Première diffusion : 2 novembre 2006

S2006 E9 • The Russian Newspaper Murders

Following the recent murder of Anna Politkovskaya , Storyville follows investigations by human rights lawyer Karen Nersisyan into the murders of six other Russian journalists between 1995 and 2003.

Première diffusion : 30 octobre 2006

S2006 E10 • Philip and His Seven Wives

Marc Isaacs' eye-opening Storyville film explores the life of a Jewish antiques dealer from a small English seaside town who believes it is his Biblical birthright to take as many wives as he chooses. Spending time with the family in Hove, Isaacs tries to understand why the women have chosen to live under the rule of this self-proclaimed Hebrew King. (2006) This documentary is part of Louis Theroux: Docs That Made Me, a collection of his favourite documentaries. As a fan of director Marc Isaacs, whose work Louis describes as 'elegiac and elliptical', this film isn't a straightforward journalistic documentary, but focuses instead on what he calls a 'visual poetry'. The themes of unconventional religious and sexual behaviour seem all the more fascinating for being located in a familiar British setting rather than in America, where documentary viewers are more used to encountering characters with outlandish religious beliefs.

Première diffusion : 11 juillet 2006

S2006 E90 • The House of Chanel: Anticipation

Première diffusion : 25 janvier 2006

S2006 E91 • The House of Chanel: Doubts

Première diffusion : 1 février 2006

S2006 E92 • The House of Chanel: Rituals

Première diffusion : 8 février 2006

S2006 E93 • The House of Chanel: The All-Night Vigil

Première diffusion : 15 février 2006

S2006 E94 • The House of Chanel: The Collection

Première diffusion : 22 février 2006

S2006 E2 • Every Good Marriage Begins with Tears

Première diffusion : 18 juillet 2007

S2006 E6 • Little Dieter Needs To Fly

Born in Germany, Dieter Dengler lived as a child through the Allied air raids. After the war, he emigrated to America, and became a fighter pilot. He was shot down over Laos and captured. After a first escape attempt he was tortured - but he escaped again, marching for ten days through the jungle until he was spotted by an American plane and taken to safety. Werner Herzog's astonishing film recreates Dengler's ordeal - and the dreams that still haunt him. Dieter Dengler now lives on the American West Coast. The need to fly is gone, but he still craves freedom and space.

Première diffusion : 15 mars 2007

S2006 E33 • My Friend Sasha: A Very Russian Murder

For three years before his death from poisoning, former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko had been making a documentary with his friend Andrei Nekrasov about authoritarianism in post-communist Russia. Here is that film, the unexpected ending of which made world headlines at the end of 2006. Andrei Nekrasov was a friend of Alexander Litvinenko. They'd met when Nekrasov was making a film about the effect of the Chechen war on children. The two became closer as Nekrasov became interested in Litvinenko's career - from KGB man to critic of Putin and, latterly, critic of the entire society which had allowed KGB-style practises to continue in post-communist Russia. As Litvinenko says in the film, "In the old days there were communists and there were criminals. Now there are only criminals." Nekrasov's film, which was completed for the BBC with the assistance of Leslie Woodhead, is an extraordinary document. He doesn't attempt to 'solve' the Litvinenko murder. Instead he re-creates Livinenko's life and, more importantly, his consciousness. And he tells us how terrifying it is to be an intelligent, critical individual in contemporary Russia. The real subject of the film is Nekrasov's's admiration for Litvinenko, who was a remarkable and courageous man. His wife, too, appears in the film, and she is also remarkable. This is a wholly unexpected film - an intimate portrait of a man who was murdered in the most bizarre public circumstances at the end of 2006.

Première diffusion : 22 janvier 2007