• Air date: 24 Jan '23 21 episodes
      Showcasing the best in international documentaries, Storyville has developed an enviable reputation since its inception more than a decade ago. Screening over 340 films, from some 70 different countries, the strand has garnered a staggering array of awards: five Oscars, 15 Griersons, three Peabodys and two International Emmys. In true, unique, Storyville style, the new series promises to deliver the strand's usual eclectic mix of compelling stories from across the globe.
  • List of Episodes (21)
    • 1. Three Minutes: A Lengthening

      24 Jan '23
      Three minutes of footage is all that remains of the Jewish community of Nasielsk, Poland, filmed in 1938 by photographer David Kurtz. This Storyville documentary unravels the tales hidden within the celluloid, including insights from the film-maker’s grandson and a boy who appears in the faded footage – one of the few survivors of the decimated village. Kurtz's footage was made available courtesy of the Steven Spielberg Film and Video Archive in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
    • 2. Casa Susanna

      31 Jan '23
      In the 1950s and 60s, deep in the American countryside at the foot of the Catskill mountains, there was a small wooden house with a barn behind it called Casa Susanna, a holiday home for one of the first clandestine networks of cross-dressers in the US. Back then, Diane and Kate used to enjoy weekend visits to the house with their wives and friends. Now in their 80s, Diane and Kate tell a forgotten chapter of some of the early days of trans identity.
    • 3. The Spy in Your Mobile

      14 Feb '23
      A Storyville documentary that investigates a powerful and terrifying spyware called Pegasus, sold to governments around the world by Israeli company NSO Group and used on journalists, activists and others, including both the wife and fiancée of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi.
    • 4. Inside Russia: Traitors and Heroes

      19 Feb '23
      Despite the huge risks, two Russian film-makers have been filming the impact of the invasion of Ukraine in their country. Many thousands have fled. Those that have stayed have had to make a choice – oppose the war, support it, or stay silent.
    • 5. Sex on Screen

      28 Feb '23
      A Storyville documentary that explores the process of creating sex scenes in Hollywood, the toll on those involved in filming them, and the impact such images have on women and girls in the real world. The film features candid interviews with actors and creators, including Jane Fonda, Rosanna Arquette, Joey Soloway, Angela Robinson, Karyn Kusama, Rose McGowan, Alexandra Billings, Emily Meade and David Simon.
    • 6. Nelly and Nadine: Ravensbrück, 1944

      25 Apr '23
      A Storyville documentary about two women who fall in love in the Ravensbrück concentration camp.
    • 7. Attica: America’s Bloodiest Prison Uprising

      02 May '23
      A Storyville documentary about the violent five-day standoff between inmates and law enforcement which gripped America in 1971.
    • 8. Blue Bag Life

      09 May '23
      Storyville documentary in which UK artist and film-maker Lisa Selby turns the camera on herself as she tries to understand her relationships with her late mother and her partner, both heroin addicts. The film won the audience award at the 2022 London International Film Festival.
    • 9. In the Name of the Father

      16 May '23
      A Storyville documentary that, with extraordinary access to one of Israel's most Orthodox Hasidic communities, explores the scandal that erupted when the rabbi who established and led the community died. Inheritance battles, violent reprisals, sexual abuse and underage marriages are revealed by those that experienced it.
    • 10. Inside Kabul

      23 May '23
      When the Taliban returned to power in 2021, the lives and destinies of two young Afghani women, Raha and Marwa, were changed forever. Inside Kabul is an animated film based on the voice notes that Raha and Marwa exchanged in the months that followed. Raha chose to stay in Kabul, where she was confronted with the violence of the regime, the sudden change in what ordinary people, especially women, were allowed to do and the crisis into which the country gradually sank. Marwa left with her
    • 11. 8 Bar: The Evolution of Grime

      22 Aug '23
      They called it young black kids’ punk rock - a genre that radio stations wouldn’t play and records that labels refused to sell. But grime would not be stopped. With machine-gun lyrics that shred the eardrums and syncopated electronics that pound the chest like a sledgehammer, grime was a product of social unrest, urban culture and disenfranchised youth colliding in early 2000s UK. It didn’t just rouse a grassroots audience, however. Today, grime is surging in popularity all over the globe
    • 12. iHuman

      29 Aug '23
      Artificial intelligence now permeates every aspect of our lives, but only a handful of people have any control over its influence on our world. With unique access to some of the most powerful pioneers of the AI revolution, iHuman asks whether we know the limits of what artificial intelligence is capable of and its true impact.
    • 13. Blue Box

      05 Sep '23
      Blue Box is a brave account of how the Jewish National Fund acquired land in Palestine before and after the creation of the State of Israel. Film-maker Michal Weits' great-grandfather Joseph was a key figure in the organisation. In her family, and across Israel, he is celebrated as the father of the country’s forests, taking ‘a land without a people for a people without a land', but when Michal finds his private diaries, she discovers a very different story. In conversations with her family,
    • 14. Benjamin, Joshua and The Crown Shyness

      12 Sep '23
      When high school ends and adulthood begins, Benjamin and Joshua Israel, two identical twins of Jewish origin, start feeling burdened. While friends and schoolmates are planning a new life, they don’t seem able to imagine their own future. Being in your twenties and having a natural charisma combined with a sassy attitude is not enough if you have an intellectual disability and the world makes it hard for you to fit in. Feeling left out, Benji and Josh confront the limits imposed by others,
    • 15. Winning Hearts and Minds

      19 Sep '23
      In the aftermath of the war in Afghanistan, western troops were part of a Nato force, working with the then-new Afghan authorities to help ‘win the hearts and minds’ of locals, with Danish and British troops deployed in the key southern province of Helmand. In this Storyville film, a former Danish soldier turned film-maker goes back to Musa Qala, the capital of Helmand, to investigate allegations that the Afghan police were abusing young boys and men when the Danish and British were in
    • 16. Tanja: Terrorist or Freedom Fighter?

      26 Sep '23
      What would make a middle-class Dutch woman want to join a revolutionary struggle thousands of miles from home? This Storyville film tells the story of Tanja Nijmeijer, the former teacher who became a member of the Colombian FARC rebel group, rising to become one of its most senior leaders and later a campaigner for peace.
    • 17. If the Streets Were on Fire

      03 Oct '23
      This is London from an exhilarating, rarely seen perspective. With knife violence rising, social activist Mac creates BikeStormz, a movement for kids across the city to express themselves beyond any threats of violence. Groups of young people glide through the capital on their bikes, doing wheelies, tricks and death-defying acrobatics, but as they come together and find ways to express themselves through biking - the kind of liberation that surfers and skateboarders eulogise - they are
    • 18. Made of Steel: Wheelchair Rugby’s Fiercest Rivalry

      10 Oct '23
      Back in November 2022, England played host to the Wheelchair Rugby League World Cup. The unflinching action and raw passion on display took many new fans by surprise, and as the tournament progressed, audience numbers - both in the stadiums and those watching on television - began to build in a moment of important visibility for the sport. This film tells the inside story of the world's two best wheelchair rugby league teams, England and France, with privileged access to each side's progress
    • 19. Keeping It Up: The Story of Viagra

      08 Dec '23
      Twenty-five years ago, Viagra kick-started the second sexual revolution and a controversy unlike any drug before it. From Wales to New York, this is the big story of the little blue pill.
    • 20. Pianoforte

      17 Dec '23
      Considered to be one of the most prestigious competitions in classical music, the International Chopin Piano Competition, held in Warsaw every five years since 1927, has been a career launchpad for such some of the world’s greatest virtuoso pianists. The competition itself is a real rollercoaster of a classical ride, with extremely tough qualifying rules, multiple stages, legendary jurors and a whole lot of pressure. Pianoforte takes us behind the scenes of this fascinating contest, meeting
    • 21. Songs of Earth

      25 Dec '23
      This epic nature documentary follows in the footsteps of the director’s 85-year-old father as he hikes during all four seasons through raw and magnificent meditative landscapes in the mighty Oldedalen valley in Nordfjord in western Norway.