Stacey Dooley returns with a moving and insightful documentary exploring the issue of child soldiers in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where an estimated 5.4 million people have died in the civil war.
An estimated 30,000 children have been used as soldiers during the 14-year conflict in the DRC and no one knows how many thousands are still in the forests, enslaved by armed militias. Stacey meets kids who have been soldiers. She goes to a rescue centre where boys and girls arrive daily, rescued from guerrilla militia units as well as the Congolese National Army. She befriends one boy, 16-year-old Patrick, who was kidnapped when he was just 12. He tells her how he was forced to kill people and was even made to drink their blood to give him magic powers.
Stacey meets other boy soldiers and hears their terrifying experiences first hand. Accompanying a local charity, she travels to a frontline Congolese National Army camp where she helps rescues two teenage boy soldiers. On their way to the rescue centre, they reveal to her that they've been living as soldiers, deep in the forest, since they were nine and ten years old.
Stacey takes one boy home to be reunited with his family he hasn't seen for more than three years. He was taken away by the militias, forced to fight and kill and now neither Stacey nor the boy know how his family and the villagers will react to his return.
Stacey witnesses for herself the terrifying complexities of war where young kids have been manipulated to commit atrocities, but who still have to return to living a normal life again.
BBC3. 7th October 2010. 60 minutes
Sunday, 31 October 2010
Henry VIII: Patron or Plunderer?
Episode 1
King Henry VIII had a fascinating and enlightening relationship with art. He came to the throne as the renaissance swept across Europe, yet England's new King never lost sight of the medieval chivalry of his forefathers.
In the first of a two-part documentary, architectural historian Jonathan Foyle looks at the palaces, tapestries, music and paintings created in the King's name and questions whether the art he commissioned compensates for the religious treasures he would come to destroy.
Episode 2
In the 1530s, King Henry VIII was at a crossroads. In his desperation for a new wife and an heir, he had broken with Rome, divorced Catherine of Aragon and married Anne Boleyn. Isolated and vulnerable, he needed a powerful new image as head of church and state.
In the second of a two-part documentary, architectural historian Jonathan Foyle looks for clues in the king's art to glimpse what was going on inside Henry's head as he faced his darkest days.
BBC4. 7-14 October 2010. 2 x 60 minutes
King Henry VIII had a fascinating and enlightening relationship with art. He came to the throne as the renaissance swept across Europe, yet England's new King never lost sight of the medieval chivalry of his forefathers.
In the first of a two-part documentary, architectural historian Jonathan Foyle looks at the palaces, tapestries, music and paintings created in the King's name and questions whether the art he commissioned compensates for the religious treasures he would come to destroy.
Episode 2
In the 1530s, King Henry VIII was at a crossroads. In his desperation for a new wife and an heir, he had broken with Rome, divorced Catherine of Aragon and married Anne Boleyn. Isolated and vulnerable, he needed a powerful new image as head of church and state.
In the second of a two-part documentary, architectural historian Jonathan Foyle looks for clues in the king's art to glimpse what was going on inside Henry's head as he faced his darkest days.
BBC4. 7-14 October 2010. 2 x 60 minutes
The Genius of British Art (Episodes 3-4)
Flesh
Writer Howard Jacobson celebrates the way British artists depict sex and desire, and argues that the most compelling expression is to be found where we might least expect it: in the art of the Victorians.
We like to caricature the Victorians as hypocrites for whom the body is nothing but an embarrassment. In fact, thanks to artists like William Etty, who introduced the nude into British art in the 1820s, the Victorian era became a golden age for painting a wild and desperate sexuality.
What distinguishes this art from what was happening in, for example, France, is its moral consciousness. These are not paintings of unthinking hedonism. They reflect an awareness of the moral and psychological consequences of sex, which is what makes them all the more erotic. 'This for me is the British genius,' says Howard. 'We don't just do the fires of love today. We think about the way we'll feel tomorrow.'
Howard first discovered that British art of the 19th century was far more adventurous than it's given credit for when he visited his local gallery in Manchester as a schoolboy. Even today it's in the great provincial art galleries in which some of our most provocative sexual art can be found, thanks to those Victorian men of trade and industry, like soap billionaire William Lever, whom we often deride as prudish and philistine.
William Etty is York's most distinguished artistic son and yet Howard finds that not a single one of his nudes is on show here. We may laugh at the Victorians for what we think of as their prudery and repression but it seems we are hedged in by more moral prohibitions than they were.
Visions of England
At a time when Britain's contemporary art world has been dominated by the 'Sensation' generation of Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin, it's easy to dismiss English landscape art as nothing more than tea towel culture. That would be a big mistake, argues Sir Roy Strong.
Far from being a succession of chocolate box cliches, the genius of English landscape art is that it affords a sometimes shocking and subversive insight into the country's deepest fears.
What we see at first glance can be deceptive. Take that great national icon: Constable's The Haywain. On the surface it's an image of an idyllic pastoral scene but in its time it was revolutionary. Visitors to the Royal Academy in 1821 were horrified that Constable should exhibit a piece of local landscape on a scale usually reserved for subjects from the Bible or national history.
It was painted during a period when England was engaged in bloody war against France, there was turbulence in the countryside and industrial revolution in the cities.
All the most significant developments in English landscape art have happened at times of great national crisis - the Napoleonic Wars, the First and Second World Wars - when Britain was cut off from the continent and our artists were compelled to look inwards.
Sir Roy argues that, from Constable to Hockney, landscape artists have reflected visions of England on the cusp of change. It is nothing less than this country's greatest contribution to western art.
Channel 4. 17-24 October 2010. 2 x 60 minutes
Writer Howard Jacobson celebrates the way British artists depict sex and desire, and argues that the most compelling expression is to be found where we might least expect it: in the art of the Victorians.
We like to caricature the Victorians as hypocrites for whom the body is nothing but an embarrassment. In fact, thanks to artists like William Etty, who introduced the nude into British art in the 1820s, the Victorian era became a golden age for painting a wild and desperate sexuality.
What distinguishes this art from what was happening in, for example, France, is its moral consciousness. These are not paintings of unthinking hedonism. They reflect an awareness of the moral and psychological consequences of sex, which is what makes them all the more erotic. 'This for me is the British genius,' says Howard. 'We don't just do the fires of love today. We think about the way we'll feel tomorrow.'
Howard first discovered that British art of the 19th century was far more adventurous than it's given credit for when he visited his local gallery in Manchester as a schoolboy. Even today it's in the great provincial art galleries in which some of our most provocative sexual art can be found, thanks to those Victorian men of trade and industry, like soap billionaire William Lever, whom we often deride as prudish and philistine.
William Etty is York's most distinguished artistic son and yet Howard finds that not a single one of his nudes is on show here. We may laugh at the Victorians for what we think of as their prudery and repression but it seems we are hedged in by more moral prohibitions than they were.
Visions of England
At a time when Britain's contemporary art world has been dominated by the 'Sensation' generation of Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin, it's easy to dismiss English landscape art as nothing more than tea towel culture. That would be a big mistake, argues Sir Roy Strong.
Far from being a succession of chocolate box cliches, the genius of English landscape art is that it affords a sometimes shocking and subversive insight into the country's deepest fears.
What we see at first glance can be deceptive. Take that great national icon: Constable's The Haywain. On the surface it's an image of an idyllic pastoral scene but in its time it was revolutionary. Visitors to the Royal Academy in 1821 were horrified that Constable should exhibit a piece of local landscape on a scale usually reserved for subjects from the Bible or national history.
It was painted during a period when England was engaged in bloody war against France, there was turbulence in the countryside and industrial revolution in the cities.
All the most significant developments in English landscape art have happened at times of great national crisis - the Napoleonic Wars, the First and Second World Wars - when Britain was cut off from the continent and our artists were compelled to look inwards.
Sir Roy argues that, from Constable to Hockney, landscape artists have reflected visions of England on the cusp of change. It is nothing less than this country's greatest contribution to western art.
Channel 4. 17-24 October 2010. 2 x 60 minutes
Saturday, 30 October 2010
The Genius of British Art (Episodes 1-2)
Power and Personality
Historian Dr David Starkey examines how royal portraiture from Henry VIII to Princess Diana has had an enduring influence on the iconic power of personality.
No other artist looked at Britain in the way that Hogarth did. There's no one in the art of Europe like him. Hogarth was born poor in London, to whose teeming streets he turned for inspiration throughout his life. Hogarth's London, by far the biggest city in Europe, was not only a great subject for the artist; it was the crucible in which British identity was forged.
Gus has a personal fascination with this story because in 1748, his ancestor, William Ansa, arrived in London from Africa. William had left the Gold Coast, where his father was a wealthy trader, for England to seek his fortune. But the ship's captain had tricked him into slavery and he had spent four years working on a sugar plantation in Barbados.
His case became a cause celebre. The good people of London petitioned for William's freedom and by the time he eventually got here, he was already famous. Gus has always wondered what William might have seen and felt in London. He finds the answers in the life and work of Hogarth.
Uniquely among artists at the time, there are black people everywhere in Hogarth. For Gus, it's an acknowledgement that the lives of people like William Ansa are part of British history too.
Hogarth's inclusive vision of British identity seemed horrifyingly vulgar to the ruling classes of his day. On the whole, the artistic elite shunned the rowdy life of the streets. They wanted a more elegant, chaste vision of British identity. Hogarth wanted art that depicted Britain in all its ugly, rude reality.
Channel 4. 3-10 October 2010. 2 x 60 minutes
Historian Dr David Starkey examines how royal portraiture from Henry VIII to Princess Diana has had an enduring influence on the iconic power of personality.
Henry was enamoured with the imperial power reflected by the art of Rome. His break with the Catholic Church prompted him to embrace the supreme artist of the Reformation, Hans Holbein, and form a partnership whose influence resonates to this day.
Starkey shows how first Henry and Holbein, and then Charles I and his court painter, Anthony van Dyck, set an enduring template for the depiction of power - a template that has been brilliantly adapted in our time by the renegade royal, Princess Diana. Thanks to her own 'Holbein', the photographer Mario Testino, Diana stripped away the pomp of monarchy to promote her own personality in the same way Henry VIII had pioneered 500 years earlier.
Far from being the also-rans in today's age of celebrity, the royals can truly be said to have invented it.
Art for the People
Dr Gus Casely-Hayford shows how our sense of identity was changed forever by the most distinctively British artist this country has ever produced: William Hogarth.
No other artist looked at Britain in the way that Hogarth did. There's no one in the art of Europe like him. Hogarth was born poor in London, to whose teeming streets he turned for inspiration throughout his life. Hogarth's London, by far the biggest city in Europe, was not only a great subject for the artist; it was the crucible in which British identity was forged.
Gus has a personal fascination with this story because in 1748, his ancestor, William Ansa, arrived in London from Africa. William had left the Gold Coast, where his father was a wealthy trader, for England to seek his fortune. But the ship's captain had tricked him into slavery and he had spent four years working on a sugar plantation in Barbados.
His case became a cause celebre. The good people of London petitioned for William's freedom and by the time he eventually got here, he was already famous. Gus has always wondered what William might have seen and felt in London. He finds the answers in the life and work of Hogarth.
Uniquely among artists at the time, there are black people everywhere in Hogarth. For Gus, it's an acknowledgement that the lives of people like William Ansa are part of British history too.
Hogarth's inclusive vision of British identity seemed horrifyingly vulgar to the ruling classes of his day. On the whole, the artistic elite shunned the rowdy life of the streets. They wanted a more elegant, chaste vision of British identity. Hogarth wanted art that depicted Britain in all its ugly, rude reality.
Channel 4. 3-10 October 2010. 2 x 60 minutes
Michael Woods' Story of England (Episodes 5-6)
Henry VIII to The Industrial Revolution
The tale reaches the dramatic events of Henry VIII's Reformation and the battles of the English Civil War. We track Kibworth's 17th century dissenters, travel on the Grand Union Canal and meet an 18th century feminist writer from Kibworth who was a pioneer of children's books.
The story of a young highwayman transported to Australia comes alive as his living descendents come back to the village to uncover their roots. Lastly, the Industrial Revolution comes to the village with framework knitting factories, changing the village and its people forever.
Victoria to the Present Day
In this final episode, helped by today's villagers Michael uncovers the secret history of a Victorian village more colourful than even Dickens could have imagined. Recreating their penny concerts of the 1880s, visiting World War I battlefields with the school and recalling the Home Guard, local land girls and the bombing of the village in 1940, the series finally moves into the brave new world of 'homes for heroes' and the villagers come together to leave a reminder of their world for future generations.
BBC4. 20th-27th October 2010. 2 x 60 minutes
The tale reaches the dramatic events of Henry VIII's Reformation and the battles of the English Civil War. We track Kibworth's 17th century dissenters, travel on the Grand Union Canal and meet an 18th century feminist writer from Kibworth who was a pioneer of children's books.
The story of a young highwayman transported to Australia comes alive as his living descendents come back to the village to uncover their roots. Lastly, the Industrial Revolution comes to the village with framework knitting factories, changing the village and its people forever.
Victoria to the Present Day
In this final episode, helped by today's villagers Michael uncovers the secret history of a Victorian village more colourful than even Dickens could have imagined. Recreating their penny concerts of the 1880s, visiting World War I battlefields with the school and recalling the Home Guard, local land girls and the bombing of the village in 1940, the series finally moves into the brave new world of 'homes for heroes' and the villagers come together to leave a reminder of their world for future generations.
BBC4. 20th-27th October 2010. 2 x 60 minutes
Wednesday, 27 October 2010
Michael Woods' Story of England (Episodes 3-4)
The Great Famine and The Black Death
Wood's fascinating tale reaches the catastrophic 14th century. Kibworth goes through the worst famine in European history, and then, as revealed in the astonishing village archive in Merton College Oxford, two thirds of the people die in the Black Death.
Helped by today's villagers - field walking and reading the historical texts - and by the local schoolchildren digging archaeological test pits, Wood follows stories of individual lives through these times, out of which the English idea of community and the English character begin to emerge.
The Peasants Revolt to The Tudors
Wood's gripping tale moves on to dramatic battles of conscience in the time of the Hundred Years' War. Amazing finds in the school archive help trace peasant education back to the 14th century and we see how the people themselves set up the first school for their children.
Some villagers join in a rebellion against King Henry V, while others rise to become middle class merchants in the textile town of Coventry. On the horizon is the Protestant Reformation, but the rise of capitalism and individualism sow the seeds of England's future greatness.
BBC4 7-13 October 2010. 2 x 60 minutes
Wood's fascinating tale reaches the catastrophic 14th century. Kibworth goes through the worst famine in European history, and then, as revealed in the astonishing village archive in Merton College Oxford, two thirds of the people die in the Black Death.
Helped by today's villagers - field walking and reading the historical texts - and by the local schoolchildren digging archaeological test pits, Wood follows stories of individual lives through these times, out of which the English idea of community and the English character begin to emerge.
The Peasants Revolt to The Tudors
Wood's gripping tale moves on to dramatic battles of conscience in the time of the Hundred Years' War. Amazing finds in the school archive help trace peasant education back to the 14th century and we see how the people themselves set up the first school for their children.
Some villagers join in a rebellion against King Henry V, while others rise to become middle class merchants in the textile town of Coventry. On the horizon is the Protestant Reformation, but the rise of capitalism and individualism sow the seeds of England's future greatness.
BBC4 7-13 October 2010. 2 x 60 minutes
Michael Woods' Story of England (Episodes 1-2)
Romans to Normans
Groundbreaking series in which Michael Wood tells the story of one place throughout the whole of English history. The village is Kibworth in Leicestershire in the heart of England - a place that lived through the Black Death, the Civil War and the Industrial Revolution and was even bombed in World War Two.
With the help of the local people and using archaeology, landscape, language and DNA, Michael uncovers the lost history of the first thousand years of the village, featuring a Roman villa, Anglo-Saxons and Vikings and graphic evidence of life on the eve of the Norman Conquest.
Domesday to Magna Carta
Wood's unique portrait moves on to 1066 when the Normans build a castle in Kibworth. He reveals how occupation affected the villagers from the gallows to the alehouse, and shows the medieval open fields in action in the only place where they still survive today.
With the help of the residents, he charts events in the village leading to the people's involvement in the Civil War of Simon de Montfort. Intertwining the local and national narratives, this is a moving and informative picture of one local community through time.
BBC4. 22-29 September 2010. 2 x 60 minutes
Groundbreaking series in which Michael Wood tells the story of one place throughout the whole of English history. The village is Kibworth in Leicestershire in the heart of England - a place that lived through the Black Death, the Civil War and the Industrial Revolution and was even bombed in World War Two.
With the help of the local people and using archaeology, landscape, language and DNA, Michael uncovers the lost history of the first thousand years of the village, featuring a Roman villa, Anglo-Saxons and Vikings and graphic evidence of life on the eve of the Norman Conquest.
Domesday to Magna Carta
Wood's unique portrait moves on to 1066 when the Normans build a castle in Kibworth. He reveals how occupation affected the villagers from the gallows to the alehouse, and shows the medieval open fields in action in the only place where they still survive today.
With the help of the residents, he charts events in the village leading to the people's involvement in the Civil War of Simon de Montfort. Intertwining the local and national narratives, this is a moving and informative picture of one local community through time.
BBC4. 22-29 September 2010. 2 x 60 minutes
Tuesday, 26 October 2010
Dragon's Eye
Felicity Evans takes a fresh look at politics through the Dragon's Eye. Whether it's a local council, the National Assembly, Westminster or Europe, the programme probes, scrutinises and sheds light on the democratic institutions.
BBC Parliament. 10-24 October 2010. 3 x 30 minutes
BBC Parliament. 10-24 October 2010. 3 x 30 minutes
A History of Horror with Mark Gatiss
Three-part series in which actor and writer Mark Gatiss (The League of Gentlemen, Doctor Who, Sherlock) celebrates the greatest achievements of horror cinema.
A lifelong fan of the genre, Mark begins by exploring the golden age of Hollywood horror. From the late 1920s until the 1940s, a succession of classic pictures and unforgettable actors defined the horror genre - including The Phantom of the Opera starring Lon Chaney, Dracula with Bela Lugosi, and Frankenstein starring Boris Karloff.
Mark explains just how daring and pioneering these films were, and why they still send a chill down the spine today. He also traces how horror pictures evolved during this period, becoming camp and subversive (The Old Dark House and Bride of Frankenstein, both directed by Englishman James Whale), dark and perverse (films like Freaks, which used disabled performers), before a final flourish with the psychological horror of RKO Pictures' films (Cat People, I Walked with a Zombie), which still influence directors today. However, by the early 1950s the monsters were facing their biggest threat - the rise of science fiction films in the post-war atomic era.
Along the way, Mark steps into some of the great sets from these classic films, hears first-hand accounts from Hollywood horror veterans, discovers Lon Chaney's head in a box and finds out why Bela Lugosi met his match in Golders Green.
---
Mark uncovers stories behind the films of his favourite period - the 1950s and 60s - which fired his lifelong enthusiasm for horror. These mainly British pictures were dominated by the legendary Hammer Films, who rewrote the horror rulebook with a revolutionary infusion of sex and full-colour gore - all shot in the English Home Counties.
Mark meets key Hammer figures to find out why their Frankenstein and Dracula films conquered the world, making international stars of Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. He looks at the new boom of horror that followed in Hammer's wake, including the ravishing Italian movie Black Sunday, and talks to the influential American producer Roger Corman about his disturbing and dreamlike Edgar Allan Poe films. He also explores the intriguing cycle of British 'folk horror' films, such as The Wicker Man and Mark's personal favourite, Blood on Satan's Claw.
Mark also speaks to leading horror ladies Barbara Steele and Barbara Shelley about their most famous roles, makes a pilgrimage to Whitstable, home of Peter Cushing, and finds out why Dracula's bedroom activities got the British censor steamed up.
---
Mark explores the explosion of American films of the late 1960s and 70s which dragged horror kicking and screaming into the present day. With their contemporary settings and uncompromising content, films like Night of the Living Dead and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre remain controversial. But Mark argues that these films - often regarded as only being for hardcore fans with strong stomachs - have much to offer. Made by pioneering independent filmmakers, they reflected the social upheavals of American society and brought fresh energy and imagination to the genre.
Mark gets the inside story from a roster of leading horror directors, including George A Romero, whose Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead turned zombies into A-list monsters; Tobe Hooper, director of the notorious Texas Chain Saw Massacre; and John Carpenter, whose smash hit Halloween triggered the slasher movie boom.
Mark also celebrates the other great horror trend of the era - a string of satanically-themed Hollywood blockbusters, including Rosemary's Baby, The Exorcist and The Omen. Along the way Mark visits the Bates Motel, gets mobbed by zombies and finds out what happened to Omen star David Warner's decapitated head.
BBC4 12-26 October 2010 3 x 60 minutes
A lifelong fan of the genre, Mark begins by exploring the golden age of Hollywood horror. From the late 1920s until the 1940s, a succession of classic pictures and unforgettable actors defined the horror genre - including The Phantom of the Opera starring Lon Chaney, Dracula with Bela Lugosi, and Frankenstein starring Boris Karloff.
Mark explains just how daring and pioneering these films were, and why they still send a chill down the spine today. He also traces how horror pictures evolved during this period, becoming camp and subversive (The Old Dark House and Bride of Frankenstein, both directed by Englishman James Whale), dark and perverse (films like Freaks, which used disabled performers), before a final flourish with the psychological horror of RKO Pictures' films (Cat People, I Walked with a Zombie), which still influence directors today. However, by the early 1950s the monsters were facing their biggest threat - the rise of science fiction films in the post-war atomic era.
Along the way, Mark steps into some of the great sets from these classic films, hears first-hand accounts from Hollywood horror veterans, discovers Lon Chaney's head in a box and finds out why Bela Lugosi met his match in Golders Green.
---
Mark uncovers stories behind the films of his favourite period - the 1950s and 60s - which fired his lifelong enthusiasm for horror. These mainly British pictures were dominated by the legendary Hammer Films, who rewrote the horror rulebook with a revolutionary infusion of sex and full-colour gore - all shot in the English Home Counties.
Mark meets key Hammer figures to find out why their Frankenstein and Dracula films conquered the world, making international stars of Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. He looks at the new boom of horror that followed in Hammer's wake, including the ravishing Italian movie Black Sunday, and talks to the influential American producer Roger Corman about his disturbing and dreamlike Edgar Allan Poe films. He also explores the intriguing cycle of British 'folk horror' films, such as The Wicker Man and Mark's personal favourite, Blood on Satan's Claw.
Mark also speaks to leading horror ladies Barbara Steele and Barbara Shelley about their most famous roles, makes a pilgrimage to Whitstable, home of Peter Cushing, and finds out why Dracula's bedroom activities got the British censor steamed up.
---
Mark explores the explosion of American films of the late 1960s and 70s which dragged horror kicking and screaming into the present day. With their contemporary settings and uncompromising content, films like Night of the Living Dead and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre remain controversial. But Mark argues that these films - often regarded as only being for hardcore fans with strong stomachs - have much to offer. Made by pioneering independent filmmakers, they reflected the social upheavals of American society and brought fresh energy and imagination to the genre.
Mark gets the inside story from a roster of leading horror directors, including George A Romero, whose Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead turned zombies into A-list monsters; Tobe Hooper, director of the notorious Texas Chain Saw Massacre; and John Carpenter, whose smash hit Halloween triggered the slasher movie boom.
Mark also celebrates the other great horror trend of the era - a string of satanically-themed Hollywood blockbusters, including Rosemary's Baby, The Exorcist and The Omen. Along the way Mark visits the Bates Motel, gets mobbed by zombies and finds out what happened to Omen star David Warner's decapitated head.
BBC4 12-26 October 2010 3 x 60 minutes
Sunday, 24 October 2010
Murder in Mexico: Presumed Guilty
Roberto Hernandez and Geoffrey Smith's chilling film examines the reality behind Mexico's judicial system. The country, currently embroiled in what amounts to a war with the drugs cartels, has a conviction rate of 90% for all defendants no matter what they plead since its legal system has no presumption of innocence.
One of them is Antonio Zuniga, sent to prison for 20 years for murder despite pleading innocent. The only witness didn't mention his name until his third statement with which, he admits, he was `helped' by the police; others place him elsewhere at the time of the shooting and there is no forensic evidence between him and the murder weapon.
Hernandez, a law student as well as a filmmaker, joins with fellow law student Layda Negrete to unpick the case and with Antonio granted a rare re-trial, follow the unfolding events which may or may not see Antonio freed.
More4 12th October 2010 120 minutes
One of them is Antonio Zuniga, sent to prison for 20 years for murder despite pleading innocent. The only witness didn't mention his name until his third statement with which, he admits, he was `helped' by the police; others place him elsewhere at the time of the shooting and there is no forensic evidence between him and the murder weapon.
Hernandez, a law student as well as a filmmaker, joins with fellow law student Layda Negrete to unpick the case and with Antonio granted a rare re-trial, follow the unfolding events which may or may not see Antonio freed.
More4 12th October 2010 120 minutes
Tormented Lives
In a revealing and moving documentary, disability rights campaigner and confidante of the late Princess Diana, Rosa Monckton, exposes the reality of life for people with learning disabilities facing hate crime. With daily headline-grabbing accounts of attacks on disabled people that have even led to murder and suicide, Rosa admits she is deeply concerned about the future that awaits her own teenage daughter, Domenica, who has Down's syndrome. What will life be like for her once Rosa and her husband Dominic Lawson are no longer around to protect her? In this, Rosa's second documentary, we see people literally driven from their homes, individuals facing abuse and daily torment just because they have a disability. Rosa meets families under siege in their own homes, and shows how the authorities often fail to respond effectively to the abuse they face. And she tries to help one tormented man, Christopher, in his battle to live independently as a respected and useful member of society.
BBC1 19th October 2010 50 minutes
BBC1 19th October 2010 50 minutes
Saturday, 23 October 2010
Young Voters Question Time Live
On the evening of the chancellor's spending review, an audience of young voters puts its questions and comments to a panel chaired by Richard Bacon, providing an immediate sample of opinions and reactions of young people to the most important government announcement on public spending in 40 years.
The government has pledged to cut public spending and October 20th 2010 is the day the chancellor of the exchequer details which areas of government expenditure will be affected. With millions of young people expected to feel the impact of expenditure cuts, the programme will provide an instant and exclusive response to the measures announced earlier in the day.
It will transmit live from the Riverside Studios, Hammersmith, west London and feature five panellists and an audience of more than 150 young people.
BBC3 20th October 2010 60 minutes
The government has pledged to cut public spending and October 20th 2010 is the day the chancellor of the exchequer details which areas of government expenditure will be affected. With millions of young people expected to feel the impact of expenditure cuts, the programme will provide an instant and exclusive response to the measures announced earlier in the day.
It will transmit live from the Riverside Studios, Hammersmith, west London and feature five panellists and an audience of more than 150 young people.
BBC3 20th October 2010 60 minutes
Horizon: Is Seeing Believing
Horizon explores the strange and wonderful world of illusions - and reveals the tricks they play on our senses and why they fool us.
We show how easy it is to trick your sense of taste by changing the colours of food and drink, explain how what you see can change what you hear, and see just how unreliable our sense of colour can be.
But all this trickery has a serious purpose. It's helping scientists to create a new understanding of how our senses work - not as individual senses, but connected together.
It holds the intriguing possibility that one sense could be mapped into another. This is what happened to Daniel Kish, who lost his sight as a child. He is now able to create a vision of the world by clicking his tongue which allows him to echolocate like a bat.
And in a series of MRI scans, scientists are now looking to find out if Daniel's brain may have actually rewired itself enabling him to use sound to create a visual image of the world.
BBC2 18th October 2010. 60 minutes
We show how easy it is to trick your sense of taste by changing the colours of food and drink, explain how what you see can change what you hear, and see just how unreliable our sense of colour can be.
But all this trickery has a serious purpose. It's helping scientists to create a new understanding of how our senses work - not as individual senses, but connected together.
It holds the intriguing possibility that one sense could be mapped into another. This is what happened to Daniel Kish, who lost his sight as a child. He is now able to create a vision of the world by clicking his tongue which allows him to echolocate like a bat.
And in a series of MRI scans, scientists are now looking to find out if Daniel's brain may have actually rewired itself enabling him to use sound to create a visual image of the world.
BBC2 18th October 2010. 60 minutes
All Our Working Lives: Coal
The story of the British coal mining industry, told with rare archive and interviews with the people who worked in it. The programme features the original 1980s documentary on the industry, followed by a new film which brings the story of our coal mines right up to date.
BBC4. 18th October 2010. 90 minutes
BBC4. 18th October 2010. 90 minutes
Sunday, 17 October 2010
All Our Working Lives: Shipbuilding
The story of the British shipbuilding industry, told with rare archive and interviews with the people who worked in it. The programme features the original 1980s documentary on the industry, followed by a new film which brings the story of our shipyards right up to date.
BBC4. 10th October 2010. 90 minutes
BBC4. 10th October 2010. 90 minutes
Monday, 11 October 2010
War Walks: The Battle of Naseby
In 1645, Charles I lost his struggle against parliament during the decisive crash of the English Civil War. Professor Richard Holmes follows the campaign that led to the Battle of Naseby, starting at the king's headquarters in Oxford. On the battlefield itself he is able to touch the past, as metal detectors unearth musket balls buried for more than 350 years. Members of the Sealed Knot Civil War Reconstruction Society demonstrate the lethal power of the musket and the pike.
BBC4 6th October 2010 30 minutes
BBC4 6th October 2010 30 minutes
Sunday, 10 October 2010
Kids in Care
Since the case of Baby P, there has been a 40% increase in the number of children taken into care by the state. There are now 70,000 children being 'looked after' in the system. What happens to them? Can the system offer them a better life?
Panorama follows children in the care of Coventry Social Services for six months to find out if the state can be a real parent - even though children in care are more at risk of failing school and committing crime than any other group.
Narrated by Samantha Morton, who herself grew up in care.
BBC1 5th October 2010 60 minutes
Panorama follows children in the care of Coventry Social Services for six months to find out if the state can be a real parent - even though children in care are more at risk of failing school and committing crime than any other group.
Narrated by Samantha Morton, who herself grew up in care.
BBC1 5th October 2010 60 minutes
Wednesday, 6 October 2010
Horizon: Death of the Oceans
Sir David Attenborough reveals the findings of one of the most ambitious scientific studies of our time - an investigation into what is happening to our oceans. He looks at whether it is too late to save their remarkable biodiversity.
Horizon travels from the cold waters of the North Atlantic to the tropical waters of the Great Barrier Reef to meet the scientists who are transforming our understanding of this unique habitat. Attenborough explores some of the ways in which we are affecting marine life - from over-fishing to the acidification of sea water.
The film also uncovers the disturbing story of how shipping noise is deafening whales and dolphins, affecting their survival in the future.
BBC2 4th October 2010 60 minutes
Horizon travels from the cold waters of the North Atlantic to the tropical waters of the Great Barrier Reef to meet the scientists who are transforming our understanding of this unique habitat. Attenborough explores some of the ways in which we are affecting marine life - from over-fishing to the acidification of sea water.
The film also uncovers the disturbing story of how shipping noise is deafening whales and dolphins, affecting their survival in the future.
BBC2 4th October 2010 60 minutes
Sunday, 3 October 2010
Classroom Experiment
In this two-part series, theory and practice meet head on as education expert Professor Dylan Wiliam sets up an experimental school classroom. For one term, he takes over a Year 8 class at a secondary comprehensive to test simple ideas that he believes could improve the quality of our children's education.
His first radical technique is to ban hands up when the teacher asks a question and instead choose students at random. The idea is to get everyone in the class to engage, not just the handful of students who usually participate. The change though is met with resistance as both teachers and students have to break habits of a lifetime.
The challenge only increases when he asks the school to organise ten minutes of daily exercise for the pupils. It becomes apparent that trying to get 24 teenagers to turn up early for a burst of PE is going to be no mean feat.
Part 2
Some of the higher ability students are not responding well to the new rule of No Hands Up in class, and Wiliam is worried they are at risk of being left behind.
There is a classroom revolt when the teachers remove grades from work. The idea is to make the students actually read the comments on their work in order to help them improve, but they are left confused and angry after becoming so used to the traditional grading system.
By the end of term, however, even Wiliam is surprised by the impact the experiment has had on the students' academic achievement.
BBC 27-28 September 2010. 2 x 60 minutes
His first radical technique is to ban hands up when the teacher asks a question and instead choose students at random. The idea is to get everyone in the class to engage, not just the handful of students who usually participate. The change though is met with resistance as both teachers and students have to break habits of a lifetime.
The challenge only increases when he asks the school to organise ten minutes of daily exercise for the pupils. It becomes apparent that trying to get 24 teenagers to turn up early for a burst of PE is going to be no mean feat.
Part 2
Some of the higher ability students are not responding well to the new rule of No Hands Up in class, and Wiliam is worried they are at risk of being left behind.
There is a classroom revolt when the teachers remove grades from work. The idea is to make the students actually read the comments on their work in order to help them improve, but they are left confused and angry after becoming so used to the traditional grading system.
By the end of term, however, even Wiliam is surprised by the impact the experiment has had on the students' academic achievement.
BBC 27-28 September 2010. 2 x 60 minutes