Dorottya is a young Hungarian actress with a burning desire: to make it on the English stage. Legendary actor, Sir Michael Gifford suffers from an incurable disease, and has one desire: be left alone. When Dorottya becomes his carer they both hope their wish will be fulfilled.
In 1993, 16-year-old Brandon Lee enrolled at Bearsden Academy, a secondary school in a well-to-do suburb of Glasgow, Scotland. What followed over the next two years would become the stuff of legend.
Directed by Mark Cousins, My Name is Alfred Hitchcock re-examines the vast filmography and legacy of one of the 20th century’s greatest filmmakers, Alfred Hitchcock, through a new lens: through the auteur’s own voice.
Terror lurks in the old orphanage, beneath a disused London hospital - a Seventeeth Century malevolence, the Plague Doctor, has returned to complete his evil masterpiece
Bogancloch is where Jake Williams lives, nestled in a vast highland forest of Scotland. The film portrays his life throughout the seasons, with other people occasionally crossing into his otherwise solitary life. At the heart a song, an argument between life and death, each stating their case to rule over the world. The film is without exposition, it aims at something less recognisable, a different existence of reality observed in discrete moments. A sequel to Two Years at Sea (2011), charting a subtly changing life in a radically changing world.
The final chapter of his exceptional 15-part documentary exploring the history of cinema, The Story of Film: An Odyssey. Mark Cousins builds a bridge between the “before” of the health crisis, and the “after”.
Using only archive film and a new musical score by the band Mogwai, Mark Cousins presents an impressionistic kaleidoscope of our nuclear times – protest marches, Cold War sabre-rattling, Chernobyl and Fukishima – but also the sublime beauty of the atomic world, and how x-rays and MRI scans have improved human lives. The nuclear age has been a nightmare, but dreamlike too.
Belfast, it's a city that is changing, changing because the people are leaving? But one came back, a 10,000 year old woman who claims that she is the city itself.
Jack Docherty brings together a jam-packed cast of comedians, actors and famous faces for a riotous celebration of Scotland's most valuable export – its sense of humour. Scotland is a small nation with a big funny bone. It's known the world over for self-deprecation, quick-witted patter and deadpan asides. But what makes it so funny? To find out the answer, this programme delves deep into the BBC Scotland archives to find a century’s worth of classic characters, catchphrases and comedy clips.
A provocative and poetic exploration of how the British people have seen their own land through more than a century of cinema. A hallucinated journey of immense beauty and brutality. A kaleidoscopic essay on how magic and madness have linked human beings to nature since the beginning of time.
The true story of a trans man and his remarkable struggle across genders and borders. Based on the acclaimed National Theatre of Scotland play, with Adam himself in the lead role.
Siri wakes to find herself trapped inside a brutalist candy-coloured dreamhouse. Despite the cutesy decor, the place is far from benign, and she and her inmates are encouraged to compete for survival while being watched over by surveillance cameras, 24/7. Presiding over the group is an authoritarian diva who speaks entirely with the voice of Kenneth Clark from the 1960s BBC series Civilisation. As she forces the women to go head-to-head in a series of demeaning tasks, Siri, with the help of fellow inmate Alexa, starts subverting the rules and soon reveals the sinister truth that underpins their world.
A centenary celebration of the life and legacy of Rikki Fulton, one of Scotland’s most beloved comic actors. Ashley Jensen narrates an affectionate tribute to one of Scotland’s funniest comedians, Rikki Fulton. It’s 100 years since Rikki first made an entrance on to the world stage and 20 years since he bowed out. For decades, he’s been making the nation laugh with his rubber face, razor sharp wit and laconic demeanour. His influence is still felt in new generations of comics, and clips of his sketches still make us laugh to this day.
Carne Ross was a government highflyer. A career diplomat who believed Western Democracy could save us all. But working inside the system he came to see its failures, deceits and ulterior motives. He felt at first hand the corruption of power. After the Iraq war Carne became disillusioned, quit his job and started searching for answers.
Once again, David Graham Scott examines how some addicts use the plant medicine iboga to detox rapidly—and how, sometimes, the conditions in which they detox put them at risk.
A working-class photographer captures the impact of Thatcherism on the north of England but is unable to escape the poverty and inequality she exposed.
‘Do No Harm’ is an abiding principal of psychiatry. It is abandoned time after time in this shocking, utterly compelling exploration of the profession’s collusion with state sponsored torture over the past 70 years. Director Stephen Bennett untangles a web of secrecy, denial and complicity to explore the legacy of Scottish-born psychiatrist Dr Ewen Cameron and the experiments that helped devise systems of torture employed across the globe, from Northern Ireland to Guantanamo Bay. Experts, victims and families provide chapter and verse on fundamental violations of human rights.
A committed vegan, David, follows 73-year-old colonial relic Guy Wallace to South Africa as he fulfills a lifelong ambition to bag a Cape buffalo. It’s Guy’s last chance to relive his glory days and finally lay down his guns. The oddball relationship between David and Guy is the central drive of the film as the director explores the ethics of big game hunting and questions his own animal rights stance when lured in by the thrill of the hunt. THE END OF THE GAME is a compelling character study of a bizarre eccentric undertaking his last big game hunt in Africa.
20th anniversary documentary on “Orphans” including interviews with cast and crew.
The meaning of life, death and everything else? The possible answers are plenty in Max Kestner's adventurous film, which starts when the death of a giraffe at the Copenhagen Zoo goes viral from Hollywood to Chechnya.
