A documentary telling the story of the youngest marathon runner ever. At the age of four, he is plucked from the poverty of an Indian slum by his coach. Extraordinary drama and tragedy ensue. What starts as a simple inspirational story - the hope of a small boy and his trainer who unite to pursue a dream in a ruthless world - goes on to reveal the darker side of humanity and the complexities of Indian society as it struggles to come to grips with the realities of the slums, crippling poverty, organised crime and state-sanctioned corruption. Over a period of five years a compelling human story emerges, full of moral dilemma, dramatic twists and ethical and legal debate.
Florida Justice Transitions is a trailer park that is home to sex offenders struggling to reintegrate into American society. This ground-breaking film investigates how these men and women got here, and portrays how the destructive cycle of sexual abuse - and the silence surrounding it - can sometimes be broken.
In Finland, the sauna is the equivalent of a confessional. It has become the one place where men can share their feelings with each other, expressing the joys and sorrows they have experienced in their lives. Steam of Life is a surprising and heart-breaking collection of stories from an astonishingly diverse group of men.
Carne Ross was a career diplomat who believed western democracy could save us all. But after the Iraq war he became disillusioned and resigned. This film traces Carne's worldwide quest to find a better way of doing things as he makes the epic journey from government insider to anarchist.
An entertaining and provocative documentary in which director David Graham Scott puts himself in the firing line as he befriends big game hunter Guy Wallace. An unrepentant relic of the colonial era, Wallace has been a soldier, mercenary and tracker. He now lives in splendid isolation on the Caithness moors in Scotland, but has one remaining ambition - to return to Africa and kill a Cape Buffalo. Scott is a vegan but accompanies Wallace in a film that explores the ethical issues around hunting and the unlikely bond that develops between two men.
Every summer, a few brave Roma girls will enter a beauty pageant in the bid to be called Miss Roma. But what if their dream is not a marriage proposal, but to go to high school and get a diploma? With an extraordinary access and seldom seen intimacy, we follow three girls on their journey of high stakes and self-discovery.
Warriors from the North - a film about young Somali-European men, who leave their everyday lives to become fighters, and perhaps even suicide bombers, in Somalia - one of the most dangerous and impoverished places in the world. These young men, most of them born and raised in Scandinavia, are recruited in their home towns and subsequently leave for Somalia, where they are trained by al-Shabab, an Islamist militant group whose aim is to obtain Islamic rule in Somalia. This is the story of a young man known only as "The Shadow" who describes how he fell victim to recruiters from al-Shabab. He outlines the conditions that make boys like him susceptible to the lure of the "holy war," explaining that, "Nothing in my life made any sense." A number of other young fighters, their identities concealed, explain why they left hearth and home and are prepared to die.
For three decades the world has witnessed China's fast economic development. In 2008 the Chinese government issued a $586 billion plan to try to minimize the impact of the global financial crisis on the world's second largest economy. The aim was to invest in infrastructure and social welfare throughout China. Chinese director Zhang Zambo managed to get unique access to the implementation of the financial plan. For three years the director filmed the making of a section of a highway through a quiet village in Hunan, a province in central China where Chairman Mao was born. The result is a rare insight to the impact the plan has had on a local community.
Emmy nominee and winner of the Best Documentary Award at the Tribeca Film Festival, POINT AND SHOOT tells the story of Matthew VanDyke, a timid 26-year-old with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, who left home in Baltimore USA, and set off on a self-described "crash course in manhood." He bought a motorcycle and a video camera and began a multi-year, 35,000-mile motorcycle trip through Northern Africa and the Middle East. While traveling, he struck up an unlikely friendship with a Libyan hippie, and when revolution broke out in Libya, Matt joined his friend in the fight against dictator Muammar Gaddafi. With a gun in one hand and a camera in the other, Matt fought in - and filmed - the war until he was captured by Gaddafi forces and held in solitary confinement for six months. Two-time Academy Award nominated documentary filmmaker Marshall Curry tells this harrowing and sometimes humorous story of a young man's search for political revolution and personal transformation.
After the Islamic Revolution of 1979, the new Iranian regime consolidated its power through the mass removal of opponents: in the 1980s, thousands of political prisoners were secretly tortured and killed. The perpetrators were never prosecuted, and today hold high-ranking government positions. In October 2012, the Iran Tribunal met in The Hague to investigate the executions. This international people's court has no executive power, but aims principally to identify and investigate what went on. For three days, survivors and members of victims' families - including the filmmaker Nima Sarvestani - gave their testimony. The Iran Tribunal was broadcast live. From Sweden, an activist named Iraj follows the tribunal - he is one of the survivors, scarred for life. And along with Mehdi, who works behind the scenes at the tribunal, Iraj dreams of confronting the perpetrators with their crimes. Both men have dedicated their lives entirely to the struggle for justice.
In October 2011, Olympus Corporation, a multibillion dollar Japanese optical company, dismissed its president and CEO, British-born Michael Woodford, over cultural differences in management style. Japanese media dutifully reported the dismissal with minimum coverage, another foreign CEO failing to adapt to the Japanese way. But international media reported a brewing scandal where Japanese board members of the company unanimously voted to dismiss Woodford for blowing the whistle on a 1.7 billion dollar fraud that the 93-year-old Japanese company had kept secret for more than two decades. Film-maker Hoe Yamamoto unravels the events that led to one of the most mystifying corporate scandals in the world.
Part 1: The gripping untold story of the Brexit negotiations... from the other side. For two years, Belgian film-maker, Lode Desmet, has had exclusive access to the Brexit co-ordinator of the European parliament, Guy Verhofstadt, and his close knit team. This revelatory fly-on-the-wall film captures the off the record conversations and arguments of the European negotiators as they devise their strategy for dealing with the British. Episode one watches as the Europeans' respect for a formidable negotiating opponent turns into frustration and incredulity as the British fail to present a united front. At moments funny and tragic, it ends with the debacle in December 2017 when Theresa May flies in to Brussels to finalise details of a deal and is publically humiliated by her coalition partner, Arlene Foster of the DUP, who refuses to support the deal.
Part 2: The gripping untold story of the Brexit negotiations... from the other side. For two years, Belgian film-maker, Lode Desmet, has had exclusive access to the Brexit co-ordinator of the European parliament, Guy Verhofstadt, and his close knit team. This revelatory fly-on-the-wall film captures the off the record conversations and arguments of the European negotiators as they devise their strategy for dealing with the British. Episode two follows the rollercoaster events from December 2017 to the present day. Europe watches on incredulously as divisions in the British parliament and cabinet become more bitter and leave the talks paralysed. Eighteen months after the referendum, Britain still does not know what it wants and spends more time discussing internally than negotiating with Europe. Respect for Britain turns to irritation and finally ridicule.
The children of convicted criminals in China are stigmatised and as a result, often become homeless. Some, however, do find a place they can temporarily call home. Grandma Zhang, as the children call her, is a former prison guard who founded an orphanage in Nanzhao, where the children learn to live without their parents and are able to prepare for the outside world. This powerful film tells the story of life inside the care system through the eyes of the children themselves.
Kumare is the story of American filmmaker, Vikram Gandhi, who transforms himself into an Indian guru as a social and religious experiment and builds a following in Arizona. At the height of his popularity, the Guru Kumare must reveal his true identity to his disciples and unveil his greatest teaching of all.
For thirty years Omar al-Bashir the former president of Sudan, waged a brutal and bloody war on his own people. This programme filmed before al-Bashir was ousted, features Dr Tom Catena an American doctor and missionary who has been working in the Nuba Mountains of Sudan for over thirteen years, treating as many as 400 patients a day at the Mother of Mercy Hospital. We follow Dr Tom and his mostly local staff as they work tirelessly to save lives under the threat of daily bombardment during al-Bashir's regime.
The people of the Faroe Islands believe that pilot whale hunting is vital to their way of life, but when a local professor makes a discovery about the effects of marine pollution, environmental changes threaten to change the community and their way of life forever.
Over the last 25 years, more than 900 Thai women have come to the small northern region of Jutland, Denmark, to marry Danish men. Filmed over ten years, this film follows Thai-Danish couples in an intimate chronicle that explores universal questions of love and romance, dreams and everyday hardship, life and death, and the very nature of family.
In a remote Cuban fishing village, where shops are empty and basic transportation is non-existent, everyone is utterly dependent on the sea and many have drowned trying to leave.
On 16th October 2017, Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia was assassinated in a car bomb attack close to her home. Her career focused on investigative reporting into government corruption and money laundering and her blog was read more than all of the country's newspapers combined. This documentary seeks to come closer to the truth about her death.
Over the course of a year, researcher Patrik Hermansson went deep undercover, as Swedish student Erik Hellberg, at the heart of the alt-right. He infiltrated some of the most notorious far-right networks in the US and the UK, extracting damning information that runs all of the way to the highest level of authority in the US. And he caught it all on hidden camera.
Syrian film-maker Talal Derki returns to his homeland, where he gains the trust of a radical Islamist family, sharing their daily life for over two years. His award-winning film provides a very rare insight into what it means to grow up with a father whose only dream is to establish an Islamic caliphate, capturing the chilling moment when childhood dies and jihadism is born.
