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.
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”.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
Excluded from a Highland battle re-enactment, a middle-aged Warrior Queen must rediscover her courage and defend her family’s honour.
‘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.
Faye Bowers is the host of a low-rent paranormal activity show, a master of trickery and pretence, but she is desperate to be taken seriously as a journalist. When she learns that the show is to be axed, she is determined to go out with a bang.
A dark rite of passage set in rural Scotland.
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.
Ryan moves from one village to the next with a merry-go-round. It isn't easy to keep finding new friends.
20th anniversary documentary on “Orphans” including interviews with cast and crew.
