Please email Rich Deakin rdeakin@glos.ac.uk if you would like any of the following programmes / series recording.*
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Sunday 27th November
Factual; Surfing; Documentaries
Riding Giants
BBC4, 9:00-10:30pm
The history of surfing culture is told through the exploits of the pioneers and contemporary heroes of big-wave surfing in Stacy Peralta's documentary, which features the likes of Greg Noll and Jeff Clark. Riding Giants makes palpable the magnitude and terrifying power of the waves they seek to conquer and captures the unfathomable combination of adrenaline and fear that the surfers experience each time they take on a monster swell.
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Monday 28th November
Crime and Justice; Documentaries
The British Woman on Death Row
Channel 4, 8:00-9:00pm
Linda Carty was born on the Commonwealth island of St Kitts. She's awaiting execution in Texas: if she's killed, she'll be the first British woman to be executed since Ruth Ellis, over 50 years ago.
In this moving documentary, film maker Steve Humphries goes in search of the real Linda Carty: who she is, where she came from, and how she ended up in arguably the worst place in the world, Death Row.
Linda was convicted of capital murder in 2002 after it was alleged she was the mastermind behind a horrific crime. In May 2001, a criminal gang broke into the home of Linda's neighbours and abducted a young mother and her three-day-old baby boy.
The next day the baby was found alive in one of Linda's cars, but his mother was found dead in another: she had been suffocated.
Linda has always denied any involvement in the crime, but testimony from the gang and circumstantial evidence found at the scene led to her arrest.
At her trial, Linda was represented by one of the State's capital defence attorneys, who's had over 20 of his clients end up on Death Row. It's claimed his poor defence of Linda helped lead to her conviction.
But this isn't just a film about a miscarriage of justice; it's a revealing account of Linda and her extraordinary life: she's been a primary school teacher, a dedicated single mother who overcame the stigma of illegitimacy, the victim of rape and abuse, and a woman blackmailed into becoming a confidential informant for the Drugs Enforcement Administration.
With contributions from family, friends, lawyers and Linda herself, this is an intimate and emotional portrait of a woman facing death and an exploration of why society believes she should die.
Factual; Travel; Documentaries
American Nomads
BBC4, 10:00-11:30pm
Beneath the America we think we know lies a nation hidden from view - a nomadic nation, living on the roads, the rails and in the wild open spaces. In its deserts, forests, mountain ranges and on the plains, a huge population of modern nomads pursues its version of the American dream - to live free from the world of careers, mortgages and the white picket fence.
When British writer Richard Grant moved to the USA more than 20 years ago it wasn't just a change of country. He soon found himself in a world of travellers and the culture of roadside America - existing alongside, but separate from, conventional society. In this film he takes to the road again, on a journey without destination.
In a series of encounters and unplanned meetings, Richard is guided by his own instincts and experiences - and the serendipity of the road. Travelling with loners and groups, he encounters the different 'tribes' of nomads as he journeys across the deserts of America's south west.
Factual; Crime and Justice; Documentaries
Real Crime with Mark Austin: Manhunt
ITV1, 10:35-11:35pm, 4/4
The search for Northumbrian gunman Raoul Moat, a case that dominated the UK news in July 2010. Armed with a sawn-off shotgun, the former bouncer began his campaign of terror after being released from prison, murdering Chris Brown - his ex-girlfriend Samantha Stobbart's partner - and shooting policeman David Rathband, which left the officer blind. Following a manhunt that lasted almost a week, Moat was found in Rothbury, Northumberland, where he eventually took his own life after a stand-off with police.
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Tuesday 29th November 2011
Documentaries; Politics
Jon Snow Meets Jimmy Carter
More4, 2:05-3:00am
In October 2011, Jimmy Carter entertained 2500 people at London's Southbank Centre with stories from his four years as US President and his subsequent life.
The Nobel Prize-winner, author, humanitarian, professor, farmer, naval officer and carpenter spoke to Jon Snow about everything from combatting guinea worm disease to the conflict in Israel and Palestine, Osama Bin Laden's death, the execution of Troy Davis, his assessment of the Harry Potter novels, and why he found it easier to work with George Bush Snr than Bill Clinton.
Factual; Arts, Culture and the Media; Food and Drink; Documentaries
America on a Plate: The Story of the Diner
BBC4, 9:00-10:00pm
Writer and broadcaster Stephen Smith re-envisions the story of 20th century American culture through its most iconic institution - the diner. Whether Edward Hopper's Nighthawks or the infamous encounter between Pacino and de Niro in Heat, these gleaming, gawdy shacks are at the absolute heart of the American vision.
Stephen embarks on a girth-busting road journey that takes him to some of America's most iconic diners. He meets the film-makers and singers who have immortalised them, and looks at the role diners have played not only in America's greatest paintings and movies, but also in the fight against racial oppression and the chain restaurants' global takeover.
For Stephen, it's because the diner is the last vestige of a vital part of the American psyche - the frontier. Like the Dodge City saloon it's a place where strangers are thrown together, where normal rules are suspended and anything can happen. And it's this crackle of potentially violent and sexual energy that have drawn so many artists to the diner, and made it not a convenient setting but an engine room of 20th century American culture.
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Wednesday 30th November 2011
Documentaries; History
The Great Inca Rebellion
Mire 4, 11:10pm-12:10am
Recent archaeological discoveries in Peru are casting doubt on the received wisdom of the Spanish conquistadors' defeat of the Incas. It's long been believed that Francisco Pizarro led a lightning defeat of one of the mightiest civilisations of the New World.
But archaeologist Guillermo Cock has uncovered what may be the first physical evidence of an untold story of Inca guerrilla warfare, rebellion, counter-sieges and terror tactics.
The Great Inca Rebellion combines forensic anthropology, science and historical analysis to explore the possibility that it may have taken the Spanish decades to subdue Inca rebels who mounted guerrilla wars against the treasure-seeking conquistadors.
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Thursday 1st December 2011
Factual; Arts, Culture and the Media
America in Pictures: The Story of Life Magazine
BBC4, 9:00-10:00pm
Life was an iconic weekly magazine that specialised in extraordinarily vivid photojournalism. Through its most dynamic decades, - the 40s, 50s and 60s - Life caught the spirit of America as it blossomed into a world superpower. Read by over half the country, its influence on American people was unparalleled. No other magazine in the world held the photograph in such high esteem. At Life the pictures, not the words, did the talking. As a result, the Life photographer was king.
In this film, leading UK fashion photographer Rankin celebrates the work of Life's legendary photographers including Alfred Eisenstaedt and Margaret Bourke-White, who went to outrageous lengths to get the best picture - moving armies, naval fleets and even the population of entire towns. He travels across the USA to meet photographers Bill Eppridge, John Shearer, John Loengard, Burk Uzzle and Harry Benson who, between them, have shot the big moments in American history - from the assassination of Robert F Kennedy, the Civil Rights struggle and Vietnam to behind the scenes at the Playboy mansion and the greatest names in Hollywood.
These photographers pioneered new forms of photojournalism, living with and photographing their subjects for weeks, enabling them to capture compelling yet ordinary aspects of American life too. Rankin discovers that Life told the story of America in photographs, and also taught America how to be American.
Factual, Art's, Culture and Media
Arena: James Ellroy's Feast of Death
BBC4, 11:25pm-1:00am
A programme exploring the work of crime writer James Ellroy, whose credits include LA Confidential, The Black Dahlia and My Dark Places, the latter a harrowing memoir of his own mother's murder. Ellroy later moved on from crime writing to pen his own secret history of the United States. As the second volume of his 'Underworld USA' trilogy - The Cold Six Thousand - was published in the UK in 2001, the film takes a tour of Ellroy's often disturbing world.
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Friday 2nd December 2011
World News; Current Affairs: Documentaries
Unreported World
Channel 4, 7:30-8:00pm, 9/10 Honduras: Diving Into Danger
Indigenous people in Honduras are risking their lives diving to dangerous depths for lobsters destined for North American and European diners. Overfishing means they must now dive as deep as 150ft to land their catch. Each time they dive, they risk paralysis or death from the bends.
Reporter Jenny Kleeman and director Daniel Bogado travel into the Caribbean with divers on board a lobster diving boat. Kleeman discovers that while companies and consumers care about buying tuna that's caught in a way that doesn't harm dolphins, we don't seem to care about lobster that's caught in a way that has left hundreds dead and thousands paralysed.
The team begin their journey in Cocobila, where a lobster fishing boat is recruiting divers. Kleeman meets 29-year-old diver Alexis as he says goodbye to his wife and five children.
Alexis risks death on every trip but has no choice but make his living in this way, as he says there are no other work opportunities on the Mosquito Coast. Only four days ago, one of his friends was killed diving for lobster.
Kleeman and Bogado join the divers and crew as they head out to the lobster banks. For the next 12 days, this 60ft boat will be home to more than 100 men. The air is thick with marijuana and many of the men are very drunk, even though they will be diving the next day.
Overfishing means it takes 13 hours to reach the first banks where lobster could be found. Twenty years ago, they caught them metres from the shore...
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*This applies to staff members and students at the University of Gloucestershire only. Any recordings made are to be used only for educational and non-commercial purposes under the terms of the ERA Licence.
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