Please email Rich Deakin rdeakin@glos.ac.uk if you would like any of the following programmes / series recording.*
*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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Saturday 10th December
Factual; Documentaries; Politics
Iron Ladies of Liberia
BBC4, 11:55pm-12:50am
When Ellen Johnson Sirleaf became Africa's first ever elected female head of state, filmmakers Siatta Scott-Johnson and Daniel Junge were there to follow her. It was the start of an extraordinary year they spent with the Liberian president as she struggled to take control of a country devastated by years of civil war.
Together with her 'iron ladies' (the finance minister and police chief are also formidable females), she takes a firm hold on the government, trying to root out corruption and spend the tiny annual budget carefully. But it's not an easy task, and everything seems to be against her - even her presidential mansion burns down.
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Sunday 11th December
Documentaries
Japan Tsunami: Caught on Camera
Channel 4, 8:15-9:30pm
Japan's Tsunami: Caught on Camera captures the impact of the earthquake and tsunami that devastated Japan in April 2011, using amateur footage filmed by those caught up in the disaster.
Featuring never-before-seen footage, the programme gives accounts from eyewitnesses, amateur photographers and video enthusiasts, whose initial desire to record the tsunami was quickly overtaken by the cataclysmic events that unfolded in front of them.
But they kept on filming, many while only narrowly escaping with their lives.
The eyewitness film captures some apocalyptic images of the wave's destructive power: Takayuki Saijo only just made it up a hill in time to see the town of Kamaishi destroyed beneath him; Kenichi Murakami had to run for his life, climbing a high-school fire escape while filming the carnage below; and Yu Muroga narrowly escaped death as his car (with its on-board camera) was swept away in the torrential current and then sank.
Beyond the immediate horror of the tsunami, the film, made seven months after the event, also grapples with the aftermath: the loss, uncertainty and long-term trauma faced by individuals and towns struggling to come to terms with whether they can or should rebuild their shattered communities.
Factual; Arts, Culture and the Media; History; Documentaries
Rosslyn Chapel: A Treasure In Stone
BBC4, 7:30-8:30pm
The exquisite Rosslyn Chapel is a masterpiece in stone. It used to be one of Scotland's best kept secrets, but it became world-famous when it was featured in Dan Brown's the Da Vinci Code.
Art historian Helen Rosslyn, whose husband's ancestor built the chapel over 500 years ago, is the guide on a journey of discovery around this perfect gem of a building. Extraordinary carvings of green men, inverted angels and mysterious masonic marks beg the questions of where these images come from and who were the stonemasons that created them? Helen's search leads her across Scotland and to Normandy in search of the creators of this medieval masterpiece.
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Monday 12th December
Factual; News
This World: Return of the Lost Boys of Sudan
BBC1, 7:00-8:00pm
When South Sudan became independent this summer, it brought the return of many who had fled the long civil war. Among them were some of the 'Lost Boys' - the name given to more than 20,000 child refugees, some as young as seven, who walked more than a thousand miles to refugee camps in Ethiopia. More than half fell victim to war, disease and starvation along the way. Many of the survivors were recruited as child soldiers in the rebel army; others were exiled abroad.
Now some of the Lost Boys are coming home. For some it's a chance to trace lost relatives and come to terms with childhood trauma, for others an opportunity to help build the new nation and their own careers.
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Tuesday 13th December
Documentaries
My Big Fat Gypsy Christmas
Channel 4, 9:00-10:00pm
Christmas is a time for family, a time for peace and harmony - but it is also a time to celebrate. This film follows the celebrations and traditions of members of the Irish traveller community at Christmas, as well as two of the most jaw dropping weddings ever shown. Filmed last year, the programme follows a mass-Yuletide First Communion ceremony. It also follows some of the unique traveller preparations that go on in the run up to Christmas, and spends Christmas Day itself with Paddy and Roseanne at their home on a traveller site in Salford. This warm and joy-filled film offers a window into the close-knit and fiercely private community. It explores some of the age-old traveller traditions - and some of the newer ones too.
Factual; Arts, Media and Culture; Documenataries
Imagine... Books - The Last Chapter?
BBC1, 10:35-11:40pm, 6/8
With the rise of electronic books, is the final chapter about to be written in the long love story between books and their readers? Will the app take the place of the traditional book?
Alan Yentob discusses the subject with writers Alan Bennett, Douglas Coupland, Ewan Morrison and Gary Shteyngart, publisher Gail Rebuck, agent Ed Victor and librarian Rachael Morrison. They also smell books, making precise notes about the distinctive aroma of each.
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Wednesday 14th December
Factual; Science and Nature; Science and Technology
Donated to Science
BBC4, 1:55-2:50am
In 2006, a New Zealand television company interviewed several people who planned to donate their bodies to the Otago Medical School for students to dissect. They were asked about their lives and their loves, their hopes, their fears and, of course, their bodies. The school is one of the last in the world whose students still do significant human dissection, and both they and the donors gave permission to be followed through the whole process. By intercutting the donors' interviews with their own bodies being dissected and the students' reactions for the first time on film, there is the chance to share the amazing journey of the students, the donors and their families.
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Thursday 15th December
News; Documentaries
Up In Flames: Mr Reeves and the Riots
BBC1, 10:45-11:30pm
Documentary following one shop owner in the aftermath of the riots of August 2011. When the riots struck there was no-one more taken by surprise than Maurice Reeves, 80-year-old owner of Croydon's Reeves Furniture store, who had to watch his 144-year-old family business go up in flames. This film follows him in the aftermath of that night, trying to work out how the town he had always thought so safe could descend into arson and looting, and whether he should ever open up shop again in the midst of a community that could spiral out of control so drastically. In the weeks that follow he meets other victims of the riots, comes face to face with disaffected Croydon young people, and takes on local politicIans - becoming more and more Churchillian by the week, a steadfast octogenarian rebuttal to riot and violence.
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Friday 16th December
Arts, Culture and the Media; History; Documentaries
Andy Hamilton's Search for Satan
BBC4, 2:25-3:25am
Just how did the Devil get inside our heads? And who put him there? For Halloween, award-winning comedy writer and performer Andy Hamilton (creator and star of Radio 4's acclaimed infernal comedy Old Harry's Game) explores just who the devil Satan is, where he comes from and what he's been up to all this time.
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