The BEST episodes of Storyville season 1999
Every episode of Storyville season 1999, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of Storyville season 1999!
Storyville has developed an enviable reputation since it was launched by the BBC in 1997 as a showcase for the best in international documentaries. Screening over 340 films, from some 70 different countries, the strand has garnered a staggering array of awards: five Oscars, 15 Griersons, three Peabodys and two International Emmys.
#1 - A Small Town in Poland
Season 1999 - Episode 1 - Aired 3/21/1999
The small town of Bransk used to boast a large Jewish population before the Holocaust. As Bransk prepares to celebrate its 500th anniversary, the authorities debate whether to acknowledge the town's Jewish past.
#2 - Resurrection
Season 1999 - Episode 2 - Aired 4/4/1999
Cuba's cemeteries are too small to hold all of the country's dead. This film chronicles the emotional scenes at the exhumation of bodies after they have been buried for three years, and the subsequent storing of their bones in a crypt - a process that is watched by the dead's relatives.
#3 - Fragments: Jerusalem
Season 1999 - Episode 3 - Aired 4/4/1999
Director Ron Havilio intertwines a highly personal view of Jerusalem - where he has lived for nearly 50 years - with an overview of the Holy City's fascinating and litigious history. He also looks at life in the city as it approaches the new millennium.
#4 - Photographer
Season 1999 - Episode 4 - Aired 9/4/1999
In 1987, 600 colour slides depicting scenes in a wartime Jewish ghetto in Poland were found in a Vienna bookshop. Polish director Dariusz Jabłoński's film uses these photographs - which were taken by the Nazi's chief accountant at the Lodz ghetto, a large and notorious work camp - to provide a chilling testimonial to one of the Second World War's darkest chapters.
#5 - I Was a Slave Labourer
Season 1999 - Episode 5 - Aired 10/16/1999
For over five decades, German government and industry have resisted demands to pay compensation to the millions who worked as slave labourers under the Third Reich. This film follows retired businessman Rudy Kennedy - who survived slave labour as a teenager - as he tries to force German firms to acknowledge their links with Nazi atrocities.
#6 - An American Love Story (Part 1): Welcome to America
Season 1999 - Episode 6 - Aired 10/30/1999
Seven-part documentary from director Jennifer Fox shedding light on the state of race relations in the US by following two years in the lives of a mixed-race married couple and their two children in New York. In the first part, which acts as an introduction to the family, Cicily leaves home to go to college. [Note: This Storyville series is a condensed, 310-minute version of the PBS original, which was formed of ten 60-minute episodes.]
#7 - An American Love Story (Part 2): I've Fallen and I Can't Get Up
Season 1999 - Episode 7 - Aired 10/31/1999
Daughter Cicily travels to Nigeria to spend a term with a group of students.
#8 - An American Love Story (Part 3): It's Another New Year and I Ain't Gone
Season 1999 - Episode 8 - Aired 11/1/1999
The family celebrate Christmas, but Cicily contracts malaria.
#9 - An American Love Story (Part 4): Chaney and the Boy
Season 1999 - Episode 9 - Aired 11/2/1999
Chaney introduces her first boyfriend to Bill and Karen. Is she too young for romantic matters?
#10 - An American Love Story (Part 5): True Love
Season 1999 - Episode 10 - Aired 11/3/1999
The family faces a crisis when Karen is admitted into hospital for a hysterectomy.
#11 - An American Love Story (Part 6): It's My Job
Season 1999 - Episode 11 - Aired 11/4/1999
Bill struggles to overcome his drink problem, while daughter Cicily - now a graduate - begins her search for a job.
#12 - An American Love Story (Part 7): We Were Never Ozzie and Harriet
Season 1999 - Episode 12 - Aired 11/5/1999
In the conclusion to the series, Bill and Karen reflect on their courtship period during the 1960s.
#13 - Hitman Hart: Wrestling with Shadows
Season 1999 - Episode 13 - Aired 11/6/1999
Canadian grappler Bret "the Hitman" Hart became a huge attraction on US cable TV, his "tough but nice" persona securing him a $9m deal. But, when he refused to compromise his image for the sake of commercial interests, he faced the end of his career. Paul Jay's acclaimed film follows Hart for a year and explores the reality behind the theatre of wrestling.
#14 - A Cry from the Grave
Season 1999 - Episode 14 - Aired 11/27/1999
Under the eyes of the United Nations, troops of the Bosnian Serb army massacred over 7,000 men from the town of Srebrenica in the summer of 1995. Leslie Woodhead 's film is the result of a year-long investigation into the killing and the aftermath of Europe's worst massacre since the Second World War.
#15 - Grey Gardens
Season 1999 - Episode 15 - Aired 12/11/1999
Despite their aristocratic background - and the fact that they were aunt and cousin to Jackie Onassis - Edith Bouvier Beale and daughter Edie lived in anonymity in a decaying mansion on New York's Long Island. But, in 1976, when Albert and David Maysies's film appeared in US cinemas, it gave the pair the fame they longed for - and the public a glimpse into the interdependency and private language of their eccentric lives.
#16 - Out of Phoenix Bridge
Season 1999 - Episode 16 - Aired 12/21/1999
For Ah Feng, Jialing, Xiazi and Ziao, their years working as maids while sharing a room in a Beijing slum may be the freest of their lives. In their rural home of Phoenix Bridge, the young Chinese women were under their parents' control; on their return, they will belong to new husbands. Struggling against harassment, they remain intent on achieving their dream: a metropolitan life.