The BEST episodes of Storyville season 2018
Every episode of Storyville season 2018, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of Storyville season 2018!
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 - This is Congo
Season 2018 - Episode 4 - Aired 6/27/2018
A Storyville documentary. A raw and unfiltered insight into the bloodiest conflict since the Second World War. Over the last two decades, the mineral-rich Democratic Republic of Congo has witnessed over five million conflict-related deaths, multiple regime changes and the impoverishment of its people. Following the lives of four diverse characters - a government whistleblower, a patriotic military commander, a mineral dealer and a displaced tailor - this programme offers a visceral, yet intimate insight into a nation caught between the foreign-backed M23 rebels and the government ruled by president Joseph Kabila, who cancels elections and refuses to relinquish power. As the conflict resonates through their lives, the film reveals the insidious legacy of colonialism, resource exploitation and the genocidal wars that has created a never-ending cycle of violence.
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#2 - Poisoning America: The Devil We Know
Season 2018 - Episode 12 - Aired 11/19/2018
A Storyville documentary following a group of citizens in West Virginia who take on a corporation after they discover it has been dumping a toxic chemical into the water supply.
#3 - Hurt Locker Hero
Season 2018 - Episode 13 - Aired 11/26/2018
The heart-stopping story of 'Crazy Fakhir', a Kurdish colonel in the Iraqi army and legendary bomb disposal expert who single-handedly disarmed thousands of landmines across the country with just a pocket knife and a pair of wire clippers. Between the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003 and the chaos and destruction wreaked by IS ten years later, Fahkir's unwavering bravery saved thousands of lives throughout Iraq. 'Hurt Locker Hero' tells Fakhir's story through the raw and visceral amateur footage captured by his soldiers on a camcorder intended for filming family occasions. Instead, it records Fakhir endlessly snipping wires, searching family homes and digging out roadside IEDs, insisting it's too dangerous to wait hours for the highly trained American bomb disposal teams to arrive. Whilst their father and husband becomes a hero, Fahkir's wife and eight children struggle to make ends meet and worry endlessly about his safety. Fakhir will be remembered as the man who risked his life to save others -'If I fail, only I die, but if I succeed, I can save hundreds of people.'.
#4 - The Eagle Huntress
Season 2018 - Episode 3 - Aired 6/17/2018
Follow Aisholpan, a 13-year-old girl, as she trains to become the first female in twelve generations of her Kazakh family to become an eagle hunter, and rise to the pinnacle of a tradition that has been typically been handed down from father to son for centuries. TV transmission of a Film released in 2016.
#5 - John Curry: The Ice King
Season 2018 - Episode 6 - Aired 7/9/2018
One of the greatest ice skaters of all time, John Curry transformed a dated sport into an art form and made history by becoming the first openly gay Olympian in a time when homosexuality was not fully legal. Directed by James Erskine, this is a searing documentary about a lost cultural icon - a story of art, sport, sexuality and rebellion. Featuring incredible unseen footage of some of Curry's most remarkable performances and with access to his letters, archive interviews, and interviews with his family, friends and collaborators, this is a portrait of the man who turned ice skating from a dated sport into an exalted art form.
#6 - Jailed in America
Season 2018 - Episode 8 - Aired 10/8/2018
For director Roger Ross Williams, prison was not a distant possibility when he was growing up, but a daily threat. 'As a young black man in a chaotic environment, I always felt there was a chance that, whether or not I committed a crime, I could end up behind bars.' Determined to avoid this fate, Roger left his hometown of Easton, Pennsylvania as a teenager to pursue his dreams of being a film-maker. Overcoming the odds, he became the first black director to win an Academy Award. As his success grew, he thought about Easton less and less, until the day he heard about the suicide of his old friend Tommy Alvin. Now, after 30 years, Roger returns home to pay his respects and reconnect with close childhood friends. He is shocked and distressed to learn virtually all of the men in the Alvin family are, have been, or currently are, in prison. Haunted by how easily this could have happened to him, Roger embarks on a deeply personal journey into the heart of the American prison system to try and understand how this is possible. He starts in his own hometown but soon finds himself navigating a Byzantine maze of powerful institutions: police precincts, courtrooms, local jails, maximum security prisons and corporate empires. As he begins to explore a massive and dysfunctional system, he encounters complicit politicians and prison profiteers, each with their own self-serving motivations to maintain the status quo. Roger discovers prison administrators who recognise that most of their inmates should be free, yet are helpless to release them. He seeks counsel and knowledge from frustrated community leaders and activists, including the tireless Adam Foss. Foss's mission is to personally reeducate America's 31,000 prosecutors to 'cut off the supply' of people flowing into the system, and also try and save lives in his own neighbourhood, one young man at a time. Roger comes face to face with the endless hoard of Americans trapped behind the walls of the prison industrial co
#7 - Olympic Dreams Of Russian Gold: Over The Limit
Season 2018 - Episode 5 - Aired 7/1/2018
'You're not a human being, you're an athlete,' 20-year-old Rita is told by one of her two merciless coaches as she prepares to represent Russia in rhythmic gymnastics at the Olympics. It is the most crucial year of her career and her last chance to achieve her ultimate dream, a gold medal. However gracefully Rita catches rings or rolls a ball across her shoulders, her coaches expect more from her, time and again. Described as the 'Black Swan' of sports documentaries, Over the Limit offers unprecedented access to the hidden world of elite gymnasts and the unrelentingly brutal training demanded by the Russian system.
#8 - Trophy: The Big Game Hunting Controversy
Season 2018 - Episode 1 - Aired 1/29/2018
Through the eyes of impassioned individuals who drive this business - from a Texas trophy hunter on a mission to kill 'the big five', to the world's largest private rhino breeder in South Africa, who believes he is saving these extraordinary beasts from becoming extinct - the film grapples with the consequences of imposing economic value on animals. What are the implications of treating animals as commodities? Does breeding, farming and hunting offer the option of conserving endangered animals? Trophy raises provocative debate about the rights and wrongs of killing animals for sport and for profit, and questions the value of these pursuits in saving the planet's great species from extinction.
#9 - City of Ghosts
Season 2018 - Episode 2 - Aired 6/11/2018
Bafta-nominated documentary telling the story of website Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently (RBSS), where a group of young men band together and risk their lives to document and release videos, photos and written testimony of Islamic State atrocities in their home city of Raqqa. From acclaimed Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Matthew Heineman, City of Ghosts follows the visceral and at times distressing journey of a network of brave young activists who band together to report the stories of atrocities inflicted on the Syrian citizens of Raqqa by ISIS, who invaded their city in 2014. The film reveals the very real dangers for this tight-knit group of citizen journalists, working undercover both inside and outside their homeland. They risk their lives daily to report stories of terror and destruction in the besieged city of Raqqa. The stories are posted on an online site -'Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently' - in the hope that they will reach the mainstream media and governments globally. A dramatic and heartbreaking story unfolds, as we witness the huge personal sacrifices the young journalists make to bring the plight of their people to the world. City of Ghosts premiered at Sundance Film Festival and was nominated for Best Documentary at the 2018 Baftas.
#10 - Insha'Allah Democracy
Season 2018 - Episode 7 - Aired 7/22/2018
As Pakistan prepare for their 2018 elections, Insha'Allah Democracy follows film-maker Mo Naqvi during the country's last election, when he was a first-time voter and wanted to back a candidate who would prevent Pakistan from becoming a terrorist state. But Mo faced a tough choice - either vote for religious hardliners or a secular liberal leader who happened to be a former military dictator. Insha'Allah Democracy chronicles one voter's journey to discover if democracy is possible in an unstable Muslim country, whilst providing a fly-on-the-wall exploration into a controversial leader, Pervez Musharraf.
#11 - A Woman Captured
Season 2018 - Episode 9 - Aired 10/22/2018
A Woman Captured is a raw and intimate portrayal of the psychology behind enslavement. Director Bernadett Tuza-Ritter offers an evocative study of a woman so debased and disregarded that even she has lost sight of her own life. A 52-year-old Hungarian woman has been kept by a family as a domestic slave for a decade. Marish has been exploited and abused by a woman for whom she toils as a housekeeper - entirely unpaid, performing all manner of back-breaking household duties seven days a week. In exchange, she only gets cigarettes, leftovers and a couch to sleep on. The money she earns from night shifts in a factory is taken away from her. Deprived of her ID and deep in forced debt, she is forbidden to even leave the house without permission. Marish's 16-year-old daughter ran away a couple of years ago, unable to bear her circumstances any longer. Marish lives with too much fear in her heart to leave but dreams of being reunited with her daughter. Drawing courage from the film-maker's presence, Marish eventually reveals her plan: she will leave the unbearable oppression behind and attempt to escape. The film follows Marish's heroic journey back to freedom.
#12 - Selling Children
Season 2018 - Episode 10 - Aired 10/29/2018
For middle-class Indian director Pankaj Johar, child slavery was an issue seemingly far removed from his life. Despite seeing children in the marketplace, factories and street corners, Pankaj rarely considered the circumstances which led millions of children to be forced into labour. This changed when Cecilia, a long-serving maid employed by Pankaj's family, suffered a devastating loss: her 14-year-old daughter killed herself following the trauma of being trafficked into sexual slavery. Pankaj sets out to understand how, in the world's largest democracy, it is possible for children to be bought and sold with such ease. Meeting with Nobel peace prize winner and child rights activist Kailash gives Pankaj a sense of the magnitude of the issue as well as a better understanding of the ways in which poverty, illiteracy and corruption conspire to provide a breeding ground for child trafficking. He travels the country, meeting with both trafficked children and the traffickers, as well as activists, legal experts and the police. Working with activists from the organisations Save the Childhood and Guria, Pankaj gets exclusive access to film rescue operations and speaks with some of the enslaved children, who have been denied a childhood and an education, offering an insight into their lives. Pankaj discovers how bigoted attitudes and corruption have lead to a state-wide failure to protect those who are most vulnerable. While he struggles to reconcile India's rapid economic development with the poverty and lack of opportunity which defines the lives of so many victims of child trafficking, an uncomfortable truth emerges: India's booming economy and the subsequent rise of the middle class is a major force which fuels the demand for cheap labour in the form of child slaves. Pankaj invites us to take responsibility, as consumers and as passive bystanders, to put an end to the selling of children in India and the world over.
#13 - Quest: Surviving in America
Season 2018 - Episode 11 - Aired 11/11/2018
An intimate portrait of the African-American Rainey family as they navigate life in their north Philadelphia neighbourhood gripped by poverty, drugs and gun violence. Filmed over the eight years of Obama's presidency, the film follows Christopher 'Quest' Rainey and his wife Christine's 'Ma Quest' as they try to raise their children and keep a group of local hip hop artists off the streets by cultivating a creative hub in their home music studio. Capturing the generosity, self-reliance and hope of a community, Quest is a vivid illumination of race, class and life in modern-day America.