David Harewood on Blackface

At its peak, The Black and White Minstrel Show was watched by a Saturday night audience of more than 20 million people. David Harewood goes on a mission to understand the roots of this strange, intensely problematic cultural form: where did the show come from, and what made it popular for so long? With the help of historians, actors and musicians, David uncovers how, at its core, blackface minstrelsy was simply an attempt to make racism into an art form - and can be traced back to a name and a date.

Camille Claudel

The life of Camille Claudel, a French sculptor who becomes the apprentice of Auguste Rodin and later his lover. Her passion for her art and Rodin drive her further away from reason and rationality.

The Tracker

Somewhere in Australia in the early 20th century outback, an Aboriginal man is accused of murdering a white woman. Three white men are on a mission to capture him with the help of an experienced Indigenous man.

Nous paysans

In barely a century, French peasants have seen their world profoundly turned upside down. While they once made up the vast majority of the country, today they are only a tiny minority and are faced with an immense challenge: to continue to feed France. From the figure of the simple tenant farmer described by Emile Guillaumin at the beginning of the 20th century to the heavy toll paid by peasants during the Great War, from the beginnings of mechanization in the inter-war period to the ambivalent figure of the peasant under the Occupation, From the unbridled race to industrialization in post-war France to the realization that it is now necessary to rethink the agricultural model and invent the agriculture of tomorrow, the film looks back at the long march of French peasants.

Rise Again: Tulsa and the Red Summer

Comes one hundred years from the two-day Tulsa Massacre in 1921 that led to the murder of as many as 300 Black people and left as many as 10,000 homeless and displaced.

葉問

A semi-biographical account of Yip Man, the first martial arts master to teach the Chinese martial art of Wing Chun. The film focuses on events surrounding Ip that took place in the city of Foshan between the 1930s to 1940s during the Second Sino-Japanese War. Directed by Wilson Yip, the film stars Donnie Yen in the lead role, and features fight choreography by Sammo Hung.

Le Comte de Monte-Cristo

Edmund Dantes is falsely accused by those jealous of his good fortune, and is sentenced to spend the rest of his life in the notorious island prison, Chateau d'If. While imprisoned, he meets the Abbe Faria, a fellow prisoner whom everyone believes to be mad. The Abbe tells Edmund of a fantastic treasure hidden away on a tiny island, that only he knows the location of. After many years in prison, the old Abbe dies, and Edmund escapes disguised as the dead body. Now free, Edmund must find the treasure the Abbe told him of, so he can use the new-found wealth to exact revenge on those who have wronged him.

Skin

In the late Seventies, a Dutch teenager named Frankie, who is the son of a holocaust survivor, lives in a working class area in Holland. Frankie’s mother is taken to hospital in a terminal condition, causing a bigger rift between him and his father. This leads to Frankie becoming the interest of the local Nazi skinhead group.

Charlotte Gray

This is a drama set in Nazi-occupied France at the height of World War II. Charlotte Gray tells the compelling story of a young Scottish woman working with the French Resistance in the hope of rescuing her lover, a missing RAF pilot. Based on the best-selling novel by Sebastian Faulks.

There's Something in the Water

Elliot Page brings attention to the injustices and injuries caused by environmental racism in his home province, in this urgent documentary on Indigenous and African Nova Scotian women fighting to protect their communities, their land, and their futures.

Paris brûle-t-il?

Near the end of World War II, Gen. Dietrich von Choltitz receives orders to burn down Paris if it becomes clear the Allies are going to invade, or if he cannot maintain control of the city. After much contemplation Choltitz decides to ignore his orders, enraging the Germans and giving hope to various resistance factions that the city will be liberated. Choltitz, along with Swedish diplomat Raoul Nordling, helps a resistance leader organize his forces.

Danton

Danton and Robespierre were close friends and fought together in the French Revolution, but by 1793 Robespierre was France's ruler, determined to wipe out opposition with a series of mass executions that became known as the Reign of Terror. Danton, well known as a spokesman of the people, had been living in relative solitude in the French countryside, but he returned to Paris to challenge Robespierre's violent rule and call for the people to demand their rights. Robespierre, however, could not accept such a challenge, even from a friend and colleague, and he blocked out a plan for the capture and execution of Danton and his allies.

La Révolution française

A history of the French Revolution beginning from the decision of the king to convene the Etats-Generaux in 1789 in order to deal with France's debt problem. Part one spans the event until August 10, 1792 (when the King Louis XVI lost all authority and was imprisoned). Part two carries the story through the end of the terror in 1794.

Shudra: The Rising

Shudra: The Rising is a Hindi language film with a storyline based on the caste system in ancient India, and more specifically the Hindu Varna system. It is directed by Sanjiv Jaiswal and dedicated to Bhim Rao Ambedkar. The film depicts the four basic units of the caste system - the Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and the Shudras. The film shows various rules imposed on the Shudras such as waking with a bell around their ankles and a long leaf behind their back,and a pot hanging around their neck.

Le Diable de la République : 40 ans de Front national

The Unwanted: The Secret Windrush Files

David Olusoga opens secret government files to show how the Windrush scandal and the ‘hostile environment’ for black British immigrants has been 70 years in the making.

Henry V

In the midst of the Hundred Years War, the young King Henry V of England embarks on the conquest of France in 1415.

Yusuf Hawkins: Storm Over Brooklyn

The 30-year legacy of the murder of black teenager Yusuf Hawkins by a group of young white men in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, as his family and friends reflect on the tragedy and the subsequent fight for justice that inspired and divided New York City.

The Bowmakers

This documentary film explores the world of the bow and the extraordinary masters who make them. The bow is the Cinderella of the orchestra—the overworked and overshadowed ally to its more glamorous partners. Few people, even among lovers of classical music, think of the bow as an instrument in its own right, but players of stringed instruments see them differently. To musicians, the bow is as essential to expressing the soul of the music as the violin or cello. The film follows the journey of the “silent servant” of the music world—from the workshops of the virtuosos of the trade, to the birthplace of the bow in France, and to Brazil, home to the imperiled tree from which the world’s finest bows are made.

Hiroshima mon amour

The deep conversation between a Japanese architect and a French actress forms the basis of this celebrated French film, considered one of the vanguard productions of the French New Wave. Set in Hiroshima after the end of World War II, the couple -- lovers turned friends -- recount, over many hours, previous romances and life experiences. The two intertwine their stories about the past with pondering the devastation wrought by the atomic bomb dropped on the city.