Considered to be one of the most prestigious competitions in classical music, the International Chopin Piano Competition, held in Warsaw every five years since 1927, has been a career launchpad for such some of the world’s greatest virtuoso pianists. The competition itself is a real rollercoaster of a classical ride, with extremely tough qualifying rules, multiple stages, legendary jurors and a whole lot of pressure.

Pianoforte takes us behind the scenes of this fascinating contest, meeting some of the most talented young professional piano players from across the world and watching them navigate the competition, along with its intense practices, new friendships, lots of drama and even more nerves.

Pianoforte

Songs of Earth

Keeping It Up: The Story of Viagra

Three minutes of footage is all that remains of the Jewish community of Nasielsk, Poland, filmed in 1938 by photographer David Kurtz. This Storyville documentary unravels the tales hidden within the celluloid, including insights from the film-maker’s grandson and a boy who appears in the faded footage – one of the few survivors of the decimated village.  Kurtz's footage was made available courtesy of the Steven Spielberg Film and Video Archive in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Three Minutes: A Lengthening

In the 1950s and 60s, deep in the American countryside at the foot of the Catskill mountains, there was a small wooden house with a barn behind it called Casa Susanna, a holiday home for one of the first clandestine networks of cross-dressers in the US.  Back then, Diane and Kate used to enjoy weekend visits to the house with their wives and friends. Now in their 80s, Diane and Kate tell a forgotten chapter of some of the early days of trans identity.

Casa Susanna

A Storyville documentary that investigates a powerful and terrifying spyware called Pegasus, sold to governments around the world by Israeli company NSO Group and used on journalists, activists and others, including both the wife and fiancée of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi.

The Spy in Your Mobile

Despite the huge risks, two Russian film-makers have been filming the impact of the invasion of Ukraine in their country. Many thousands have fled. Those that have stayed have had to make a choice – oppose the war, support it, or stay silent.

Inside Russia: Traitors and Heroes

A Storyville documentary that explores the process of creating sex scenes in Hollywood, the toll on those involved in filming them, and the impact such images have on women and girls in the real world. The film features candid interviews with actors and creators, including Jane Fonda, Rosanna Arquette, Joey Soloway, Angela Robinson, Karyn Kusama, Rose McGowan, Alexandra Billings, Emily Meade and David Simon.

Sex on Screen

A Storyville documentary about two women who fall in love in the Ravensbrück concentration camp.

Nelly and Nadine: Ravensbrück, 1944

A Storyville documentary about the violent five-day standoff between inmates and law enforcement which gripped America in 1971.

Attica: America’s Bloodiest Prison Uprising

Storyville documentary in which UK artist and film-maker Lisa Selby turns the camera on herself as she tries to understand her relationships with her late mother and her partner, both heroin addicts.

The film won the audience award at the 2022 London International Film Festival.

Blue Bag Life

A Storyville documentary that, with extraordinary access to one of Israel's most Orthodox Hasidic communities, explores the scandal that erupted when the rabbi who established and led the community died. Inheritance battles, violent reprisals, sexual abuse and underage marriages are revealed by those that experienced it.

In the Name of the Father

When the Taliban returned to power in 2021, the lives and destinies of two young Afghani women, Raha and Marwa, were changed forever.  Inside Kabul is an animated film based on the voice notes that Raha and Marwa exchanged in the months that followed.  Raha chose to stay in Kabul, where she was confronted with the violence of the regime, the sudden change in what ordinary people, especially women, were allowed to do and the crisis into which the country gradually sank.  Marwa left with her husband just in time and found herself in a refugee camp in Abu Dhabi, waiting to be welcomed to another country.

Inside Kabul

They called it young black kids’ punk rock - a genre that radio stations wouldn’t play and records that labels refused to sell. But grime would not be stopped. With machine-gun lyrics that shred the eardrums and syncopated electronics that pound the chest like a sledgehammer, grime was a product of social unrest, urban culture and disenfranchised youth colliding in early 2000s UK. It didn’t just rouse a grassroots audience, however. Today, grime is surging in popularity all over the globe and widely influencing the music charts. This is the story of the genre’s roots.

8 Bar: The Evolution of Grime

Artificial intelligence now permeates every aspect of our lives, but only a handful of people have any control over its influence on our world.  With unique access to some of the most powerful pioneers of the AI revolution, iHuman asks whether we know the limits of what artificial intelligence is capable of and its true impact.

iHuman

Blue Box is a brave account of how the Jewish National Fund acquired land in Palestine before and after the creation of the State of Israel. Film-maker Michal Weits' great-grandfather Joseph was a key figure in the organisation. In her family, and across Israel, he is celebrated as the father of the country’s forests, taking ‘a land without a people for a people without a land', but when Michal finds his private diaries, she discovers a very different story. In conversations with her family, she questions her great-grandfather's actions, resulting in an exploration of Israel's past and an uncomfortable truth.

Blue Box

When high school ends and adulthood begins, Benjamin and Joshua Israel, two identical twins of Jewish origin, start feeling burdened. While friends and schoolmates are planning a new life, they don’t seem able to imagine their own future. Being in your twenties and having a natural charisma combined with a sassy attitude is not enough if you have an intellectual disability and the world makes it hard for you to fit in. Feeling left out, Benji and Josh confront the limits imposed by others, without fear of smashing right into them. Josh wants to have sex for the first time, while Benji follows the reverie of a new love. Even if the twins are often in conflict with each other, their bond is impossible to break. They will soon learn that growing up also means giving the other space without casting a shadow.

Benjamin, Joshua and The Crown Shyness

In the aftermath of the war in Afghanistan, western troops were part of a Nato force, working with the then-new Afghan authorities to help ‘win the hearts and minds’ of locals, with Danish and British troops deployed in the key southern province of Helmand.  In this Storyville film, a former Danish soldier turned film-maker goes back to Musa Qala, the capital of Helmand, to investigate allegations that the Afghan police were abusing young boys and men when the Danish and British were in control.  With access to the-then local chief of police, to former members of the military and to some of the alleged victims, this is a powerful and painful exploration that tries to shed light on why western forces didn’t win the hearts and minds of local people

Winning Hearts and Minds

What would make a middle-class Dutch woman want to join a revolutionary struggle thousands of miles from home? This Storyville film tells the story of Tanja Nijmeijer, the former teacher who became a member of the Colombian FARC rebel group, rising to become one of its most senior leaders and later a campaigner for peace.

Tanja: Terrorist or Freedom Fighter?

This is London from an exhilarating, rarely seen perspective. With knife violence rising, social activist Mac creates BikeStormz, a movement for kids across the city to express themselves beyond any threats of violence.  Groups of young people glide through the capital on their bikes, doing wheelies, tricks and death-defying acrobatics, but as they come together and find ways to express themselves through biking - the kind of liberation that surfers and skateboarders eulogise - they are challenged with the threat of arrest by the police and accusations of antisocial behaviour.

If the Streets Were on Fire

Back in November 2022, England played host to the Wheelchair Rugby League World Cup. The unflinching action and raw passion on display took many new fans by surprise, and as the tournament progressed, audience numbers - both in the stadiums and those watching on television - began to build in a moment of important visibility for the sport.  This film tells the inside story of the world's two best wheelchair rugby league teams, England and France, with privileged access to each side's progress through the tournament towards a potential winner-takes-all meeting in the final.  Following players from each squad both on and off the pitch also introduces us to the varied characters who play and coach this demanding sport, discovering the circumstances that brought them to the game and hearing about the often different philosophies they have on the subject of who should take part.

Made of Steel: Wheelchair Rugby’s Fiercest Rivalry

Twenty-five years ago, Viagra kick-started the second sexual revolution and a controversy unlike any drug before it. From Wales to New York, this is the big story of the little blue pill.

This epic nature documentary follows in the footsteps of the director’s 85-year-old father as he hikes during all four seasons through raw and magnificent meditative landscapes in the mighty Oldedalen valley in Nordfjord in western Norway.

Showcasing the best in international documentaries, Storyville has developed an enviable reputation since its inception more than a decade ago. 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. In true, unique, Storyville style, the new series promises to deliver the strand's usual eclectic mix of compelling stories from across the globe.

Pianoforte

Seasons30

Season 27 Episodes21

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