An estimated one-and-a-half million Americans are infected with HIV. If government estimates are correct, half will develop Aids in the next ten years. American film-maker Peter Adair offers a moving and uplifting account of how 11 men and women, infected with HIV, live with the prospect. His subjects range in age from 17 to 60 and represent a variety of lifestyles, regions, ethnic origins and risk groups. Adair, whose work often examines issues of immediate personal concern, says, "A while ago I tested positive for the HIV virus.... I decided to make a film about it."
An affectionate and humorous portrait of a typical family from the American heartland as they make their first trip to Europe on a two-week, whistle-stop package tour. With a diverse group of fellow Americans, they struggle with and laugh about cultural differences, "doing" ancient historical sites in nine major cities from Paris to Moscow. Director Les Blank is a renowned chronicler of Americana and winner of numerous international awards, including several for his Burden o/Dreamsabont the making of Werner Herzog 's Fitzcarraldo.
Jim Lindeloff, Andy Schipsikowiak, Alexander Sekretaryov and Naoko Nanjo came from the US, Britain, the Soviet Union and Japan. They died in Afghanistan. Using the dead men's material, talking to their families and with the help of original footage shot behind the battle lines, directors Stephen Olsson and Scott Andrews, tell the harrowing story of four journalists, intent on exposing war for what it is, and dying in the attempt.
Throughout the Second World War Czechoslovak airmen fled German occupation and fought with the Allies against the common enemy. More than 500 of them died. But for the survivors, their heroes' welcome back to Prague was tragically short-lived. After the communist coup of 1948 they became political targets, accused of spying for the west. Some fled the country again, others were sent down the mines. Director Otto Olejar , who himself fled Czechoslovakia when Warsaw Pact troops invaded in 1968, tells the story of these men whose role in fighting fascism was wiped from the pages of Czech history. Only now, in their old age, are they seeing the rebirth of democracy in their country, and receiving the recognition they deserve.
German director Werner Herzog (whose credits include Fitzcarraldo and Nosferatu) has made an impressionistic documentary about the after-effects of war in Kuwait, to mark the first anniversary of the Gulf War. Since his first feature, Signs of Life, Herzog's films have been dominated by landscape imagery. In this film he joined forces with documentary-maker Paul Berriff and turned his vision to the Stygian darkness of "Satan's National Park". He presents a deeply personal and often surreal view of a world on fire, in the hope of capturing "a poetical vision of the new landscapes which have emerged in Kuwait".
In 1978, Susan Meiselas photographed the insurrection in Nicaragua that overthrew the dictator Anastasio Somoza and brought the Sandinistas to power. Her work won her the Robert Capa Award for courage in photo-journalism and resulted in her highly influential book of colour photographs, Nicaragua: June 1976 -July 19 9 79. This documentary interweaves the recollections and thoughts of Meiselas and those of the Nicaraguans who were caught in her pictures. It is a haunting, reflective study that questions both Meiselas's role as an American photographer observing the struggles of the Nicaraguan people and the impact of the struggle itself.
Until the rise of the Civil Rights movement in the 1950s, black and white audiences in America had to use separate movie theatres. In 1916 a new industry had begun with the first "all coloured" film, made as a protest against D W Griffith's Birth of a Nation. Director Russ Karel 's documentary charts the development of the independent African-American cinema movement through the eyes of the segregated audiences and tells of the fate of those opposing that dehumanising social order, including Paul Robeson and Josephine Baker , during the McCarthy era.
An impressionistic vision of ritual life on the Ganges. Director Robert Gardner first came across the Great Cremation Ground at Benares, India, ten years ago. Like a vast football terrace wedged between the banks of the Ganges and some of India's most monumental classical architecture, this is the place where priests perform age-old rituals, cremating the corpses of devout Hindus and scattering the ashes on the sacred river. The images in this film are haunting: sunrise over the Ganges, a shrouded corpse afloat in the sacred river, a field of marigolds, and a monkey ringing a bell in a temple lit by flickering fires.
John T Davis 's film is the story of the classic railroad tramps, riding the rails across America in the 90s. It offers a unique view into the world of boxcars and hobo jungles, creating an indelible portrait of the fiercely independent men pursuing a vanishing way of life. Hobos are voluntary vagabonds and their lives are tough. They have to learn how to wait and hide, how to make coffee with a railroad flare, and how to balance on the roof of a moving boxcar and hit the deck when the train hits a tunnel. To chronicle a hobo's journey of some 2,000 winter miles from Minneapolis, through the Rockies to Seattle, Davis lived the hobo life on the other side of the law: "We travelled incognito, sleeping rough, eating out of dumpsters and drinking mad-dog 20/20 wine. This is a comment about the underbelly of America.... And if you love trains, it's also great to watch."
Gang warfare in Los Angeles has recently been the subject of several features and documentaries, such as Boyz in the Hood. Most have attempted to present some form of social analysis, blaming the ills on social deprivation. In their film about the strange phenomenon of Samoan street gangs in Los Angeles, French director Jean-Pierre Gorin and anthropologist Dan Marks decided to throw away the rule book, giving gang members access to the film-making process and allowing them to help script and structure the film. According to Marks: "The kids don't say, 'We're depraved because we're deprived.' From their perspective, they kill because it's fun."
This critically acclaimed film looks at the world as experienced by an estimated 130 million people who are deaf. It follows children and adults and shows their frustrating and often amusing attempts to deal with the world of the hearing and with each other.
This week's film tells the harrowing story behind capital punishment in Missouri. It follows the daily lives of three condemned men and focuses on the execution team as well. "We are the instruments of the people and the justice system," say the officials. But the condemned men respond, "What they do is murder, as premeditated as any man here committed."
Melissa Llewelyn-Davies has been filming in the same Masai village in Kenya for 20 years. "After my first stay," she says, "I felt more at home there than in my own life. Memories of that period form an important part of the person that I am now." In this film, she returns to the village to provide a unique portrait of a changing society.
The poise and dignity of the Ismael family from Eritrea have haunted film-maker Nick Gifford since he filmed their arrival at Wadsharifi refugee camp in the Sudan three years ago. "Seeing them by chance, sick and bemused after fleeing for six nights from the war and drought in neighbouring Eritrea," he recalls, "I wondered what camp life would do to a man and his family." His film follows this refugee family from their arrival in camp to their return to Eritrea three years later.
In writer David Yallop began a hunt for the world's most wanted man, Carlos the Jackal. This film follows Yallop from the beginning of his long and perilous quest to the climax of an eventual meeting with Carlos in the Middle East. It uncovers collusion, conspiracy and terrorism to find the reality behind the myth.
Michael Apted's film is a chilling account of the events of the morning of 26 June 1975 in Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota. What happened then led to one of the biggest manhunts in FBI history. On that date two FBI special agents, Jack Coler and Ron Williams , supposedly following a red pick-up truck, drove onto the reservation. A shoot-out occurred in which both the agents and a native American were killed.
In 1992, the people of Canada had to vote "Yes" or "No" to a new constitution. For the first time in their political history, the Aboriginal people became part of the political process. This film - directed by Gil Cardinal , himself a Metis (half Cree, half French Canadian) - follows Ovide Mercredi , a charismatic and eloquent Cree Indian , as he travels across the country cajoling, explaining and sometimes confronting those who refuse to recognise the rights of his people in a reformed Canadian constitution.
The world television premiere of Frederick Wiseman 's startling documentary film, banned for 24 years. Made in 1967, this masterly and chilling portrait of the hideous treatment of inmates at the Bridgewater State Hospital for the criminally insane is the only film in American history to be banned for reasons other than obscenity. The accuracy of the scenes was never questioned - the State of Massachusetts was embarrassed at what the film showed, portraying as it did in graphic detail the daily life of the inmates, guards and psychiatrists in this prison.
The chaos and drama of battle is revealed - the battle to install the Democratic candidate In the White House. Focusing on chief political strategist James Carville and communications director George Stephanopoulos, the film covers critical moments during the Clinton campaign, to which the film-makers had exclusive access. In spite of this, recalls producer R J Cutler, "there were times when we had to sneak between Secret Service lines, and we never knew when they would tell us to stop filming". The story begins in the contemporary war room at the Democratic Convention In New York City and continues at the Clinton/Gore headquarters in Little Rock, Arkansas. We drive through middle America on the campaign bus and witness the frantic and exuberant final days leading up to the election.
A documentary on film-maker Bernardo Bertolucci's movie on the icon.
A film which focuses on the mountain shepherds of Sardinia, in the Mediterranean, exploring their prospects in an uncertain future.
An old man lived by mountain that blocked his view, and so he determined to move it stone by stone. To those who laughed at him he said: "My sons and their sons will carry stones. The mountain will be moved." This story offered a metaphor for change in China for a participant in tonight's film, which opens a new season of documentaries highlighting the work of independent film-makers. It is the first project as a film producer by actress Trudie Styler and it traces events leading up to the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989 and its aftermath, seen through the eyes of the student leaders involved. The director is Michael Apted , whose work includes feature films such as Coal Miner's Daughter and Gorky Park.
In the East End of London, a large family spanning the generations has come together to celebrate a birthday. The children and grandchildren have travelled across Britain to be there, a Britain that has changed hugely during the lifetime of family members and is still changing. Archive material and a soundtrack of radio broadcasts are intercut with contemporary images as family members talk at the party of their hopes for the future and for their children. "Beyond the windows of the party," says Michael Grigsby , director of the second documentary in this series highlighting the work of independent film-makers, "lies a bewildered and battered Britain, a Britain that is facing an acute lack of vision."
Mike Tyson is serving a six-year prison sentence imposed on him in 1991 when he was found guilty of hotel-room rape. At the time of the trial he was one of the world's greatest heavyweight boxers, a former world champion with one defeat on his record. Barbara Kopple 's film, including rare footage of Tyson as a child and in trainer Cus d'Amato'scareasa 15-year-old boxing prospect, traces the rise and fall of a vulnerable champion who let his dark side get the better of him. Kopple's aim is to "offer a new perspective on a man who was unable to separate the violence of the sport from his personal life".
Were the circumstances not so horrid, it could have been a spin-off from the Spinal Tap movie - the Birmingham heavy metal band Judas Priest, their sober off-duty clothes contrasting with their demonic stage gear, in a Nevada courtroom politely explaining their music. Those circumstances were that, in a Reno churchyard in 1985, two American teenagers carried out a shotgun suicide pact, allegedly urged on by hidden messages in the group's music. Ray Belknap died instantly, his friend James Vance survived but with his face blasted away. The grim picture that emerges from the interviews with those involved, including Vance, and the surreal court proceedings, reveals more about empty lives in middle America than it does about the pantomime art of Rob Halford, Judas Priest's singer.
The distinguished Ethiopian film-maker Haile Gerima journeys from his birthplace to Addis Ababa in the company of Ryszard Kapuscinski, a Polish writer who covered African affairs for 30 years on behalf of the Polish Press Agency, and whose book about Haile Selassie, The Emperor, forms a backcloth to their pilgrimage. Poland, Kapuscinski points out, "was also colonised", making his identification with Africa, and Ethiopia in particular, that much sharper. Africa is now on a difficult and often bloody journey from colonial rule to democracy, and it is Gerima's aim to explore this journey in the lives and words of ordinary people.
The peculiarly American delight in talking about oneself is taken to extremes as a series of self-confessed sex addicts bravely discuss this dominant aspect of their lives. Intellectual weight is provided by the author Hubert Selby Jr, who achieved fame and notoriety with Last Exit to Brooklyn. He justifies an obsession with sex as an escape from unhappiness: "Life becomes unbearable and people are always looking to get out of that pain." Among the nymphomaniacs and sado-masochists, the most touching contributions come from a hugely overweight woman who calmly recalls multiple rape - "They called me the Viking because I had such endurance" - before she became the star of such movie epics as Tons of Buns. The film is occasionally lightened by humour, as when the bondage enthusiast pulls an item from his bag of equipment: "That's my dog's collar - I don't know why it's in there!"
There are, no doubt, many schools in privileged parts of the world where one-to-one tuition and small-group seminars are the norm. Establishments where adolescents can offer intelligent thoughts on the different types of human love exemplified in King Lear, where feuding children have their problem judged by sympathetic mediators, and where the students are "made aware of their political citizenship, to give them the power to which they are entitled." The twist is that this film is about New York's Harlem, a black ghetto with a huge drugs problem and crime rate, where the school in Central Park East has a world-wide reputation for its exceptional work. As a pioneer of the fly-on-the-wall school of documentary, film-maker Frederick Wiseman 's technique is simply to observe, to let each conversation and incident run its natural course. The result is a uniquely detailed picture of a remarkable school at work.
Like the cast of an African version of The Last of the Summer Wine, three friends from the Niger pursue their dream of building a windmill to irrigate their arid land. Damoure, Lam and Tallou travel to Holland on a fact-finding mission, wobbling through the lowlands on borrowed bicycles, before returning to carry out their scheme on the banks of the River Niger. Film-maker Jean Rouch first met farmers Damoure and Lam in 1954, while making his film Jaguar, and nearly 40 years later it was his description of Dutch windmills that gave rise to this story. The final credits note that the film was "lived and improvised by" the cast, an acknowledgement that Rouch's documentary technique is closer to that of a feature film than the more familiar "fly-on-the- wall" approach.
Thousands of British families have been affected by the failure of a business in the 1990s. This film is a portrait of one such family, who lost not only a home and a marriage, but also their belief in themselves.
An examination of the case of condemned murderer Alan "AJ" Bannister. Tonight's film looks at the reactions of Bannister, his English wife and the rest of his family as the killer awaits execution in a Missouri jail.
In the first of two documentaries about Russia, Paul Pawlikowski goes on the campaign trail with nationalist politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky.
A tragi-comic film about Anna and Misha, a brother and sister who live with their farm animals.
Director Michael Grigsby's portrait of a Britain largely forgotten in the 1990s - the entertainers in social clubs, and the people they entertain.
An autobiographical documentary by film-maker Toichi Nakata recording his return to his strait-laced family in Japan, to tell them that he is unable to marry and fulfil his traditional role as eldest son by entering the family business. But he discovers that he is not the only member of his family with something to reveal.
This documentary by Barbet Schroeder was made with the dictator Idi Amin's full co-operation when he was at the height of his murderous powers in the seventies. It shows the then Ugandan president making his troops practise an invasion of Israel, and letting the camera into a cabinet meeting after which one of his ministers was murdered. Amin also defends Hitler, saying he was right to have killed six million Jews. This film portrait offers an insight into one of the most savage tyrannies of our time.
Since 1919, when Jack Dempsey fought Jess Willard in the first filmed world title fight, the faces of boxing's heavyweight champions have become among the most instantly recognisable in the sporting world. Their lives - colourful, glamorous, inescapably violent, impossibly opulent - have enjoyed universal public appeal throughout the years. Often, their influence has transcended the ring, and heavyweight boxers have been invested with a wider social and political significance. Joe Louis's one-round destruction of Max Schmeling in the 1930s was, for example, hailed as a triumph for American values over Nazi intolerance and oppression. And, more recently, the violently unpredictable behaviour of Mike Tyson prior to his incarceration for rape dominated news headlines.
Based on Simon Garfield's book of the same name, this programme examines how British attitudes towards disease and homosexuality were affected by Aids. Originally sold to the public as a pandemic affecting homosexuals and heterosexuals alike, by 1990 it had become apparent that the risk of infection was far higher for gay men. In a sad yet sometimes hilarious story of mutual misunderstanding, politicians, gay rights activists and campaigners describe the attitudes, from moral outrage and homophobia to a desire not to offend, that prevented the formulation of a policy that would protect those most at risk from Aids.
Basketball documentary featuring William Gates, Arthur Agee. Young blacks William and Arthur live in the poorest areas of Chicago, but they could have a route out of the ghetto - they are potential basketball stars. Filmed over five years, Hoop Dreams follows these two young American hopefuls through family crises and high school triumphs, on the road to glory or oblivion.
In 1969, film director Louis Malle made a documentary series in India for French television. When it was shown in Britain, under the title Louis Malle's India, it received great critical acclaim, but the government of India was outraged by its portrayal of life in India and relations between the two countries became strained. This new 90-minute version, compiled from archive material and remaining true to the original, is being shown as a tribute to the director, who died last month. Louis Malle once described the series as the work of which he was most proud. Twenty-five years later, he collaborated on this film with producer Colin Luke, who edited the original programmes for British transmission in 1970.
In 1991, the Jordans, whose family had farmed the land around Troublesome Creek in Iowa for more than 100 years, ran into problems over their operating loan. Self-confessed Western addict Russell Jordan and his wife Mary Jane were faced with selling all their possessions in a bid to stay afloat.
One of the most important films to date about 20th-century China, this is the story of the student occupation of Beijing's Tiananmen Square in 1989. Using television footage and home videos, the film examines in astonishing detail the motives of the students and the quarrels that erupted as they defied the Chinese government under the eyes of the world's media, until they were removed from the square with great brutality.
Is it possible that a person can have a traumatic sexual experience in childhood, lose all memory of it and, years later, recover that memory? Ofra Bikel's prize-winning film looks at the controversial phenomenon of repressed memory through the testimony of children, parents and psychotherapists.
Documentary providing an insight into the world of underground cartoonist Robert Crumb, creator of characters such as Fritz the Cat. Crumb's friend Terry Zwigoff, who directed the documentary, looks at the cartoonist's work, meets his eccentric family and explores the strange surroundings in which he grew up. This is an often shocking, sometimes horrifyingly intimate, portrait of an artist and his world.
A Fine Cut presentation of an autobiographical Australian film offering an explicit account of the love life of Robert Gibson , who directed wrote and edited the piece. Overten years he recorded every aspect of his life using a hand-held video camera.