BBC STORYVILLE UNVEILS WINTER FACTUAL SLATE FOR 2026

The BBC’s award-winning strand showcasing the very best in international documentaries announced a new slate of films to be shown from February 2026 on BBC Four and iPlayer.

THE DARKEST WEB

For US agent Greg Squire and an international network of undercover officers, the mission is clear and unwavering: to penetrate the most hidden corners of the internet and stop those who exploit and harm children.

Operating across borders, cultures and political divides, this rare collaboration sees law enforcement agencies from countries including Russia and the United States working side by side. Filmed over several years, this powerful investigation offers unprecedented access to one of the most challenging areas of modern policing.

As officers track offenders in digital spaces designed to evade detection, the film reveals not only the scale of the crimes involved, but the resilience, determination and moral clarity of those committed to bringing perpetrators to justice. Storyville: The Darkest Web is a sobering yet hopeful portrait of courage confronting cruelty and offers an unparalleled insight into one of the toughest but most important jobs in global policing today.

REBUILDING BUCHA

Years after Russian occupation, the scars of war still shape daily life in Bucha, Ukraine. War crimes linger in the memory of those who live there and in the landscape itself, yet amid the devastation, residents find ways to endure. Children rehearse school plays, widows rebuild damaged homes, couples marry, and soldiers prepare to return to the front, uncertain if they will ever come back.

Following their acclaimed 2022 film When Spring Came to Bucha, filmmakers Mila Teshaieva and Marcus Lenz return to the city to document its fragile recovery.

Through an intimate tapestry of lives, Storyville: Rebuilding Bucha captures a community suspended between grief and hope, bound together by resilience and a longing for peace in the face of ongoing uncertainty.

MISTRESS DISPELLER

When her marriage reaches breaking point, a woman in China turns to an unusual solution: hiring a professional “mistress dispeller” to infiltrate her husband’s affair and dismantle it from within. With remarkable intimacy, Storyville: Mistress Dispeller follows the emotional fault lines of a real love triangle as it unfolds.

In contemporary China, a discreet new industry has emerged to preserve marriages threatened by infidelity. Wang Zhenxi is one of its practitioners, employing patience, persuasion and psychological insight to restore fractured relationships. Gaining rare access to private worlds normally hidden from view, this fascinating film offers a revealing portrait of love, loyalty and the social pressures shaping modern Chinese family life.

RED LIGHT TO LIMELIGHT

In the red-light district of Kolkata, a group of women reclaim their voices through the power of storytelling. Given unprecedented access, this film follows Rabin, Bilkis, Afsara and other sex-working mothers who navigate the narrow lanes of Kalighat, an area operating as an independent brothel district.

Together, they form their own grassroots film collective, producing and uploading videos to YouTube that reflect the realities and challenges of their community. Through creativity, solidarity and hope, they confront stigma, resist local vested interests and imagine a different future - one where young girls can escape the cycle of exploitation through skills, education and joy. Storyville: Red Light To Limelight is an immersive and emotionally resonant portrait of courage and self-determination.

PORTRAIT OF A CONFUSED FATHER

Filmed over more than 20 years, this deeply personal documentary charts an extraordinary father–son relationship that takes an unexpected and tragic turn. Norwegian filmmaker Gunnar Hall Jensen has spent decades documenting his son Jonathan’s journey from childhood ambition to adulthood, capturing his confidence and desire to conquer the world.

As Jonathan grows older, however, the emotional distance between them widens. Gunnar does what he knows best to remain close: he films, he talks, and he tries to understand. When Jonathan becomes drawn into the seductive promises of social media influence, easy success and hyper-masculine ideals, the consequences are profound. The result is an intimate self-portrait of a father grappling with love, loss and the limits of understanding.

KHARTOUM

Five lives. One city. A nation in turmoil and at war. Set against the backdrop of conflict in Sudan, Storyville: Khartoum weaves together the stories of a civil servant, a tea seller, a resistance committee volunteer and two street boys, each searching for freedom amid revolution and war.

Created through close collaboration with its central characters, the film blends documentary storytelling with animation, dreams and street-level activism. This innovative, collectively authored work offers a rare and authentic account of what it has meant to live through Sudan’s recent upheavals, capturing both the brutality of conflict and the enduring human desire for dignity and change.

THREE DADS AND A BABY

This intimate and pioneering documentary explores a three-way relationship and a radically different approach to fatherhood. In Norway, trans people were subjected to forced sterilisation between 1979 and 2016. Kris, who has always wanted to be a father, refuses to let that injustice define his future.

Alongside Sindre, David and their extended families, Kris embarks on a journey that challenges traditional models of family and parenthood. Set against a wider fight for recognition and rights, Storyville: Three Dads And A Baby is a moving portrait of love, resilience and the determination to create new possibilities for family life.

ANDRE IS AN IDIOT

André is dying but he is determined to do so with humour, curiosity and defiance. After skipping a routine colonoscopy, André receives a terminal diagnosis that sends him on an unexpected journey: learning how to die happily, and absurdly, without losing his sense of self.

Brilliantly irreverent and deeply moving, Storyville: Andr é Is An Idiot follows André as he confronts mortality head-on, asking difficult questions with wit and honesty. His refusal to surrender joy, even in the face of death, results in a life-affirming exploration of what it means to live well until the very end.

SPEECHLESS

This bold, unflinching 2 x 90 documentary series examines how universities became ground zero in a widening conflict over language, identity, and power - and what’s at stake when debate itself becomes dangerous.

In 2017, Emmy-award winning filmmaker Ric Esther Bienstock set out to investigate campus free speech controversies and uncovered an ideological battle reshaping universities. The resulting eight-year cinematic journey follows the conflict from lecture halls to protest lines, to witness a generational struggle over truth, power, and who gets to speak.

With secret recordings, insider testimony, and rare intimate access to professors, administrators and students Storyville: Speechless pulls viewers inside the high-stakes confrontations at Harvard, Yale, Cornell, Sussex, Evergreen State, New College of Florida, and Penn State. Blending verité, raw protest footage, viral TikToks, archive, pop culture, and animation, the film creates a vivid charged portrait of a system under pressure.

Transmission details will be announced in due course.