BBC REVEALS STORYVILLE SPRING SLATE OF DOCUMENTARIES

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

Praying for Armageddon

Praying for Armageddon is a political thriller that explores the power and influence of American Evangelical Christians, as they aim to fulfil the Armageddon prophecy. 

The film embeds with American believers as they prepare for what they call, ‘The Holy War’ and exposes the powerful mega-church pastors who call for the 'final battle' that they believe will trigger the Second Coming of Christ.  

The Gullspång Miracle: A Nordic Mystery 

When two sisters buy an apartment in the small Swedish town of Gullspång, they experience their own divine premonition.  To their surprise, the seller is identical to their older sister who died by suicide 30 years earlier.  

What begins as an eerie story of family reunification, soon becomes a Pandora's Box as all three women's lives spiral out of control in this real life Nordic mystery.

Dalton’s Dream

In 2018, Jamaican national Dalton Harris won the X-Factor and became the first non-British black singer to win the final series of the UK’s biggest TV singing competition.

Shot over four years, Dalton’s Dream charts a tumultuous period in the young musician’s life from his traumatic upbringing in rural Jamaica to his journey to the X-Factor final.  Dalton won a lucrative record deal that promised to transform his life but the subsequent challenge to build on his success, embrace his identity in the face of prejudice both at home and in his adopted country - are documented in this intimate film about desire and ambition.

Against The Tide 

Indian fishermen, Rakesh and Ganesh are Kolis, from the ancient indigenous fishing community of Mumbai.  Rakesh inherited a boat and his fishing knowledge from his father.  Rakesh casts his nets in the creeks and shallow waters of the sea and his catch is small but he manages to sustain his family of his mother, his wife and their small baby.

Rakesh’s best friend Ganesh is from a wealthier Koli family and obtained a degree in finance from Scotland before returning to Mumbai to run a commercial fishing boat with a crew.  

When bigger players use illegal fluorescent lights to catch bigger hauls deep-sea fishing, Ganesh borrows money to buy florescent lights, a bigger crew and heads off on a deep-sea fishing trip.

COPA ’71: The Lost Lionesses

In August 1971, football teams from England, Argentina, Mexico, France, Denmark and Italy gathered in Mexico City for a watershed tournament.  With lavish sponsorship, extensive TV coverage, merchandise on every street corner and over 100,000 roaring fans at the historic Azteca stadium, media outlets treated the players like rock stars.

Despite being one of the most ground-breaking moments in footballing history, most people have never heard of it - because the players were all women.

Flee 

This Oscar nominated mostly animated documentary charts the extraordinary tale of the desperate lengths a gay Afghan man was forced to go to escape persecution.  Amin Nawabi (not his real name) was born in Kabul, Afghanistan.  As a child, he was unafraid of wearing his sister's dress to run through the streets but when the Mujahideen took over, Amin was forced to flee. 

Bad Press

In 2018, out of 574 federally recognised tribes, the Muscogee Nation (the fourth largest Native American tribe) was one of only five to establish a free and independent press - until the tribe's legislative branch abruptly repealed the landmark Free Press Act in advance of an election.

The tribe's hard-hitting news outlet, Mvskoke Media, would now be subject to direct editorial oversight by the tribal government.  One defiant Musgogee journalist refuses to accept this flagrant act of oppression.  As brave as she is blunt, Angel Ellis battles against the corrupt faction of the Muscogee National Council.  Angel and her allies rally for press freedoms by inciting a voter-supported constitutional amendment, just in time for the start of a new election.

Inheriting The Castle 

Justina, an indigenous Argentinian, has been rewarded by her former employer for her lifelong work as her maid with an enormous crumbling mansion deep in the Argentinian Pampa.  The only condition is that she can never sell it.  Justina, aged 60, and her lesbian daughter Alexia, aged 20, move from the city to this desolate paradise where they eke out a living.

With echoes of the 1975 US documentary ‘Grey Gardens’ by the Maysles Brothers, this film is a hugely atmospheric and hopeful portrait of a supportive mother and daughter whose lives have been shaped by their class and indigenous identities in a Europeanised Argentinian society.