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True Stories

True Stories Season 2011: Episode Guide & Ratings

Season 2011 Episodes

1. Rwanda After Genocide

January 4th, 20111 hr

Deborah Scranton's film looks at the 1994 genocide in Rwanda from both political and personal perspectives. In 2008, Rwandan President Paul Kagame released a report detailing France's hidden role in the genocide. Three months later, his closest aide, Rose Kabuye, was arrested in France on charges of terrorism. Jean Pierre Sagahutu is a genocide survivor haunted by his father's unsolved murder. Scouring the Rwandan countryside on a fifteen-year search for clues, he ultimately finds himself face-to-face with his father's killer. As Kagame fights to free Rose and expose the truth of what really happened and Sagahutu faces his father's killer, each finds himself faced with a choice: to enact vengeance or to turn the other cheek.

2. The Kids Grow Up

January 11th, 20111 hr

Doug Block's very personal film is about his only daughter Lucy. Block has spent much of his and Lucy's life filming their relationship and now, aged 17, she is just a year away from leaving home for college. Block had long mulled over incorporating the footage into a film about parenting but with Lucy's departure imminent, he realised the real subject was the emotionally charged period when children separate from their parents - and vice versa. The result is a funny, poignant account of learning to let go as Block braces himself for Lucy's departure and the looming empty nest.

3. The Nurture Room

January 18th, 20111 hr

True Stories continues with some of the most powerful and compelling documentary feature films from around the world. Filmed over a year, The Nurture Room follows three Glasgow primary school children on an incredible journey that will completely transform their lives. Nurture Rooms offer a bridge between home and school: a safe place where children can be children. In these small, special classrooms children can re-visit early 'nurturing' experiences that they missed or didn't get at home.

4. Contact in the Outback

January 25th, 20111 hr

Yuwali was 17 when her first contact with white men was filmed. In 1964, as part of a rocket-launching exercise, a native welfare patrol officer was checking that an area in Australia's Western Desert was not inhabited when he met Yuwali and 19 other Aboriginal women and children. They were from the Martu people, traditional nomadic herders. Confusingly, there were no men in their group, and the welfare officer could not speak their language. And they had to get out of the desert before the rockets were launched. The women and children were taken to Jigalong Mission. Yuwali is now 62 and still lives at Jigalong. This Sydney Film Festival award-winning True Stories film follows Yuwali as she returns to visit her homeland.

5. Britain's Supreme Court

February 8th, 20111 hr

This gripping, feature-length documentary charts the first year in the life of Britain's new Supreme Court - the highest court in the land. With unprecedented access the film meets the judges, lawyers and ordinary people whose cases will have a far-reaching effect on the everyday lives of others across the UK. For those bringing these high-profile cases to court there is a lot at stake, and the programme reveals their hopes and fears as they and their legal teams come face-to-face with the most powerful judges in the UK. The judges have allowed proceedings to be filmed and, uniquely, justice is seen unfolding as judges and lawyers - the finest legal minds in the country - debate key contemporary issues. See David and Goliath battles of individuals challenging the state, the outcomes of which help to define the nature of society today. True Stories commissions and showcases the best feature documentaries from around the world.

6. War Child

February 15th, 20111 hr

Following on from his 2010 Dispatches: Children of Gaza, Bafta Award-winning filmmaker Jezza Neumann provides a second shocking portrait of children living in the aftermath of war. On 27 December 2008, the Israeli Defence Force unleashed Operation Cast Lead in Gaza: a 22-day campaign to destroy the ability of Hamas to launch rockets and mortars into Israel. Over 1300 Palestinians were killed, many of them children. Surrounded by rubble and increasingly isolated by the blockade that prevents them from rebuilding their homes and their lives, many of the surviving children's lives have been irreversibly damaged by war. War Child gives a voice to a handful of them. True Stories commissions and showcases the best feature documentaries from around the world.

7. My Kidnapper

February 22nd, 20111 hr

In 2003, Mark Henderson was one of eight backpackers taken hostage while trekking in the Colombian jungle. What started as an innocent tourist adventure ended up as 101 terrifying days of captivity. Eleven months after his release Mark received an email from Antonio, one of his kidnappers. Another of the hostages, Reini from Germany, received a facebook friend request from Antonio's girlfriend, another of their captors. That email was the start of a five-year correspondence between hostage and kidnapper that eventually drew Mark back to the one part of the world he thought he'd never see again and face-to-face with the man who had once held the key to his freedom. This deeply personal, authored documentary follows Mark and three of his fellow hostages as they return to the Sierra Nevada mountains in northern Colombia: the place where they lived out their worst nightmares. As they travel deeper into the jungle, they discover the truth behind their kidnapping, come to understand how they all dealt with the ordeal and finally confront two of their kidnappers. My Kidnapper is an emotional journey into the heart of a kidnapping, told from all sides. True Stories commissions and showcases the best feature documentaries from around the world.

8. The Sound of Mumbai...

March 7th, 20111 hr

The Sound of Mumbai: A Musical tells the story of a slum school choir in Mumbai who performed a concert of songs from The Sound of Music with a full orchestra, before an audience of over 1,000 people. At the centre of the story is 11-year-old Ashish, whose wide smile and optimism defy his family's constricted slum shelter. He admits to lacking confidence as he copies out in his notebook 'I will not be self-conscious'. His natural charisma suggests that he could go far if given the right opportunity. Now he's tasked to perform a solo piece from The Sound of Music at Mumbai's National Centre for the Performing Arts, a venue that's normally inaccessible to the poor. He can't help but attach dreams to the event; he hopes to win the affections of an upper-class girl and inspire a patron to sponsor his education. With so many hopes riding on this single performance, the stakes are high for everyone. True Stories commissions and showcases the best feature documentaries from around the world.

9. Marilyn, the Last Session

March 15th, 20111 hr

Based on recordings and transcripts from psychoanalyst Ralph Greenson's sessions with Marilyn Monroe in the dark months prior to her controversial death in 1962, Marilyn, the Last Sessions tells the fascinating story of how the troubled star turned to Greenson, who attempted to aid and protect her but was later considered by many to be suspect. The film features rarely seen archive footage of Monroe, and those who surrounded her towards the end of her career, such as the Kennedys, Arthur Miller, John Huston and Truman Capote. True Stories commissions and showcases the best international feature documentaries.

10. Love, Lust and Lies

March 22nd, 20111 hr

Award-winning director Gillian Anderson has been following the lives of Josie, Diana and Kerry since 1976, when they were teenagers in suburban Australia. Love, Lust and Lies documents how their lives have changed in the last 35 years, from new relationships starting and breaking up with partners, to becoming mothers and grandmothers. The women reveal their stories and secrets with remarkable honesty as the film demonstrates how fascinating and complex 'ordinary' life can be.

All Seasons

Season 2013

Season 2013

Jan 16, 2013
Season 2012

Season 2012

Jan 19, 2012
Season 2011

Season 2011

Jan 4, 2011
Season 2010

Season 2010

Jan 5, 2010
Season 2009

Season 2009

Jan 7, 2008
Season 2008

Season 2008

Jan 1, 2008
Season 2007

Season 2007

Oct 2, 2007
Season 2001

Season 2001

Oct 8, 2001
Season 1991

Season 1991

Apr 4, 1991