(83 min; 2012; English)
Director: Michael House

The documentary tells the story of Somerset Maugham, the novelist, spy, playwright, physician and prolific writer, who took on the taboo subjects of adultery and sexual jealousy and breathed new life into the spy novel. Revealing Mr. Maugham also looks at the writer's personal struggles — including a stammer that Maugham developed as a child after his parents died.

(53 min; 2007; French with English subtitles)
Director: Luc Lagier

Documentary about director Jean-Luc Godard and Anna Karina. In 1960, Jean-Luc Godard films for the first time Anna Karina and falls in love. His cinema is transformed by it forever. From Little Soldier to Crazy Pete through A Woman is a Woman, My Life to Live and Alphaville, this documentary tells how, during five years , Godard and Karina consciously mixed cinema and private life, with constant will to film “as in true life” and to live “as in film”

A tribute to iconic filmmaker and pioneer of French New Wave, Jean Luc Godard (3 December 1930 – 13 September 2022)

(58 min; 2007; English/Portuguese)
Director: Simon Broughton

A BBC 4 European Roots series

Fado is Portuguese blues music and Mariza is its exotic new international star. She was born in Mozambique, has an African mother and Portuguese father and whether she sings in concert halls or intimate bars, her intensely emotional performances enthral audiences everywhere. Originating in Brazil, the story of fado mirrors the history of Portugal, including a 'lost' period in the early 20th Century when it was working-class and militant.

(93 min; 2007; English/Mandarin with English subtitles)
Director: Yung Chang

Multiple award winner including Cinema Eye Audience Choice Prize & Cinema Eye Honors Award, Cinema Eye Honors Awards, USA 2009; Genie Award for Best Documentary, Genie Awards 2009; Golden Horse Award for Best Documentary, Golden Horse Film Festival 2008; Golden Gate Award for Documentary Feature, San Francisco International Film Festival 2008; among others

Yung Chang is a Canadian director whose grandparents came from China, and his witty, lovely and profoundly unsettling documentary Up the Yangtze takes him back to the legendary river of his grandfather's homeland, now transformed beyond recognition. Set on a riverboat cruise, the film follows 16-year-old Cindy, who comes from a poor family living on the banks of the river, and Jerry, who is from a more prosperous family. Cindy’s story contrast her simple village life with the lives of fellow travellers who live in a consumer economy and have been exposed to new technology. Jerry meanwhile tries to earn money for himself and his family by working as a porter and singer. 

(50 min; 2009; French/English and with English subtitles)
A BBC Four Production
Narrated by Susannah York

Profile of the perennially influential fashion designer Gabrielle 'Coco' Chanel, who devoted her life to becoming the symbol of chic and the style of France. But behind her image she hid a secret past as a nightclub singer, mistress and spy.

A six part BBC series with Michael Mosley who takes an informative and ambitious journey exploring how the evolution of scientific understanding is intimately interwoven with society's historical path.

Episode 5: What Is The Secret of Life? (60 min) | Click here to watch
Director: Giles Harrison

The story of how the secret of life has been examined through the prism of the most complex organism known - the human body. It begins with attempts to save the lives of gladiators in Ancient Rome, unfolds with the macabre work and near-perfect drawings of Leonardo in the Renaissance, through the idea of the 'life force' of electricity, to the microscopic world of the cell. It reveals how a moral crisis unleashed by work on the nuclear bomb helped trigger a great breakthrough in biology - understanding the structure and workings of DNA.

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6qazn8

(92 min; 2016; English and with English subtitles)
Directors: Bob Hercules, Rita Coburn Whack

A BBC One Imagine production
Presented by Alan Yentob

Multiple award winner including Audience Award for Feature Documentary, AFI Docs Festival 2016; Feature Film Award for Best International Documentary, Galway Film Fleadh 2016; Festival Prize, Best Documentary, Black Film Festival Montreal 2016; Audience Award for Feature Film, Milwaukee Film Festival 2016; Peabody Award Winner 2018; among others

Maya Angelou was born into a world that barely valued her at all, but her death in 2014, at the age of 86, occasioned worldwide mourning. A poet, playwright, author, dancer, singer, actor, film director and political activist, she transcended everybody's expectations of what a poor black girl from St Louis could become. Bob Hercules and Rita Coburn Whack's in-depth documentary charts the full course of her life and includes extensive interview footage with the great woman herself.