Extracting the BBC Genome:
Storyville.



Film Storyville is one of the BBC's primary documentary strands, co-funding and licensing non-fiction films from a range of sources under the guiding hand of producer Nick Fraser. Beginning on BBC Two in 1997 and now well embedded onto BBC Four, it's become a valid alternative to the televisual storytelling of the dominant form of presenter led and talking heads documentary, although obviously includes examples of both.

Between 1997 and 2002, Storyville was just on BBC Two.  Then for the opening months of 2002 it was exclusively on BBC Knowledge and when that closed shifted to BBC Four before eventually sharing between Two and Four, the former carrying the prestige, usually theatrical releases and repeats in a late night BBC Four on BBC Two slot after Newsnight and later.

As with Close-Up, I've often wondered which films were included in the strand across time and thanks to the BBC Genome that information is now readily available, so I decided to make a list.

Which isn't to to say there aren't other similar lists already. But the TVDB is pretty inconsistent and incomplete for much of the time. The Wikipedia covers the period beyond the Genome, as does obviously the BBC Programme page which began gathering scheduling information some time in 2007.

There isn't anything I can find which goes back as far as 1997 when the strand began.

Until now.

Which isn't to say this list will be perfect.  Obviously.

Firstly, I've left out transmission dates and descriptions.  For the purposes of this exercise I'm not sure how useful they are.  But if that is important for the purposes of your exercise, you should be able to find that information by copy/pasting the title into the Genome search box, along with the word Storyville if necessary.

There may also be omissions.  My process was to search for "Storyville" on the Genome and rekey the results.  If it wasn't designated as a Storyville broadcast on the listing pages of the Radio Times, it won't be here.

The Wikipedia, for example, has Winged Migration as a Storyville entry, as does Box of Broadcasts (so would have been listed as such on the Freeview EPG at some point, even though the Genome doesn't mention it so that information wasn't in the Radio Times listing and it has its own BBC programme page (but also this stubby page on BBC News where it is caption as Storyville).

Do let me know if I've missed anything.

I've ignored duplicate broadcasts too.  Some of them have been repeated dozens of times.  Paris Brothel.

Also, I've added director surnames in brackets where that information is available in the Genome which tends to be when the film was broadcast on BBC Two, for which entries were longer due to the position of the listing in the Radio Times.  Only post digital switchover did BBC Four's listings really become as detailed as the so-called main channels.

So the best I can say is that this list is largely accurate, I think.  I have only included the programmes listed in the Genome, which ends at the end 2009, so if you are interested in what happened after that you'll also have to consult the BBC programme pages or the Wikipedia.




1997

Little Dieter Needs to Fly (Herzog)
Nobody's Business (Berliner)
Wednesday (Kossakovsky)
Naughty Boy (Jensen)
Paradise Lost (Berlinger & Sinofsky)

1998

East Side Story (Ranga)
When We Were Kings (Gast, 1996)
Kurt and Courtney (Broomfield, 1997)
Don't Look Back (Pennebaker, 1967)
444 Days (Woodhead)
Year of the Dogs (Cordell)
Wako: the Rules of Engagement (Gazechi)
Gigi, Monica and Bianca (Abdehaoui & Dervaux)
Moon Over Broadway (Hegedus & Pennebaker)

1999

A Small Town in Poland (Marzynski)
Resurrection (Stenderup)
Fragments: Jerusalem (Havilio)
Photographer (Jablonski)
I Was A Slave Labourer (Holland)
An American Love Story: Welcome To America (Fox)
An American Love Story: I've Fallen and I Can't Get Up (Fox)
An American Love Story: It's Another New Year and I Ain't Gone (Fox)
An American Love Story: Chaney and the Boy (Fox)
An American Love Story: True Love (Fox)
An American Love Story: It's My Job (Fox)
An American Love Story: We Were Never Ozzie and Harriet (Fox)
Hitman Hart: Wrestling With Shadows (Jay)
A Cry from the Grave (Woodhead)
Grey Gardens (Maysies & Maysies, 1976)
Out of Phoenix Bridge (Hong)

2000

The Last Cigarette (Rafferty)
My Best Fiend (Herzog)
Genocide, the Judgement (Christoffersen)
One Day in September (Macdonald, 1999)
Norman Mailer - Oh My America: Farewell to the Fifties (Copans & Neumann)
Norman Mailer - Oh My America: Beyond the Revolution (Copans & Neumann)
Donald and Luba (Boyd)

2001

I Loved You (Kossakovsky)
Black and White in Colour (Erdevicki-Charap)
The Sweetest Sound (Berliner)
Fashion Victim - Killing of Gianni Versace (Kent)

2002

The Last Cigarette
Closing Down (Rossetto)
Three Salons at the Seaside
Rats in the Ranks
Baria's Big Wedding
George Wallace - Settin' the Woods on Fire: Part 1
George Wallace - Settin' the Woods on Fire: Part 2
First Contact
Black Harvest
Marlene
Cod Wars
Startup.com
Southern Comfort
Chain Camera (Dick)
My Sperm-Donor Dad
The Tour (Alexandowicz)
Down from the Mountain (Pennebaker, Doob & Hegedus)
More Sex Please, We're Scandinavian (Jensen & Beckendorff)
Town Bloody Hall (Pennebaker & Hegedus)
The War Room (Pennebaker & Hegedus)
Startup.com (Pennebaker & Hegedus)
Deliver Us From Evil
A Cry from the Grave
Carle Del Ponte
Much Ado About Something
Who Is Bernard Tapie? (Zenovich)
This Is Palestine (El-Hassan)
The Settlers (Walk)
Pie In The Sky (Fremont & Fremont)
Nico Icon (Ofteringer)
The Game of Their Lives
Ajax
Gods of Brazil
Picasso Days
The Gugulethu Seven
Meeting My Daughter (Heurlin)
The Unquiet Peace (Danziger)
The Jazzman from the Gulag (Salfati)
More than a Life (Holland)
Greedy in Thailand (Vasselin)
Robots Are Us (Salfati)
Domestic Violence (Wiseman)
Life and Debt in Jamaica
Cod Wars
Dark Days
Shadowplay
The Cuban Game (Cuenca)
Sincerely Yours (Phakathi)
Loius Mate's India (Mate)
See What Happens
Cry for Argentina
Kabul ER
Scottsboro
Muhammad Ali - the Greatest
Ghosts of Attica (Lichtenstein)
Last Party 2000 (Hoffman)
Journeys with George (Pelosi)
The Great War: The Somme (1964)
My Terrorist (Cohen-Gerstel)
Simon and I
Milosevic: How to Be a Dictator
Cool and Crazy (Jensen)

2003

Family (Saif)
A Texan Murder in Black and White
Buddhism: Wheel of Time
The Smith Family
Chavez, Inside the Coup
Waco, the Rules of Engagement
Robert Capa: In Love and War
Clusterbomb Footprints
Russia from My Window
Paris Brothel
The Man with an Opera House in his Living Room
Somewhere Better (Erdevicki)
Remember the Family
Cerro Rico: the Mountain that Eats Men
Seabiscuit
Live Forever (Dower)
Etre et Avoir (Philibert, 2002)
Gimme Some Truth
Morning Sun (Gordon & Hinton)
My life as a Spy (Woodhead)
To Live Is Better than to Die
Stevle (James)
Junoon: the Rock Star and the Mullahs

2004

I Am Trying to Break Your Heart (Jones)
The Crockettes
Power Trip (Devlin)
Congo: White King, Red Rubber, Black Death (Bate)
My Louis Armstrong Years (Kounda)
The Weather Underground (Green & Siegel)
War Feels Like War
The New Americans (5 eps)
Nelson Mandela Accused #1
Sophiatown
The Guguletu Seven
Comandante (Stone)
Condor: the First War on Terror
Germany: behind the Wall
The House of Saud
Army of One (Goodman)
Death at the Crossroads
Israel's Generals: Dayan
Israel's Generals: Rabin
Israel's Generals: Sharon
Trembling Before God
Gay Dads Paternal
Love and Diane
Standing In the Shadows of Motown
Marcel Ophuls: the Memory Hunter
Who Am I Now? (McDonald)
Games in Athens
The Importance of Being Elegant (Amponsah and Spender)
Game Over: Kasparov and the Machine
Control Room
The Fight
The Beauty Academy of Kabul (Mermin)
Christ Comes to the Papuans
The Curse of Oil
Parallel Lines
See You in the Future
Conrad Black: the Last Press Baron
RFK
Jesus Christ and George Bush
India: Final Solution
My Land Zion
Stones in the Park
Songs from The Producers

2005

Death on the Staircase (4 eps)
Citizen King
Prisoner of Paradise
The Liberace of Baghdad
Made In China
Barca: the Inside Story
The Natural History of the Chicken
Before the Flood: Tuvalu
Why We Fight
Another Road Home (Elon)
Life on the Tracks
McLibel
Dr Goebbels Speaks
Blind Spot: Hitler's Secretary
The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S McNamara (Morris, 2003)
Lost in La Mancha (Futton and Pepe, 2002)
Chairman George: to Beijing via Athens
French Beauty (Lamche)
Excellent Cadavers - a Story
Me and My 51 Brothers & Sisters
A Cry from the Grave
Srebrenica: Never Again?
Small Pain For Glory
Death on the Staircase
Shake Hands with the Devil
Cod Wars
Guerrilla: the Taking of Patty Hearst (Stone, 2004)
The Wild Blue Yonder (Herzog)
The White Diamond (Herzog)
A Very English Village (Holland) (4 eps)
Peace One Day
Sitting for Parliament (Davis)
The Last Waltz (Scorsese)
The 50 Years War: Israel and the Arabs
The Wonderful World of Dogs
Liberia: an Uncivil War
The Standard of Perfection: Show Cats
Animaliclous
Little Dieter Needs to Fly
The Standard of Perfection:Show Cattle
How Vietnam Was Lost
Sir! No Sir! The GI Revolt
Cane Toads
The Fall of Fujimori
Jungle Magic
Kinsey
Standards of Perfection:Show Cats
Darwin's Nightmare
Our Brand Is Crisis

2006

Rat
The Smell of Paradise
My Architect
Born into Brothels: Calcutta's Red Light Kids
The Fine Art of Whistling
Hollywood and the Holocaust
Bus 174
Berlusconi Rules OK! - Viva Zapatero
Shakespeare behind Bars
Philip and His Seven Wives
Gangs of Medellin
The Pipeline Next Door
Tarnation (Caouette)
Sunny Intervals and Showers
A Company of Soldiers
Albert Maysles - the Poetic Eye
Overnight (Montana)
Riot On!
Behind the Couch
My Life as a Spy
What Remains
Abel Raises Cain
Prostitution behind the Veil
The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On
Hammer and Tickle
The Prisoner, or How I Planned to Kill Tony Blair
Orthodykes
Street Fight
The Russian Newspaper Murders
The American Ruling Class
The Team
37 Uses for a Dead Sheep
When the Levees Broke

2007

Blog Wars
Vision Man
Diameter of the Bomb
Godless In America
Milosevic on Trial
So Much So Fast
New York Doll
Al Franken - God Spoke
Abduction
Screamers
A Story of People in War and Peace
Cuba! Africa! Revolution!
Oswald's Ghost
How Much Is Your Life Worth?
Black Sun
You Must Be Number One - Shanghai Circus School
Laughing with Hitler
Office Tigers (2 eps)
Kike like Me
Once in a Lifetime: the Extraordinary Story of the New York Cosmos
Every Good Marriage Begins with Tears
TV Junkie
Andrew and Jeremy Get Married (Boyd)
The Glow of White Women
This Film is Not Yet Rated
The Undertaking
Iraq in Fragments
Belgrade Radio Warriors
Gimme Shelter
The Madrid Connection
Mr Vig and the Nun

2008

Stranded! The Andes Plane Crash Survivors (Heller)
Jonestown: the World's Biggest Mass Suicide (Nelson, Smith and Walker)
The Devil Came on Horseback (Stern & Sundberg)
The Polish Ambulance Murders
Orthodox Stance
Blue Blood
Very Russian Geniuses: My Class
Dance with a Serial Killer
Tito's Ghost
Dolce Vita Africana
Somebody Has to Live - the Journey of Ariel Dorfman
All White in Barking (Isaacs)
The English Surgeon
My Secret Agent Auntie (Collingridge)
The Battle for Jerusalem
My Israel
Flipping Out: Israel's Drug Generation
Bob Dylan's Indian Birthday
The Bonzos
The Biggest Chinese Restaurant in the World (4 eps)
Death of a Wag
The Father, the Son and the Housekeeper
The Chuck Show
The Burning Season
Flying: Confessions of a Free Woman (2 eps)
1968
The Day after Peace (Gilley)
Dirty Tricks: the Man Who Got the Bushes Elected
Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired
Shot in Bombay
When Borat Came to Town
Operation Film-maker
Prodigal Sons
I'm Not Dead Yet
Please Vote for Me

2009

Blast!
Wild Art - Oily and Suzi Paint Predators
Heavy Load
Ghosts of the 7th Cavalry
Maradona - in the Hands of the Gods
Bulletproof Salesman
The Children's Ward
Hammer and Tickle
The Kawasaki Candidate
The Jazz Baroness
Up for Debate -Team Qatar
The Baby and the Buddha
The Jew Who Dealt with the Nazis
The Genius and the Boys
Blind Sight - Everest the Hard Way
Angels of Rio
The Trials of Oppenheimer
The Time of Their Lives
How The Beatles Rocked the Kremlin
Napoli: City of the Damned
Men of the City
War Heroes: Section 60 Arlington Cemetery
Hi Society - the Wonderful World of Nicky Haslam
The Horse Boy
Simon Mann's African Coup - Black Beach

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