Storyville - Season 27 / Year 2023

Three minutes of footage is all that remains of the Jewish community of Nasielsk, Poland, filmed in 1938 by photographer David Kurtz. This Storyville documentary unravels the tales hidden within the celluloid, including insights from the film-maker's grandson and a boy who appears in the faded footage – one of the few survivors of the decimated village.

Kurtz's footage was made available courtesy of the Steven Spielberg Film and Video Archive in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

In the 1950s and 60s, deep in the American countryside at the foot of the Catskill mountains, there was a small wooden house with a barn behind it called Casa Susanna, a holiday home for one of the first clandestine networks of cross-dressers in the US.

Back then, Diane and Kate used to enjoy weekend visits to the house with their wives and friends. Now in their 80s, Diane and Kate tell a forgotten chapter of some of the early days of trans identity.

A Storyville documentary that investigates a powerful and terrifying spyware called Pegasus, sold to governments around the world by Israeli company NSO Group and used on journalists, activists and others, including both the wife and fiancée of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi.

Despite the huge risks, two Russian film-makers have been filming the impact of the invasion of Ukraine in their country. Many thousands have fled. Those that have stayed have had to make a choice – oppose the war, support it, or stay silent.

A Storyville documentary that explores the process of creating sex scenes in Hollywood, the toll on those involved in filming them, and the impact such images have on women and girls in the real world.

The film features candid interviews with actors and creators, including Jane Fonda, Rosanna Arquette, Joey Soloway, Angela Robinson, Karyn Kusama, Rose McGowan, Alexandra Billings, Emily Meade and David Simon, and highlights the voices of women who have spoken out against abusive behaviour on set and were punished for it.

From living with incurable bowel cancer, to receiving a damehood, to her untimely death, this archive-based feature documentary details the extraordinary last five years of cancer campaigner Deborah James's life.

Known by many as her online persona Bowelbabe, the former deputy head teacher amassed a huge social media following. Filmed with Deborah in the last months of her life, with access to her personal and family archive, she talks frankly about her diagnosis and treatment, and shares many personal moments. The film is told by Deborah herself whilst she dances and records what living with bowel cancer was really like for her and those closest to her.

A Storyville documentary about two women who fall in love in the Ravensbrück concentration camp.

A Storyville documentary about the violent five-day standoff between inmates and law enforcement which gripped America in 1971.

Storyville documentary in which UK artist and film-maker Lisa Selby turns the camera on herself as she tries to understand relationships with her late mother and her partner, both heroin addicts.

The film won the audience award at the 2022 London International Film Festival.

Extraordinary film based in the Breslov Hasidic community in Yavniel, Israel.

The community was founded in the 1980s and led by charismatic leader Rabbi Schick, also known as Mohorosh, who was based in Brooklyn, New York. A controversial figure, Mohorosh welcomed 'repentant' Jews who were seeking a sense of community in Yavniel. These could be Jewish people who had lost their faith, committed crimes or simply wanted to live a Breslov Hasidic life with Mohorosh as their spiritual leader.

With a school, a kindergarten, a synagogue, a huge kitchen where the community could eat together and houses built by the community themselves, it was funded by selling holy books and fundraising, and led spiritually by Mohorosh, who largely remained in Brooklyn. However, when Mohorosh died, it emerged that he had left two wills – one leaving leadership of the community and a huge fortune to his son Moishi, and the other benefiting a group of self-selected community leaders.

As a huge fight over his inheritance rages and the community is left without their spiritual leader, stories begin to emerge of a hidden criminal organisation which was extorting millions of dollars, as well as violence, sexual abuse and underage marriages.

Moishi and a number of survivors decided to break the silence, to leave the community and to tell this extraordinary story to director Bat-dor Ojalvo, who spent years earning their trust. Uniquely, she also gained access to some of the community who continue to live according to Mohorosh's teachings.

With incredible archive and home movies from Yavniel, the film was shot in both Yavniel and Brooklyn.

When the Taliban returned to power in 2021, the lives and destinies of two young Afghani women, Raha and Marwa, are changed forever.

Inside Kabul is an animated film based on the voice notes that Raha and Marwa exchanged in the months that followed.

Raha chose to stay in Kabul, where she is confronted with the violence of the regime, the sudden change in what ordinary people, especially women, are allowed to do and the crisis into which the country gradually sinks.

Marwa leaves with her husband just in time and finds herself in a refugee camp in Abu Dhabi, waiting and waiting to be welcomed to another country.

A Storyville documentary looking at the history of grime as a product of social unrest, urban culture and disenfranchised youth in the UK during the early 2000s.

A Storyville documentary exploring the true impact of artificial intelligence on the world.

A Storyville documentary. Brave account of how the Jewish National Fund acquired land in Palestine before and after the creation of the State of Israel.

A Storyville documentary following two identical twins in their twentieth year together. Benjamin and Joshua confront the limits imposed on them by their learning disability.

A Storyville documentary that investigates allegations against the Afghan police of abuse in Helmand province in the aftermath of the war in Afghanistan.

A Storyville documentary telling the story of Tanja Nijmeijer, the former teacher who became a member of the Colombian FARC rebel group.

A Storyville documentary that shows London from an exhilarating perspective. A group of young people express themselves through biking as an alternative to gang culture.

A Storyville documentary that follows the fierce sporting rivalry between the two best teams, England and France, and their journeys in the 2021 Wheelchair Rugby League World Cup.

Twenty-five years ago, Viagra kick-started the second sexual revolution and a controversy unlike any drug before it. From Wales to New York, this is the big story of the little blue pill.

A Storyville documentary that goes behind the scenes of the International Chopin Piano Competition, one of the most prestigious competitions in classical music.

A Storyville documentary in which the landscapes of Norway provide the backdrop for this immersive story of a family whose lives are linked intrinsically to their environment.