Republic of Virtue • 2010 • episode "S1E5" • Ancient Worlds

104:23

A suspenseful, immersive look at the lengths to which people will go to gain freedom. The film follows various individuals as they attempt to flee North Korea, one of the most oppressive places on earth and a land they grew up believing was a paradise. At the film's core are a mother desperate to reunite with the child she was forced to leave behind; a family of five - including small children and an elderly grandmother - embarking on a treacherous journey across the Yalu River and into the hostile mountains of China; and a South Korean Christian pastor on a mission to help them. Leaving their homeland is fraught with danger - severe punishment if caught and possibly even execution - as well as potential exploitation by unscrupulous brokers. Family members who remain behind may also face retribution. Yet these individuals are driven to take the risk. Gripping, visceral and urgent, Madeleine Gavin's film embeds the viewer with these family members as they attempt their perilous escape, palpably conveying life-or-death stakes.

2024 • History

59:13

Actor Paul McGann discovers how fears of moral and imperial decline terrified 1890s Britain - informing the daring plays of Oscar Wilde and the fantastical stories of HG Wells.

S1E2 • Victorian Sensations • 2019 • History

44:55

Episode five tells how, after 1916 and the hell of the Somme and Verdun, the imperial powers redoubled their efforts to crush their enemies.

S01E05 • The Great War in Numbers • 2017 • History

52:00

1917. People have had enough of the war. Behind the scenes, uprisings are brewing, like the one that toppled the Tsar in Russia; on the front soldiers begin to mutiny as they did at Chemin des Dames in France. German submarine attacks in the Atlantic will finally pull the Americans into the war, but they arrive too late to help prevent the carnage of the Battle of Passchendaele.

S1E4 • Apocalypse: World War 1 • 2014 • History

66:09

On the 19 November 1945, the International Military Tribunal was opened in the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg, Germany. The city, which had seen the rise of the Nazi Party was, in the eyes of the allies, the perfect location to host its demise. The first of the Nuremberg trials was to be the biggest murder trial in human history, with 21 Nazi leaders appearing before the court charged with the deaths of millions of innocent people during the Holocaust of WWII. These were no ordinary criminals; they represented the very foundation of Nazi ideology that had instigated the most ferocious genocide the world had ever seen. With judges and prosecutors from the US, the UK, the USSR and France, the trials were the allies' collective condemnation of Nazi Germany and the atrocities committed in pursuit of their ideology. The decisions made at Nuremberg had implications not only for the accused, but for the very foundation of modern international criminal law. Now, 75 years on, audiences are provided with an immersive look at the event that has become synonymous with the birth of contemporary human rights in the 2020 documentary, The World’s Biggest Murder Trial: Nuremberg. This feature-length documentary provides a detailed account of the events and implications of the trials, featuring more than 1000 archive clips, including recently digitised film footage from the courtroom itself. Whilst 90 minutes seems incredibly brief considering the enormity of the trials, the documentary's constant and unwavering focus on the courtroom, and the horrors it uncovered, suggest any longer might be too harrowing to bear. It is a decision that serves to amplify the inhumanity of the accusations, the apparent indifference of the accused, and the desperate desire for justice in the aftermath of such a dehumanising period of history. The sheer enormity of the task that faced the judges and prosecutors is evident from the moment each of the accused ascends from deep beneath the palace and enters the dock. Convicting a single alleged murderer is one thing, but a murder trial with an estimated 12 million victims is a an almost incomprehensible undertaking, even in a modern context. The cinematic quality of the footage captures every moment in extraordinary detail, from the disturbing cold-bloodedness of the Third Reich leaders as they openly snigger at translation errors throughout the trial, to the accounts of survivors, who witnessed the terror of their actions first hand. With the benefit of hindsight, their crimes seem indisputable; however the documentary proves that there is no conviction without proof, and the trials themselves were not without controversy. The convictions were based on concepts barely understood, laws not yet formalised, and many believed the process served as a political judgement rather than a transformative moment in international law. Despite the criticisms surrounding them, there is no denying that the greatest legacy of the trials is the role they played in reiterating the need for an international body focused on the protection of the human person. Though the majority of Nazis never received a punishment that reflected the extent of their crime, Nuremberg will forever be remembered as the moment that much of the world heard of the atrocities of the Holocaust for the first time.

2020 • History

26:00

August 5, 1962, South Africa. After several months on the run, the Black leader Nelson Mandela is arrested by the South African police and incarcerated in Robben Island, a fortress-like jail off Cape Town. He doesn’t know it at that time, but it is only the beginning of his penitential ordeal.

S3E8 • Butterfly Effect • 2018 • History