Factual
Genghis Khan
Strike first and always take revenge. From the murder of his father,
the kidnap and rape of his wife, and the execution of his closest friend,
Genghis Khan learnt the lessons of life the hard way.
He grew up in poverty in Mongolia, but how did this outcast come to
be the great Khan?
Today the name of Genghis Khan is synonymous with dark evil, yet in
his lifetime he was a heroic figure, a supreme strategist capable of
eliciting total devotion from his warriors.
But how did he conquer an empire larger than the Roman Empire? Was
Genghis Khan the brutal, womanising, medieval monster who ruthlessly
slaughtered millions in his quest for power, or was he a brilliant visionary
who transformed a rabble of warring tribes into a nation capable of
world domination?
Filmed entirely on location in Mongolia and using the CGI software
used in The Lord Of The Rings, this film tells the truth behind the
legend that is Genghis Khan.
JA4/RI
Smart Spenders
Larger-than-life thrift expert, journalist and author, Jane
Furnival, aims to create smart spenders out of frivolous families.
Households trapped in a cash crisis are put to the test as Jane challenges
them to thrift their way to a happier life.
She's tough and means business but can those with a lifetime in the
red be converted and how will they cope with the TV thrift doctor's
tactics of rummaging in their rubbish and spying on their shopping habits?
Smart Spenders looks at how the nation spends its money and shares
the secret of financial transformation without having to move house
or take out yet another loan.
BR/LS2
Supervolcano
Supervolcano is a true story - it just hasn't happened yet…
Set in the near future, this factually-based drama charts the possible
consequences of one of nature's most cataclysmic events.
Using specially commissioned research from several major scientific
bodies, studies of previous supervolcanic eruptions and predictions
drawn from a range of scientific disciplines, Supervolcano details what
could happen if Yellowstone were to erupt again.
Unlike ordinary volcanoes, supervolcanoes are not obvious from the
surface. Yet when they do erupt they do so with a force thousands of
times greater than eruptions such as that at Mount Vesuvius.
Although there are several supervolcano sites around the world, only
the one beneath the Yellowstone National Park in the US is currently
active.
Satellite photography of the mouth of the volcano has shown that it
is huge, and could easily swallow Tokyo, the largest city in the world.
And with the land around Yellowstone regularly swelling and subsiding
in response to the shifting levels of magma, volcanologists believe
that it is only a matter of time before the molten magma contained within
the chamber will burst out.
Supervolcano is accompanied by The Science
Behind Supervolcano - a two part documentary exploring the
cutting-edge scientific research that informs Supervolcano, and introducing
the experts who monitor the behaviour of supervolcanoes around the world,
and who face the awesome responsibility of both predicting when the
next super-eruption might take place, and advising on what is likely
to happen when it does.
KC
People Power
A programme that explores what motivates everyday people to stop watching
the news and start making it, People Power follows those who were not
habitual political activists but who became so frustrated about a cause
they become involved in a protest movement.
From the poll tax riots to fuel protests, from demonstrations against
the transportation of live animals to the fight for fathers' rights,
the programme examines four major protests over the past 15 years.
Featuring evocative images that have stayed in the imagination long
after the event, People Power meets the people behind the causes.
HH
Journey Of Life
From the humblest beginnings to the domination of a planet, Steve
Leonard journeys through the vast history of life to discover
how the extraordinary variety of animals and plants on Earth today came
into being.
The crucial moments in evolution are brought to life on screen for
the first time as Steve learns how we're related to all 30 million species
on Earth.
In his quest to piece together this four-billion-year old story, Steve
flies with pterosaurs, becomes bait for sharks and climbs the tallest
trees in the world.
The journey also brings encounters with slimy hagfish, sex-crazed
elk and the biggest congregation of blue whales on the planet.
DC
Grandchild Of The
Holocaust (previously known as Descendants Of The Holocaust)
Adrian is 13. This is his journey as he discovers the truth of what
happened to Rene, his grandmother, during her four-year incarceration
in Auschwitz and Belsen.
Adrian has always been told by his family that he must wait until he's
older to have his questions about his grandmother's Holocaust experiences
answered.
But now his family have agreed that he is old enough to find out more.
Rene travels with him back to the scenes of her imprisonment for the
first time since her liberation to show him first-hand the reality of
life under Nazi rule.
The programme is also a watershed for 75-year-old Rene. Even though
the man she eventually married was one of the Army volunteers who liberated
her from Belsen, she has never before spoken about her experiences to
him or any of her family.
CR
The Adventures
Of Robert Louis Stevenson
The world-famous author behind the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s forthcoming children's drama
series Kidnapped led a real life of international intrigue and escapades.
Now a new documentary, to accompany the drama series, reveals the life
of high adventure led by Scots author Robert Louis Stevenson, which
informed his classic works such as Treasure Island and Dr Jekyll And
Mr Hyde.
The film ranges from his sickly childhood in Edinburgh to his travels
as an adult to Europe, California and most notably Samoa in the South
Pacific, where he took part in the civil war and later died at the age
of 44.
HM
The Iceman Murder
(previously known as Otzi - The Iceman Murder)
In 1991 two walkers in the Alps discovered a perfectly preserved body.
It was not a climber, but the corpse of a 5,300-year-old man, along
with clothes, weapons, tools and possessions.
He is called Otzi and has given scientists a vital set of clues to
life in Neolithic times, including lifestyle, diet and social structure.
Otzi is the most remarkable archaeological find of the 20th century
and is also the world's oldest unsolved murder victim.
This documentary special uses hi-tech scientific research, forensic
investigative methods and multiple-storyline dramatic reconstruction.
The film builds a picture of Otzi's world, follows a scientifically
accurate autopsy and re-enacts the different scenarios of the final
moments of his life.
KB
The Waltz King
Soprano Lesley Garrett presents a drama-documentary
that recreates the atmosphere of the 19th century waltz in all its glory.
Breaking all the rules of public dancing, the waltz scandalised polite
society with its racy rhythms, generating a social revolution along
the way.
Never before had ladies been able to dance with any gentleman who asked
them and hold each other so close!
In the 19th century, Vienna became known as the waltzing capital of
the world and, of all of the great composers who lived there at this
time, father and son composers Johann Strauss Senior and Johann Strauss
Junior far outshone the others for sheer popularity.
The stars in their day, they earned reputations as the greatest living
composers of dance music and, despite being fierce rivals in their private
life, they shared the public title of The Waltz King.
With dancing filmed in a raucous smoke-filled ballroom at Vienna's
Hofburg Palace, accompanied by sensuous and intoxicating music performed
on authentic period instruments by the Vienna's Wiener Akademie, The
Waltz King takes the viewer on a journey back in time to where waltzing
quickly turned into a craze.
LW
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