´óÏó´«Ã½

Storyville

´óÏó´«Ã½ Four's international award-winning documentary strand, Storyville, continues to enthral audiences with a season of diverse stories from around the world.

With tales ranging from a group of depressed Swedish men who end up winning the European Synchronised Swimming Championship, to a revealing look at the power-play behind the coup in Equatorial Guinea, Storyville brings its unique mark of quality to remarkable films.

Female cage fighting, the travails of a wannabe war photographer, a Nigerian family saga and an insider's look at Italy's TV-obsessed culture are also explored bringing, as ever, an eclectic mix to the new season on ´óÏó´«Ã½ Four.

BR/LS2

´óÏó´«Ã½ Productions

Lost Kingdoms Of Africa

It is often said that history is written by the victors. Arguably, the world's understanding of Africa's history has been filtered by European historians with limited appreciation of the continent's pre-colonial past.

This intelligent and thought-provoking series reveals the extraordinary history of some of Africa's ancient civilisations, exploring spectacular ruins and investigating the myths and legends that surround these mysterious kingdoms.

Historian and art expert Gus Casely-Hayford journeys through different regions of contemporary Africa, discovering the remnants of its pre-colonial glory with the help of some of Africa's finest minds.

From the pyramids of the Sudan and the extraordinary history of Ethiopia, to the great trading empires of the East Coast and the Golden age of the Kingdom of Mali, this four-part series takes the viewer on a journey through the forgotten past of Africa.

VAA

An IWC Media production

Digging Up The Dead

For the first time since its bloody civil war and the long years of brutal dictatorship, Spain is officially examining its past with the exhumation of its mass graves.

Michael Portillo, whose father was exiled for fighting for democracy after Spain fell to Franco 70 years ago, returns to examine the effect that this opening up of old wounds will have on a country which had chosen to forget.

The mass graves, some of which contain more than 4,000 bodies, have remained untouched, until now. Travelling to his father's home town of Madrigal, Granada and Malaga, Michael talks to ordinary people about their memories and their desire to recover the bodies of their loved ones.

Also, as part of ´óÏó´«Ã½ Four's War Graves Week, Storyville's Section 60 – Arlington National Cemetery provides an intimate glimpse into the grief, pride and loss suffered by visitors to the United States' largest military burial ground.

The season also includes The Children Who Fought Hitler, which tells the forgotten story of a heroic battle to help liberate Europe from the Nazis fought by the children of the British Memorial School. The school served a unique horticultural community of former-First World War soldiers and their families who tended the war graves in Ypres.

BR/LS2

Digging Up The Dead is a Liberty Bell production
Section 60 is an HBO Documentary Films production
The Children Who Fought Hitler is a Testimony Films production

Spiral 2

This hard-hitting, stylish and critically acclaimed French police thriller returns for a second series as Pierre Clement and Police Captain Laure Berthaud descend into the paranoid rivalries of the drug trafficking underworld.

Unflinchingly realistic and nail-bitingingly tense, the series follows the investigators into the dark and uncompromising world of organised crime. As a seemingly isolated case of urban violence grows in complexity and danger, each new piece of evidence unearths a duplicitous world of international trafficking, informers, double lives and arms dealing.

The characters, each with a different vision of justice and their own personal demons, become ever darker, disillusioned and warped. As the suspense builds, an audacious plan to strike at the heart of the crime network means that the slightest slip will result in certain death.

´óÏó´«Ã½ Front Desk Publicity

A Son et Lumiere for Canal Plus production