documentary

The Galaxy Britain Built - The British talent behind Star Wars, Screening and Q&A (Norwich)

Star Wars is a global phenomenon.

The Galaxy Britain Built tells the story of British artists, designers and filmmakers who worked on it, and reveals the secrets of the creation of some of the most famous costumes, props and sets in movie history.

RTS East invites you to this very special screening of The Galaxy Britain Built hosted by BBC Look East presenter and Star Wars Superfan, David Whiteley. We are delighted that the screening will be followed by a Q&A session with legendary Film Producer, Robert Watts.

A celebration and screening of 63 Up

“Give me the child for the first seven years and I will show you the man.” Inspired by this Jesuit motto, the Up series began in 1964, following a group of people drawn from startlingly different backgrounds who have allowed television cameras to drop into their lives at seven-year intervals ever since.

Led by director Michael Apted throughout the decades, this acclaimed series has now reached 63 Up, providing an illuminating perspective on whether or not the course of our adult lives is set by our earliest influences and the social class in which we’re raised.

Danny Dyer explores modern day masculinity in new Channel 4 documentary

Known for traditionally ‘masculine’ roles such as EastEnders’ Mick Carter, Dyer will set his preconceptions aside to investigate all of changing gender roles, attitudes towards male mental health, and stereotypes surrounding masculinity.

The Brighton Gay Men’s Chorus, mental health experts, fitness fanatics, sex therapists, and male victims of domestic abuse will all be interviewed by Dyer through his candid questioning. Dyer will meet men who believe ‘traditional’ masculinity is under fire, then turn to those who are exploring more ‘progressive’ options.

UKTV to follow the lives of Essex midwives for new reality show

The logo for W, which is a white W against an askew red rectangle, against a white backdrop

The show follows the professional and social lives of the junior midwives in Basildon University Hospital. Thanks to its exclusive access, the programme reveals what it takes to survive in one of the most demanding jobs in the country.

Midwives can qualify after three years, putting them amongst Britain’s youngest medical professionals. The Real Midwives of Essex sheds light on those who have recently qualified, as well as the student midwives, and the people teaching them.

Together, they deal with 12-hour shifts, early starts and nights out.

Libby, Are You Home Yet?: The ethics behind true crime

What Lisa [Squire] wanted was for us to get this message across: you should always report non-contact sexual offences. Because it does make a difference.” Candour Productions’ Anna Hall was speaking at an RTS Yorkshire event on 31 January – five years to the day that Squire’s daughter Libby was abducted, raped and murdered in Hull.

Just how this reporting makes a difference becomes clear during Humberside Police’s hunt for Libby’s killer, in Candour’s powerful Bafta-winning, three-part series Libby, Are You Home Yet?.

'Men get cameras, women get clipboards": the gender disparity in factual TV

In spite of the righteous noise and well-intentioned initiatives launched by broadcasters, streamers and producers in recent years, two new reports indicate that, not only is the industry still a long way off from gender parity in creative roles, it is moving into reverse.

Creative Diversity Network’s six-year overview of Diamond data from 2016-17 to 2021-22 found that, among the “key creative and authorial roles of writer, director and producer/director... the gender gap is widening”. Female director contributions remain particularly low, having fallen from 26.9% to 25.3%.

Big Zuu to pilgrimage to Mecca for BBC documentary

A close-up shot of Big Zuu

With a Lebanese father and a mother from Sierra Leone, Big Zuu grew up with Islam on both sides of the family. Although faith has remained hugely important for Zuu, growing up in London has meant living completely by the book hasn’t always been easy.

In Big Zuu Goes To Mecca, Zuu will go on the Umrah pilgrimage (a religious journey to Masjid al-Haram), visit one of Islam’s holiest cities, and examine what it means to be a “good Muslim.”

Craft and resolve: Ash Atalla, Clare Richards, Inzamam Rashid and Steve Hughes deliver RTS Student Masterclasses 2023

Inzamam Rashid talks to Helen Scott on stage at the RTS Student Masterclasses 2023

The RTS Student Master­classes drew a crowd of more than 300 this month to hear four of the industry’s top talents talk about their careers and offer first-hand advice on how to make a start in television.

Journalism

Inzamam Rashid, a Sky News correspondent based in the north of England, told the packed Journalism masterclass: “I always wanted to do the news, [as] a reporter, a newsreader or [working] behind the scenes.”

Winner of BBC Three Northern Docs Pitch on new documentary Stranger in My Family

“From the moment I got the results… I had a lot of questions I didn’t know what to do with. I thought… if I put it all into the structure of a film... then I could make sense of it.… Films have always saved me.” This was RTS Futures Award nominee Luke Davies, co-producer and subject of BBC Three’s life-affirming documentary Stranger in My Family.

Those results were from Davies’s DNA test. His journey to redefine his identity, uncovering two key, long-buried secrets that would turn his and his extended family’s worlds upside-down, was documented over the next four years.