documentary

Surrogacy is a personal journey for the Olympic diver and his husband Dustin Lance Black as they welcomed a child through a surrogate earlier this year, becoming one of the increasing number of parents who have children through surrogacy.

The documentary will also see the diver travel to European countries where surrogacy is completely illegal and across the pond to California, where commercial surrogacy is a common choice for many parents.

The five new documentaries will take on teenage homelessness, gun crime, parenthood, war and the UK economy.

”The BBC factual department has had a fantastic 12 months, winning multiple awards including Baftas, RTS Awards and Griersons,"  said Alison Kirkham, Controller of BBC Factual Commissioning.

The four-part series, which has been in production since 2015, will re-examine the events leading up to Hae Min Lee’s disappearance. The story will chart the pair’s relationship, from high school sweethearts, faced with cultural clashes, to a forbidden romance and the mysterious circumstances surrounding Lee’s death. It will also examine the aftermath of Lee’s disappearance, issues with the initial investigation and have unprecedented access to Syed in the present day, as he awaits a retrial, having already spent 18 years in prison on a life sentence.

The RIFA awards recognise the best short films, of up to 30 minutes in length, which will be judged by a panel of experts from academia and the film industry. The the winners will receive a trophy and £2,000 in prize money for future filmmaking projects.  

This year's panel includes Richard Davidson-Houston, Head of All 4, Channel 4 Television and Matthew Reisz from Times Higher Education.

“If you have a voice, you’ve got to use it for good,” the presenter claims emphatically. “I find myself restraining my contempt with my peers who don’t use their position creatively.”

Celebrities who express support in private, but refuse to speak out publicly, are neglecting the responsibilities and privileges their position gives them, he believes.  “I just think, what do you do with your public platform? Apart from enjoying the limelight and collecting the money, what do you stand up for?

The three-part UKTV Original series will focus on the pressure felt by many women to look perfect and the impossibility of modern beauty standards. Over three hours, Healey will examine both her own and other women’s fixations with their bodies and what they perceive as negative attributes.

Healey is best known for her work on light-hearted documentaries for BBC Three, often with a focus on issues to do with health and body image, such as Cherry Healey: Old Before My Time and Cherry Has A Baby.

The groundbreaking 15 minute long film will focus on the people who inhabited the tower rather than the event itself or the questions of who was to blame for the incident.

Combining documentary interviews shot in stereoscopic 360 with computer-generated animation, the film will focus on important events and poignant every-day moments of the residents’ lives, incorporating the contributors’ own photos and video footage. 

The 10-part documentary series, I Am a Killer, profiles ten prisoners who have been convicted of murder and sentenced to death. The series was produced by A+E Networks UK in partnership with Netflix and Sky Vision Productions.

Auction

Monday: Sky Arts, 7pm

Take a peek inside some of the great art sale houses in the world in this new documentary series. From masterpieces of art to personal letters and artefacts, there’s sure to be a lot of money changing hands and this is a first class view of a world most mere mortals can only dream of. This season sees a rare Picasso go under the hammer.

Each episode will follow an individual animal – lions, hunting dogs, chimpanzees, tigers and emperor penguins – at the most critical period in their lives as they navigate the world’s rapidly changing habitats.

This series will show for the first time what an animal must do to create and maintain a dynasty, and leave a legacy in nature.

Made by the team behind Blue Planet II, the most watched programme of 2017, the BBC aims to recapture its success with new ‘intimate animal dramas’.