Documentaries offering access to subjects at the forefront of national conversation and new Storyville commissions amongst those announced by BBC.
Ahead of her panel discussion at Sheffield Doc/Fest, Alison Kirkham, Controller BBC Factual Commissioning, announced a range of new factual titles airing across the BBC in the coming months.
On BBC One, Hidden Homeless a film for Children in Need, will see Stacey Dooley explore the story of Britain’s hidden homeless teenagers on our streets; on BBC Two Inside The Bank Of England will offer unprecedented access to the inner workings of the Bank, with cameras following as Governor Mark Carney and his staff try to revive the UK economy.
Also on BBC Two will be one-off film Gun No. 6 following the historic stories of every crime carried out using Britain’s most deadly, illegal gun – with testimony from loved ones left behind and insights from former-perpetrators of gun crime, at a time when it’s never been more pressing to understand why people resort to casual use of lethal weapons on the streets.
On BBC Three, Mim Shaikh fronts a new documentary Finding Dad (w/t), part of the Big British Asian Summer season. Taking a deeply personal journey to try and track down his father, Mim shares a story not just significant for him, but one agonised over by thousands of young people in the UK with one in ten fathers having no contact with their children.
For BBC Four’s Storyville, Under The Wire tells the story of war-correspondent Marie Colvin and photographer Paul Conroy, whose determination to bring the stories of ordinary Syrian people caught up in a brutal war to the world saw only one of them return. The Cleaners reveals the world of content moderators tasked with trawling through the world’s most violent, disturbing and highly contentious online material, exploring the hidden and complex world of digital content moderation.
Alison Kirkham says: ”The BBC factual department has had a fantastic 12 months, winning multiple awards including Baftas, RTS Awards and Griersons. This range of programmes that we are announcing demonstrates our continued commitment to take audiences into worlds and explore issues with broad appeal that are hugely relevant today, including homelessness, the economy and Brexit, the challenges of social media, disability and gun crime. Through unprecedented access and fantastic story telling, each subject will be explored in a truly engaging and thought-provoking way”