Documentaries that have stuck with you.

[LetsGoCrazyPurpleBanana]

I remember in the early 9Os watching a documentary about 2 men who were partners, living with and ultimately dying from AIDS. Found it on YouTube and watched it again at the weekend. I've not stopped thinking about them. It's called "Silverlake life,the view from here" 😭

Also another one,again early to mid 1990s called "The dying room" about China's orphanages.

The English Surgeon about neurosurgeon Henry Marsh working in Ukraine.

Inna De Yard about reggae artists recording an album, lots of great personalities and music

The Feminist on cell block Y about a scheme in an American prison to teach male prisoners about feminism. Right from the basics, like don't hassle women in the street and make sexual comments at them. It really isn't flattering like you think it is! Links with their ideas about being a man and their offending behaviour.

Bit out of date perhaps but McLibel featuring the wonderful Helen Steel

I really want to see White Riot but not out on dvd yet.

Earthlings, voiced by Joaquin Phoenix.

Cathy Come Home is a drama, it's not a true story.

The Devil We Know is great, about the cover up of industrial pollution in America.

Bird on a Wire following Leonard Cohen's 1972 tour.

The boy whose skin fell off.

A stunning young man who lived his life courageously even though the merest touch could make his skin come off. I sobbed my heart out and his and his mum's courage have stayed with me ever since. RIP Jonny Kennedy 😢

There was one about 8 year old girls starting at boarding school. There was a scene of one of them sobbing uncontrollably and being comforted by her friend. It really stayed with me ☹️

I've watched more harrowing/disturbing documentaries since this but the one documentary that stays with me is The Boy Whose Skin Fell Off - I was quite young when I watched it and it was absolutely heartbreaking I remember sobbing my heart out at his condition.

Still to this day I can't hear Don't Stop Me Now without thinking of him!

Particle Fever. It was released in 2013 or around that time but I only watched for the first time about 4 years ago. It follows the first round of experiments at the Large Hadron Collider and is one of the most amazing programmes I have ever seen

One about Aberfan... but I can't find it now.

This is a bit of a bad description but one shown in late 2003 set on an estate in I think Bradford about some white kids and they had converted to Islam . They were real characters and so funny - but then years later I read that one had turned radical and been sent to prison
Just googled it was called 'the last white kids' on channel 4

The one that most sticks with me is the 102 minutes that changed America- 9/11 shown in real time through camcorders , phone clips etc

Wasn't The Dying Rooms found to be false?

Yes! And the Presidents War Room which is still on BBC. Revealed so much about 9/11 outside of the towers - the planes, the chaos in the president’s circle, the Pentagon etc

Most of my favourites have been mentioned. I'm a big fan of anything Adam Curtis has done.

I have often found myself thinking of some of the girls from the BBC three love and drugs or the street series.

Similarly Sammy Jo from the BBC three life in the red light zone.

I read a childrens book about something like this. An English teacher who was an actor on the telly working with kids from a council estate

I watched one about the childrens homes on jersey 😔

Protecting our children. That stayed with me too. There are 2 other episodes also.

There are so many great suggestions here - I'm shamelessly bookmarking!

Oh yes. I watched one with ? Stacey doooley looking at the Aral Sea. I have barely bought any new clothes since

I'd forgotten about, 'touching the void' fantastic docco.

I can't remember the Boney M song that randomly kept coming into his head when he was struggling down the mountain, it might have been, 'Rasputin.'

I've never thought of that song the same again.

Documentaries are my favourite sort of 'telly'! Here's three of my faves:

'Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus' - an Arena production following a musician & artist named Jim White as he takes us on a strange journey through America's Deep South. Along the way he meets every kind of oddball, miscreant and melancholic. I love travelogues, history, folklore and philosophy and this documentary is all four.... and yet also none of them.... all wrapped up together. It's utterly fascinating. Made even better by Jim White's ability to tell a story about nothing and get you hooked from the first word - people like him are so rare. The music is incredible throughout - so much gothic Americana against a backdrop of worn-down, worn-out towns and landscapes. This documentary absolutely encapsulates a hidden side of a country that would have us believe 'the American dream' is all-pervasive.

'Defiant Requiem' - the story of how a composer/conductor named Rafael Schächter, imprisoned in the Theresienstadt camp during WWII, assembled 150 fellow prisoners and taught them to play Verdi's 'Requiem' by rote in a damp, dark cellar after they had completed each day of gruelling forced labour. As Jewish Wikipedia info says: "... The Requiem was performed on 16 occasions for fellow prisoners. The last, most infamous performance occurred on June 23, 1944 before high-ranking SS officers from Berlin and the International Red Cross to support the charade that the prisoners were treated well and flourishing...". It's one of the most haunting, thought-provoking and inspiring tales of human courage and endeavour I've ever seen. It'll send your heart soaring at the power of music to go some way in alleviating unimaginable suffering.

'Into Eternity' - this is available to rent on Vimeo and it's fascinating, chilling and had me thinking about it for days and days after watching it. It's set in Finland, where the government and the nuclear industry are setting about entombing decades of spent nuclear fuel deep (and I mean REALLY deep) underground in the Finnish bedrock to keep it safely away from contaminating anything near the surface. It's such a strange programme, so 'matter of fact' on one hand, but it raises all kinds of existential questions about how the human race might go about the process of 'forgetting' this stuff even exists, so future generations (nuclear waste has the potential to cause damage for around 100,000 years) won't even know it's there, nor go looking for it. Should we warn our future selves, or simply let the knowledge die out over successive generations? Intriguing!

Another Stacey Dooley one - I can’t remember the subject but she was in a shack in the middle of nowhere taking to a really old lady and on the floor in the next room behind a curtain was a severely disabled adult male - her son - physical and mental disabilities. She wafted flies away and said he liked it on the floor because it was cool.

in the rolling credits it said she’d be hit by a car outside her shack and died.

I often think about him and wonder where he is now.

Into thin air death on Everest. I prefer the book but still worth a watch. I am fascinated by all the Everest stories, people with children, families and amazing lives who are willing to risk it all to summit.

One about Hannah Hawkswell.. a woman who lived alone on a farm in very rural Yorkshire.

That reminds me of a recent documentary about American prisoners studying for a University degree. Really interesting and inspiring.

The 7up series right through to 64 up

The one with Matthew Parris where he was homeless

World at War

Hollywood