Hello BBC Stations,
The BBC World Service has a number of documentaries available throughout the month and beyond, including evergreen programming to slot into your schedule as you see fit. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact your Station Representative.
Title: The Forgotten Black Cowboys
Duration: 23 minutes
Available to broadcast: Tuesday, April 9-15, 2013
Description: The story of African-American cowboys then and now. Hollywood shows us a wild west populated only by white cowboys. But it’s only part of the story, as Sarfraz Manzoor discovers as he heads to the state of Texas. On his journey he finds that the west was populated by both African Americans and Hispanic cowboys, and that their legacy lives on today. He joins a trail ride with African American cowboys as they make their way across the dusty plains following the routes of their ancestors. Complete with twelve covered wagons and up to 200 riders on horseback, Sarfraz finds a great pride in this black heritage.
In Wichita, Kansas he meets one remarkable performer, the very first actor to appear as a black cowboy in the movies of the 1930s. At a time of racial segregation in the United States, few white cinema-goers would never have heard of Herb Jeffries, but he was the hero in films such as Harlem on the Prairie. Today Herb Jeffries is about to turn 100.
So how did this part of America get airbrushed out of the movies and the history books? Sarfraz talks to experts and archivists as well as those who have lived life on the range to find a true life story hidden from sight for many years.
This program is available to download from the BBC Partner Site starting Tuesday April 9th at 0000 EDT. Click “Downloads”, “Documentaries”, then “The Documentary”.
Title: Mexico Vigilantes
Available to broadcast: April 11-17, 2013
Description: Linda Pressly reports on the local vigilantes who say they’re stepping in to keep their neighborhoods safe.
Available to download from the BBC Partner Site beginning Thursday, April 11 2013 at 0030 EDT. Click “Downloads”, “News and Current Affairs”, then “Assignment”.
Title: Egypt’s Challenge
Six part series: 23 minutes each
Available to broadcast:
Program One: April 23-29
Program Two: April 30-May 6
Program Three: May 7-13
Program Four: May 14-20
Program Five: May 21-27
Program Six: May 28-June 3
Description: As Egypt struggles to understand its new democracy, Shaimaa Khalil examines the dramatic changes in Egyptian society and assesses the major underlying challenges facing the giant of the Arab world. After decades of stifling stasis, Egypt is in flux. The political system has gone through total upheaval with the overthrow of President Mubarak, the apparent side-lining of the army, a series of contested elections, the emergence of political Islam as a dominant force and the appearance of a bevy of virtually unknown and untried new leaders.
There is furious squabbling over the crucial process of drawing up a new constitution, the shape of which is unclear. There has been intercommunal violence while mass demonstrations have become a way of life. Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel has come into question while law and order have broken down in the Sinai Peninsula. The economy has sputtered, tourism has fallen, and many wealthy Egyptians have taken their assets overseas.
How will the most populous and influential nation in the Arab world emerge from this period of transition? Will there be a return to stability? Will pluralism, civic society, entrepreneurship and sound economic management prevail? Or could Egypt even spiral downwards towards becoming a failed state? Shaimaa Khalil, a British-Egyptian journalist with the BBC World Service assesses the challenges facing her native land.
Available to download starting Tuesday April 23rd at 0030 EDT.
Please note: Each program in this series will be available to download from the BBC Partner Site on the first Tuesday of its broadcast window. The first will be available April 23rd. Click “Downloads”, “Documentaries”, then “The Documentary”.
Title: World Book Club: John Grisham
Duration: 52 minutes, 30 seconds
Available to broadcast: Starting, Saturday April 6/Stations may broadcast this program at any time. The World Book Club is an evergreen program.
Harriett Gilbert talks with US superstar thriller writer John Grisham about his gripping debut thriller A Time to Kill written almost 30-years ago while Grisham was still working as attorney in Mississippi. In the novel, a father takes the law into his own hands after the legal system fails to adequately punish the men who brutally raped and beat his daughter.
Available to download from the BBC Partner Site starting Friday, April 5th at 1600 EDT.
Click “Downloads”, “Arts & Culture”, then “World Book Club”.
Coming up in May
Title: World Book Club: Jay McInerney
Duration: 53 minutes
Available to broadcast: TBA/This will be an evergreen program.
Description: World Book Club comes from America where Harriett Gilbert is in New York to talk about The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald with best-selling novelist Jay McInerney. In this classic novel of the roaring twenties young Nick Carraway finds himself fascinated by the mysterious past and lavish lifestyle of his neighbor, the nouveau riche Jay Gatsby. He is drawn into Gatsby’s circle and into the tragedies that follow.
The movie, The Great Gatsby, hits theaters on May 10th.
Title: Special: The Truth About Mental Health (May is Mental Health Month)
Duration: Six part series: 26 minutes, 30 seconds each
Description: Mental illness doesn’t discriminate. Wealth and social status can’t protect you from its debilitating and frightening impact. Old, young, male, female; 350-million of us have problems with our mental health. From anxiety and depression to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and psychosis, one-in-four of us will become ill over our lifetime, and over the next 18 years the prediction is that mental health will make THE biggest call on global health resources. There’s an enormous “treatment gap” that’s been identified. Even in the wealthier, developed countries, half of those who need help won’t get it, but in lower and middle income countries, those figures rise to 85%. With demand rising and, in a global recession, funds shrinking, this series highlights novel and innovative ways being used now, around the globe, to treat and cope with mental illness.
From Africa, to Asia, to the Middle East and to Europe, we explore radically different attitudes and definitions of mental health and mental wellbeing. Using personal stories as our starting point, we hear how individuals and their families, friends and colleagues, wherever they live in the world, can have hope that treatment and recovery is possible from a range of painful mental health conditions.
Presented by Claudia Hammond.