The Atlas Mountains 1981; 7-year-old Mehdi lives with his mother and granddad without their father, a school teacher who's been jailed for his political beliefs.
'Mille Mois' both paints a picture of village life in a traditionalist society grappling with modernisation and new ideas and is a wonderful evocation of life in Morocco. It also won Le Premier Regard award at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival. find out more...

It's 1964, St Nicholas in the Bronx; a vibrant, charismatic priest, Father Flynn, is trying to upend the school's strict customs which have long been fiercely guarded by Sister Aloysius, the authoritarian Principal. The winds of political change are sweeping through the community, an example being the arrival of the school's first black student, Donald Miller. When Sister James shares with the Principal her suspicion that Father Flynn's interest in Donald may not be entirely innocent, Sister Alo find out more...

Schoolteacher John Scopes is placed under close arrest for advocating Darwin's theory of evolution to his pupils in violation of a stifling Tennessee law banning anything that 'denies the divine creation of man as taught by the Bible'. The case is taken up by a cynical newspaper-man who takes an interest when the champion of the Fundamentalists and three-time presidential candidate is named prosecutor. A fascinating and absorbing dramatisation of the famous 1925 'Monkey Trial'. find out more...

When a burned-out, brilliant professor - one who believes in lessons from life rather than textbooks - takes a job at a small college, everyone there is abuzz. He becomes involved with a teacher as well as a precocious student, but it takes a dramatic, existential act to turn his life around and make him see the world through a much rosier and more positive perspective.

find out more...

Andres Wood's semi-autobiographical film is set in Chile in 1973, when General Pinochet's military coup seized power from President Allende's democratically elected government. It follows the unexpected friendship of two 11-year-old boys - Gonzalo, who comes from a wealthy middle class neighbourhood, and Pedro Machuca, who lives in a nearby shanty town. They meet when an idealistic priest admits children from poor families to an elite private school and, as they learn about each other's very dif find out more...

Winner of the Best Foreign Language Film at the Golden Globes in 2004, Siddiq Barmak's extraordinary 'Osama' was the first feature film to be made in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban. Visually audacious and emotionally compelling, the film follows a girl who is forced to disguise herself as a boy in order to earn the money to feed her hungry all female family. The lead actress Marina Golbahari was, literally, chosen off the street by the director and gives an outstanding performance whi find out more...

Episode 5, Sid; Sid's a failure. find out more...

William Franklin is appointed as a teacher at St Jude's Reformatory School in 1939 and it soon becomes apparent how differently he approaches his work in comparison to the Catholic brothers who make up the rest of the staff, a group of embittered and institutionalised men who do little more than abuse and torment their young pupils. Franklin is increasingly horrified by what he witnesses and becomes determined that he will make a positive difference to the forgotten children in his charge. Song find out more...

find out more...