When director Morgan Matthews decided to join three groups of men from the highly competitive and bitterly divided world of Bigfoot hunting, he got more than he bargained for. Shooting Bigfoot is a raucous road trip featuring a larger than life cast of monster-hunting men who devote their lives to the search for Bigfoot.

Through confrontations, collisions and close encounters in the woods, these men are sometimes scarier than the creature they pursue, but when Matthews tries to get under their skin and determine what is fantasy and what is reality, the journey takes a different turn and becomes increasingly dark and threatening.

BAFTA winning director Morgan Matthews has been directing documentaries for over a decade. He founded Minnow Films in 2006, starting with the Grierson nominated film Battleship Antartica, then going on to make The Fallen, remembering every British serviceman and woman killed in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. More recently, he worked with Ridley Scott and Kevin Macdonald on Britain in a Day and he is currently directing his first feature film for the cinema in a collaboration between Minnow, Origin Pictures, the BFI and BBC Films. The script was inspired by his earlier BAFTA nominated documentary Beautiful Young Minds.

Directed by Morgan Matthews
Duration: 90′
Year: 2014

This screening is in partnership with BBC Storyville, the BBC’s international feature documentary strand.

“Good breeding and good manners are no guarantee of loyalty.” On Friday 11 October 2013, the Frontline Club screened Philby – The Spy Who Went Into the Cold. Kim Philby acted as a Soviet double-agent while serving as chief British intelligence officer in the United States, and while heading MI6’s anti-Soviet section. The BBC Storyville preview delved into Kim Philby’s conflicted past.

Moderator Nick Fraser (L) and director George Carey (R) Photo by: George Symonds

Before the lights went down, moderator Nick Fraser introduced director George Carey:

“While I’m a mild connoisseur of, as one might be, the deviant behaviour of the British upper classes, he is a true obsessive [laughter from the audience]. If there were a Mastermind of errors and stupidities committed by the British upper classes, George would score 40 points [more laughter].”

“I’m not sure I would have written that script myself,” Carey was quick to qualify:

“I came to Philby with a slightly more open-minded view [even more laughter]. I hope you all enjoy the film.”

As the lights went up, Fraser engaged the Q&A:

“The very charming but overweight KGB man says he was a romantic who believed in Karl Marx, . . . but when you went to his lair, there was P.G. Woodhouse there, not Karl Marx. What evidence did you ever uncover that he wasn’t just trapped by the decisions in his early life, but actually continued to believe in all the plumbery of Marx and Lenin?”

“I think the two can both be true. He was certainly trapped,” said Carey.

“I think he missed lots of things about England, and I think he felt the Communism that he thought he was fighting for and had done those things for had not really delivered. . . . What puzzled me more than if he’d kept the faith or if it was a burnt out faith, was how on earth he’d got away with it. And it seemed to me he’d got away with it because everyone in that world was like him, like us. They were a gang as it were, and it was too easy.”

Many of the interviewees from the film were present in the audience. “A hopeless cause” was how one attendee described the idea of pursuing the Freedom of Information Act to find out exactly what Philby had done:

“It’s a hopeless cause to the extent that the secret service has never – and will never – disclose documents under any kind of legislation or statute as exists today, because they are in the business of keeping secrets. . . . And they have promised individuals today, yesterday and tomorrow that identities of people who have given information and cooperated will never be disclosed. So quite simply, it’s bad for business to make those kinds of disclosures.”

Fraser put it to Carey:

“You still didn’t quite explain to me in the film, though I love the film deeply, how it was he believed in all this shit for all this time. Because intelligent people like Arthur Koestler or Orwell could have set him right very early on, George.”

“Well,” responded Carey:

“Like many communists themselves, I’m sure he became disillusioned. The point is that was the side you reckoned you belonged to. You’d signed up for it. He’d committed himself to it.”

In reference to a comment on Philby being a product of his time Carey expanded:

“How on earth Philby thought his way through the Soviet–Nazi pact, given that the impetus of his spying was anti-fascist, goodness knows. But the general view amongst KGB I talked to, who kind of went through the same thing themselves was, ‘Oh well, our leader knows best,’ and ‘In the end it’s just expediency,’ ‘In the end it’s the way to defeat themselves,’ but I agree it’s a very difficult question to answer.”

“It was a kind of cast,” opined Fraser, “of upper-middle class intellectuals from places like Winchester, Eton et cetera:”

“Surely now, they would be more likely to be making a ton of money in the City with financial instruments. And the ideologies now – wholly unfashionable.”

In terms of the human cost of espionage, the film was unequivocal:

“Spies may have good causes, but few things they ever do is good.”

Upcoming documentaries on BBC Storyville can be found here.

On a stormy night in January 1963, Kim Philby, a charming Englishman with a tendency to stutter, failed to meet his wife at a dinner party in Beirut and instead defected to the Soviet Union. It was the end of a unique career, which at one time had seen this long term double agent rise to become head of the anti-Soviet section of MI6.

Veteran director George Carey captures the extraordinary story of what happened to Philby, from the moment he first came under suspicion in 1951, to his death in Russia just before the end of communism. Several people who knew him well – in London, Beirut and Moscow – talk frankly about his character, and the weaknesses in the British establishment that made his double life possible.

Directed by George Carey
Duration: 70′
Year: 2013

This screening is in partnership with BBC Storyville, the BBC’s international feature documentary strand.

On 21 February 2012, Russian feminist punk group Pussy Riot performed a 40 second ‘punk prayer’ on the altar of Moscow’s most esteemed cathedral. Through this act they openly challenged Putin and the Russian Orthodox Church, setting in motion one of the greatest show trials of recent times.

In Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer, filmmakers Mike Lerner and Maxim Pozdorovkin closely follow the trial, which sees three members stand accused of “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred”. Through incredible access to the legal system, they show the courtroom where Nadia, Masha and Katia sit incarcerated in a small booth, articulately defending their actions.

Interviews with family members, archival footage, and baby pictures also make the three women come alive as individuals. The film illustrates the clash between those determined to challenge an oppressive status quo and those who are equally determined to maintain it.

Directed by Mike Lerner & Maxim Pozdorovkin
Duration: 2012
Year: 86′

This screening is in partnership with BBC Storyville, the BBC’s international feature documentary strand.

In the 1930’s Welsh journalist and foreign correspondent Gareth Jones’ greatest scoop was to reveal the starvation to death of millions in Ukraine, caused by Stalin’s policies. In the political reality of those days of competing ideologies there was a fine line between journalism and spying. Hitler, Stalin & Mr. Jones explores to what extent Jones’ own dual role may have contributed to his early death.

Filmmaker George Carey follows Jones’ footsteps through the former Soviet-Union, Wales, China and finally inner Mongolia. A portrait emerges of a fiercely bright young man who preferred a journalist’s life of courage and danger over that of an academic in his homeland.

Hitler, Stalin & Mr. Jones is a fascinating investigation of Jones’ life through his own elaborate notes, letters to his parents cleverly formulated as not to rase suspicion among the Soviet sensors, and recently released secret police files.

Director: George Carey
Duration: 80
Year: 2012

This screening is in partnership with BBC Storyville, the BBC’s international feature documentary strand.

In the 1930’s Welsh journalist and foreign correspondent Gareth Jones’ greatest scoop was to reveal the starvation to death of millions in Ukraine, caused by Stalin’s policies. In the political reality of those days of competing ideologies there was a fine line between journalism and spying. Hitler, Stalin & Mr. Jones explores to what extent Jones’ own dual role may have contributed to his early death.

Filmmaker George Carey follows Jones’ footsteps through the former Soviet-Union, Wales, China and finally inner Mongolia. A portrait emerges of a fiercely bright young man who preferred a journalist’s life of courage and danger over that of an academic in his homeland.

Hitler, Stalin & Mr. Jones is a fascinating investigation of Jones’ life through his own elaborate notes, letters to his parents cleverly formulated as not to rase suspicion among the Soviet sensors, and recently released secret police files.

The screening will be followed by a Q&A with director George Carey moderated by Nick Fraser, editor of BBC’s documentary strand Storyville. 

Director: George Carey
Duration: 80′ 
Year: 2012

In the past two decades documentaries have become recognised as an innovative cultural form. Rather than just observing, they are now thought capable of creating change.

In a publication for the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism entitled Why Documentaries Matter Nick Fraser, editor of the BBC’s prize-winning strand of international documentaries Storyville, looks at the history of documentaries, showing how definitions have changed – and the fragility of funding. If we want good documentaries, he concludes, we have to find ways of encouraging their creators.

Editor of BBC Storyville Nick Fraser will be discussing the evolution of documentary, its defining nature and the future for this form of storytelling.

“The rise of documentaries over the past two decades owes more to Nick Fraser than to any other single person. For so many of us who make non-fiction films, Nick’s peerless brand of tough love and mischievous curiosity have inspired us to aim higher as we try to promote greater understanding of the major events and issues of our time.”

– Eugene Jarecki, Documentary film maker

Many of us who ply the documentary trade have, I fancy, some fellow feeling with those polar bears teetering on a shrinking patch of Arctic ice. But as the documentary environment continues to melt across television, almost alone Storyville has provided firm ground. The prospect of a threat now to that precious habitat is something many of us are determined to challenge.

My first contact with Storyville and series editor Nick Fraser was a film called 444 DAYS about the American hostage crisis in Iran. I can still recall an early conversation with Nick. “How long is the slot?” I asked. “How long does the film need?'” Nick replied. I knew I was in a special place.

That commitment to the film and the film-maker has always been the defining priority of Storyville.

There’s no format, no house style, no pre-determined way of doing things. A quick scan through the list of subjects suggests the extraordinary range of material: The Waco Siege; Hairdressers in Blackpool; Weathermen Radicals in 60s America; Russian Newspaper murders; The Joy of Cycling; Genocide in Rwanda; The Love of Chickens; Hugo Chavez; Communist Jokes; The Liberace of   Baghdad; Calcutta Street Kids; Photographer Robert Capa; Baseball in Cuba; Bush’s Christianity; The Art of Whistling; and my own Cry from the Grave about the Srebrenica massacre. Where else would I have been encouraged to return and make a second film about a subject as harrowing as Srebrenica?

Storyville tells stories about the way we live now, surprising, disturbing, funny, unpredictable, sometimes unforgettable. In an age of formulaic television, these films are unlike anything else. They are what public service television is all about.

Documentary Festivals are not my favourite occasions. The coming together of all that hustling and ego can be hard work. But finding myself at IDFA in Amsterdam with Nick Fraser was a revelation. As documentary-makers from across Europe and beyond pitched their films and their obsessions to Nick, I became aware of just how essential Storyville is for the global documentary community. People who have mortgaged their lives to make extraordinary films look to the strand for encouragement, support, advice, and a way to reach an audience. For them, Storyville is unique and essential.

It’s not all good news of course. Storyville has always lived on the edge of subsistence. My early films for the series were shown on BBC2. The move to the digital BBC4 shrunk Storyville’s audience, and its budget. The BBC4 budgets barely cover half, sometimes much less, of the funding needed for each commissioned film. For me, and the rest of us who make films for the strand, that has meant a second life pursuing additional funds. Making pitches to broadcasters, distributors and miscellaneous well-wishers from California to Copenhagen has become a vital ingredient in making documentaries for the strand. I had, I recall, nine co-funders for one of my Storyville films. Inevitably, that can bring with it the obligation to make new versions of the films to satisfy the overseas investors, involving editorial confusion and further expense.

But no one asked us to make documentaries, and anyway how did I get so lucky? Like my Storyville colleagues, I accept that making documentaries is more of a lifestyle choice than a business. We all have our tales of spending years raising funds for a favourite film, and we understand that goes with the territory.

But the prospect now of a further cut in Storyville’s budget of up to 60 percent is devastating. It would put an end to new commissions, and reduce the strand to a simple acquisition enterprise, buying in completed films as cheaply as possible. Twenty-five original films would be lost. The rich seam of shared documentary dialogues and exchanges would wither.

I am convinced that something irreplaceable will be lost if  Storyville  is allowed to decline.  At a time when the BBC is being assaulted on all sides for surrendering public trust through a failure to hold onto long established editorial standards, this is surely a moment when we must insist on preserving a BBC strand which is keeping alive the core values of public service broadcasting.

One of the key figures in fighting for those values put it best 50 years ago. Speaking about Television, the iconic American broadcaster Edward R. Murrow said: “This instrument can teach, it can illuminate, yes it can even inspire. But it can only do so to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise, it is merely lights and wires in a box”.

To help please contact campaign coordinator Moss Barclay at the DPRS at  mbarclay@dprs.org

Sign the petition http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/savestoryville