BBC’s Once Upon a Time franchise to uncover the roots of Middle Eastern conflict
James Bluemel’s Once Upon a Time in Iraq
DOC/FEST: Following the success of Once Upon a Time in Iraq and Once Upon a Time in Northern Ireland, the BBC is turning the focus of its documentary strand on the wider Middle East.
Clare Sillery, head of commissioning for documentaries, revealed Once Upon a Time in The Middle East as part of a slate of two new series and three single films at Sheffield Doc/Fest on Friday.
The 5×60′ series for BBC Two and iPlayer is made by Keo Films with Will Anderson and Andrew Palmer exec producing and James Bluemel directing.
The BBC said the series will take a long-term view, looking at how the situation in the Middle East has evolved, the roots of the conflict that has affected both Israelis and Palestinians and its ripple effect across the region, focusing on the personal cost of a war that has raged on and off for decades.
The commission comes in a week when the UK public broadcaster has faced fierce criticism for its coverage of the Gaza conflict.
Elsewhere, Coerced or Corrupted: Inside Prisons is a 2×60′ commission for the corporation’s youth-skewing BBC Three network.
Fronted by journalist Mobeen Azhar and produced by Forest, the doc attempts to uncover what’s really going on inside the UK prison system following the recent sex tape scandal involving a prison officer and inmates at Wandsworth Prison.
The three single films are led by Molly Dineen: Our People, which goes through the documentarian’s archive to present a very personal portrait of Britain from the 1980s until now. The 1×90′ feature doc for BBC Two is being made by RTO Pictures.
Poison Water is a coproduction between Button Down and Keo Films which tells the story of one of Britain’s worst mass poisonings, when 20 tonnes of aluminium sulphate were accidentally poured into the drinking water supply in north Cornwall in 1988.
With the UK’s troubled water companies rarely out of the news, the 1×90′ doc aims to rewind the story of water industry privatisation back to its very beginning.
Finally, Taken: Britain’s Forced Adoption Scandal (working title) is a new film by Finestripe Productions that promises to uncover the full story of the UK’s forced adoption scandal for the first time. Between the 1940s and the early 1980s, nearly 300,000 unmarried women in the UK had their babies forcibly taken for adoption by the state.
Sillery said: “In our increasingly polarised world, where algorithms feed us the voices and opinions which chime with our own, documentaries have an ever more important role to play, bringing us perspectives and stories that have previously remained unheard.
“I hope James Bluemel’s latest series will offer viewers a rare and precious opportunity. From the Iraq war to the conflict in Northern Ireland, in his Once Upon a Time series of documentaries, James has been fearless in tackling the most complex of subjects. His ability to draw out and connect intimate unheard stories, combined with unseen archive is truly remarkable, helping us experience events through the eyes of others, even those with whom we may profoundly disagree. This next series will focus that approach on the most challenging of conflicts.
“The other documentaries announced today reveal big, complex and uniquely British stories which explore who we are and the values that underpin us a nation.”
