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The Best Episodes of Storyville Season 13

Every episode of Storyville Season 13 ranked from best to worst. Discover the Best Episodes of Storyville Season 13!

Showcasing the best in international documentaries, Storyville has developed an enviable reputation since its inception more than a decade ago. Screening over 340 films, from some 70 different countries, the strand has garnered a staggering

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Episode Rankings

  1. #1 Fan Favorite
    Storyville Season 13 Episode 1 - Blast!
    0.0/10(0 votes)

    #1 - Blast!

    S13:E1

    Documentary which follows the story of Mark Devlin and his team of scientists as they try to figure out how all the galaxies formed by launching a revolutionary new telescope under a NASA high-altitude balloon. Their adventure takes them from Arctic Sweden to Inuit Canada, where failure forces the team to try again on the desolate ice of Antarctica. The obsessions, personal and family sacrifices, and philosophical and religious questioning of a professional scientist are all laid bare.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  2. Storyville Season 13 Episode 2 - Fashion Victim
    0.0/10(0 votes)

    #2 - Fashion Victim

    S13:E2

    Documentary telling the strange story of fashion designer Gianni Versace, a household name and designer to the stars, who was murdered on the steps of his Miami mansion in 1997.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  3. Storyville Season 13 Episode 3 - Wild Art: Olly and Suzi Paint Predators
    0.0/10(0 votes)

    #3 - Wild Art: Olly and Suzi Paint Predators

    S13:E3

    Documentary following Olly Williams and Suzi Winstanley, two unique wildlife artists who simultaneously work on the same painting of exotic and endangered animals while on location in the wildest corners of the world. The film shows how they work and why what they do is so important.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  4. Storyville Season 13 Episode 4 - Heavy Load
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    #4 - Heavy Load

    S13:E4

    Documentary about punk band Heavy Load, subject to the combustible flux of ego, ambition, fantasy, expectation and desire that fuels any emerging band, but uniquely made up of musicians with and without learning disabilities. This makes the band's survival a precarious negotiation between two different worlds - on the one hand the institutional timetable of day centres, work placements and social workers and, on the other, the chaotic slacker life of rehearsal rooms, studios and gigs.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  5. Storyville Season 13 Episode 5 - Prostitution Behind the Veil
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    #5 - Prostitution Behind the Veil

    S13:E5

    Director Nahid Persson follows the lives of two Iranian women whose misfortunes have landed them in the same run-down building. Their husbands are serving long prison sentences, both have been left to look after their young children and both have had to resort to prostitution to support their heroin habits. Persson's sympathetic portrait follows them as they struggle to create a better life for themselves and their children.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  6. Storyville Season 13 Episode 6 - Ghosts of the 7th Cavalry
    0.0/10(0 votes)

    #6 - Ghosts of the 7th Cavalry

    S13:E6

    Powerful documentary from Emmy award-winning director Tom Roberts which explores the profound human consequences of America's frontier wars through the moving personal journey of retired US Major Robert 'Snuffy' Gray, who fought with the controversial 7th Cavalry Regiment.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  7. Storyville Season 13 Episode 7 - Maradona: In the Hands of the Gods
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    #7 - Maradona: In the Hands of the Gods

    S13:E7

    Documentary telling the true story of five young British freestyle footballers' journey across the Americas to Argentina in the hope of meeting their hero, Diego Maradona, a coming-of-age road movie about a group of young men in pursuit of a lifelong dream. The group is made up of urban youths, most of whom have never been abroad before. There is a devout Christian, a cheeky scouser, a failed footballer, a pampered teen and an asylum seeker from Somalia. These boys, ranging in age from 17 to 22, represent the diversity and attitude of British youth today. For them, Maradona epitomises everything they love about football, both the creator of their art and their inspiration during hard times in their lives. Along the way they find that it wasn't just Diego they were searching for, but something inside themselves as well.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  8. Storyville Season 13 Episode 8 - Bulletproof Salesman
    0.0/10(0 votes)

    #8 - Bulletproof Salesman

    S13:E8

    Documentary about self-confessed war profiteer Fidelis Cloer, who, in a career spanning two decades of global turmoil, has supplied kings, presidents and the occasional dictator with the finest luxury armoured vehicles money can buy. In his world, where security is a commodity that can be bought and sold, violence is to sales as the weather is to wheat futures. Always with an on eye on growth opportunities, Fidelis found himself the perfect war when the US invaded Iraq

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  9. Storyville Season 13 Episode 9 - Robert Capa - In Love and War
    0.0/10(0 votes)

    #9 - Robert Capa - In Love and War

    S13:E9

    Profile of iconic war photographer Robert Capa, whose career spanned five epic conflicts across three continents before his untimely death at the age of 40. The film traces Endre Freidman's transformation from a young Jewish boy in Budapest to his becoming Robert Capa, the most famous war photographer in the world.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  10. Storyville Season 13 Episode 10 - The Children's Ward
    0.0/10(0 votes)

    #10 - The Children's Ward

    S13:E10

    Documentary about two children who have been directly affected by wars in their respective countries. Six-year-old Murtaza took a landmine home to play with and it blew up in his hand, a familiar story in Afghanistan where one child is killed or injured every day by unexploded munitions. Fifteen-year-old Yagoub suffers from rheumatic heart disease, which if left untreated is life-threatening. Refugees from Sudan's 20 years of unrest, his family are unable to pay for treatment at the local hospital, giving him little more than six months to live. This moving film follows the stories of these two resilient boys and the efforts of the remarkable Italian NGO Emergency to give them back their futures.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  11. Storyville Season 13 Episode 11 - The Jazz Baroness
    0.0/10(0 votes)

    #11 - The Jazz Baroness

    S13:E11

    Documentary, made by her great niece, about the British Jewish baroness who fell in love with the jazz genius Thelonious Monk. Pannonica Rothschild was born with everything, got married and had five children, but one track by a man she had never met inspired her to leave and start a new life in America. Helen Mirren is the voice of 'Nica', while Sonny Rollins, TS Monk Jr, the Duchess of Devonshire, Quincy Jones, Lord Rothschild, Roy Haynes, Chico Hamilton and others appear as themselves.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  12. Storyville Season 13 Episode 12 - Up for Debate - Team Qatar
    0.0/10(0 votes)

    #12 - Up for Debate - Team Qatar

    S13:E12

    Qatar is said to be the world's richest country, while competitive debating is said to be a training ground for future world leaders. So when the Qatari Emiress charged two recent Oxford graduates with creating the country's first national debate team and taking them to the world championships, the stakes were high. This documentary follows the journey of five ambitious teenagers as they are initiated into the cut-throat subculture of competitive high school debate. Training in London, Doha and New York, they learn more about the world as they hone their debating skills. Will the team overcome their inexperience and hold their own against the sarcastic English, meticulous Singaporeans and ferocious Australians, all with years of practice at reducing lesser teams to tears? How will they deal with America, what will they make of Team Israel, and are they worldly enough to triumph?

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  13. Storyville Season 13 Episode 13 - The Baby and the Buddha
    0.0/10(0 votes)

    #13 - The Baby and the Buddha

    S13:E13

    Nati Baratz's documentary chronicles a former disciple's search for his reincarnated Tibetan master. After 26 years of isolated meditation in a mountain cave, Lama Konchog became one of the greatest Tibetan masters of our time. When he passed away in 2001 at 84, the Dalai Lama instructed his shy, devoted disciple Tenzin Zopa to search for his master's reincarnation. This 'unmistaken child' must be found within four years, before it becomes too difficult to remove him from his parents' care. His search crosses countries, passing through mountains and villages that appear to have remained unchanged for hundreds of years. Assisted by astrology, signs from dreams and the whispers of villagers, Tenzin travels by helicopter, mule and foot. When he comes upon an apparent contender, the documentary accompanies Tenzin and his young charge through the mysterious procedures that may confirm the reincarnation.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  14. Storyville Season 13 Episode 14 - The Jew who Dealt with Nazis - Killing Kasztner
    0.0/10(0 votes)

    #14 - The Jew who Dealt with Nazis - Killing Kasztner

    S13:E14

    After 50 years, will the Jew accused of collaborating with the Nazis during the Holocaust be exonerated? Dr Israel (Rezso) Kasztner, a Hungarian Jew who tried to rescue the last million Jews of Europe by negotiating face to face with Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann, was gunned down by another Jew who never set foot in Nazi Europe. After 50 years, his assassin Ze'ev Eckstein breaks his silence on the fateful night he shot and killed Kasztner. This documentary re-opens the history books on Kasztner's life and the events surrounding this controversial figure. It follows Kasztner's family and survivors, plagued by a legacy they are determined to change. Ze'ev Eckstein reveals, step-by-step, his transformation into an assassin. Intensely emotional for those still living it, part real-time investigation and part historical journey, filmmaker Gaylen Ross unearths the Kasztner story and its ramifications for his family and his country.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  15. Storyville Season 13 Episode 15 - The Genius and the Boys
    0.0/10(0 votes)

    #15 - The Genius and the Boys

    S13:E15

    D Carleton Gajdusek won the Nobel Prize for the discovery of Prions - the particles that would emerge as the cause of Mad Cow disease - while working with a cannibal tribe on New Guinea. Over his years working amongst the tribes of the South Seas, he adopted 57 kids, bringing them to a new life in Washington DC. But, at the height of his career, rumours began to spread he was a paedophile. Gajdusek would argue that if sex with children was okay in their own cultures, he wasn't wrong to join in. How could a great mind lose insight so totally, and why would the scientific community to which he was a hero be so quick to leap to his defence and dismiss the allegations? This striking and powerful documentary explores the limits of insight and the power of self-delusion, through one of the century's true geniuses - a man prepared to defy convention and challenge people's most cherished beliefs, a man whose scientific brilliance seemed to blind many to his extraordinary personal failings.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  16. Storyville Season 13 Episode 16 - Blindsight
    0.0/10(0 votes)

    #16 - Blindsight

    S13:E16

    Set against the breathtaking backdrop of the Himalayas, this documentary follows the gripping adventure of six Tibetan teenagers on a climbing expedition up the 23,000 foot Lhakpa Ri, on the north side of Everest. A dangerous journey soon becomes a seemingly impossible challenge made all the more remarkable by the fact that the teenagers are blind. Believed by many Tibetans to be possessed by demons, the children are shunned by their parents, scorned by their villages and rejected by society. Rescued by Sabriye Tenberken, a blind educator and adventurer who established the first school for the blind in Lhasa, the students invite the famous blind mountain climber Erik Weihenmayer to visit their school after learning about his conquest of Everest. Erik arrives in Lhasa and inspires Sabriye and her students to let him lead them higher than they have ever been before. The resulting three-week journey is beyond anything any of them could have predicted.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  17. Storyville Season 13 Episode 17 - Angels of Rio
    0.0/10(0 votes)

    #17 - Angels of Rio

    S13:E17

    Detective Jahlk is the most famous private eye in Brazil, specialising in 'corporate crime' and employing a team of young female agents. This documentary follows the case brought to Jahlk's attention by a 68-year-old import-export entrepreneur, a divorced workaholic who suspects a link between his company and drug-trafficking and fears that his son Luiz might be involved. Discretion is paramount, so Jahlk sends in his 'angels' Natasha, Julia and Tania to infiltrate Luiz's social network and uncover any criminal activity. They quickly establish evidence of Luiz's drug use. In recorded conversations, names pop up - Marcelo the drug courier, Claudio the drug dealer, former drug dealer-turned-agent Ze Carlos, right-wing extremist group the Integralistas and former torturer and policeman JC. The investigation takes the agents into the favelas, undercover in Rio's port, to nightclubs, restaurants, motels and Sao Paulo and back, giving insights into contemporary Brazilian society.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  18. Storyville Season 13 Episode 18 - The Trials of Oppenheimer
    0.0/10(0 votes)

    #18 - The Trials of Oppenheimer

    S13:E18

    J Robert Oppenheimer was one of the most celebrated scientists of his generation. Shy, arrogant and brilliant, he is best known as the man that led the Manhattan Project to spectacular success. As the years progressed he also grew into a scientific statesman, leading a government agency, the Atomic Energy Commission, which was trying to develop ways to avoid a nuclear arms race. His attempts at politics, though, were a lot less successful than his scientific endeavours. As he grew more powerful, he started to make serious enemies amongst the establishment, particularly a friend of President Truman's - Lewis Strauss.

    Director:David Grubin
    Writer:Unknown

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  19. Storyville Season 13 Episode 19 - The Time of their Lives
    0.0/10(0 votes)

    #19 - The Time of their Lives

    S13:E19

    Set in a north London residential home for the active elderly, this documentary paints a portrait of life at the Mary Feilding Guild and of three of its oldest residents. With a combined age of almost 300, Rose, Hetty and Alison continue to be powerfully engaged in their individual brands of activism - from journalism to anti-war demonstrations - whilst quietly negotiating the final years of their lives. Rose, Hetty and Alison are fervently concerned about the state of the wider world and work energetically to make it a better place, but their private lives and loves are equally important. Through their intimate and surprising revelations, we learn the truth about how very old people experience life and how they deal with the intense challenges, and the indignities, that old age brings.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  20. Storyville Season 13 Episode 20 - Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson
    0.0/10(0 votes)

    #20 - Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson

    S13:E20

    The definitive film biography of a mythic American figure, a man that Tom Wolfe called 'our greatest comic writer', whose suicide led Rolling Stone magazine, where Thompson began his career, to devote an entire issue to the man that launched a brash, irreverent, fearless style of journalism - named 'gonzo' after an anarchic blues riff by James Booker. Gonzo is directed by Alex Gibney, the Academy Award-nominated director of Enron: the Smartest Guys in the Room and the director of the Academy Award-winning documentary Taxi to the Dark Side. While Gibney shaped the screen story, every narrated word in the film springs from the typewriters of Thompson himself, given life by Johnny Depp. The film is distinguished by its unprecedented cooperation of Thompson's friends, family and estate. The filmmakers had access to hundreds of photographs and over 200 hours of audiotapes, home movies and documentary footage.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  21. Storyville Season 13 Episode 21 - Man on Wire
    0.0/10(0 votes)

    #21 - Man on Wire

    S13:E21

    Documentary based on Philippe Petit's autobiographical book To Reach the Clouds: My High Wire Walk Between the Twin Towers. In August 1974, French wire-walker Philippe Petit spent nearly an hour walking, dancing, kneeling and lying on a wire which he and his friends had strung in secret between the rooftops of New York's Twin Towers. Six years of intense planning, dreaming and physical training fell into place that morning. Already an accomplished wire-walker, Petit had caught sight of an article about the planned construction of the Twin Towers while in a dentist's waiting room in 1968, and at that moment an obsession was born. He spent every waking moment since that day plotting the details of his walk (which he called 'le coup') and gathered a team of people around him to assist in the planning.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  22. Storyville Season 13 Episode 22 - The Baby and the Buddha
    0.0/10(0 votes)

    #22 - The Baby and the Buddha

    S13:E22

    Nati Baratz's documentary chronicles a former disciple's search for his reincarnated Tibetan master. After 26 years of isolated meditation in a mountain cave, Lama Konchog became one of the greatest Tibetan masters of our time. When he passed away in 2001 at 84, the Dalai Lama instructed his shy, devoted disciple Tenzin Zopa to search for his master's reincarnation. This 'unmistaken child' must be found within four years, before it becomes too difficult to remove him from his parents' care.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  23. Storyville Season 13 Episode 23 - Napoli - City of the Damned
    0.0/10(0 votes)

    #23 - Napoli - City of the Damned

    S13:E23

    When thinking of devastated cities in the World War II, Naples is often forgotten, but when it was liberated by the Allies it was on its last legs, with 200,000 homeless and no power, transport, food or running water. The Allies quickly brought food to the starving population and medicine to the sick, but this led to the creation of a huge black market involving almost the entire population as Naples became a city of vice, crime and chaos. When the war ended, alarmed by Soviet support for the Italian communist parties, the Allies responded with their own propaganda. Combined with the Marshall Plan, this became a covert effort by the Americans to swing the elections. After great political and ideological struggle, the 1948 elections were won by the Christian Democrats, a result that may not have been truly fair. The CIA were pleased with the result and recommended that the US should continue with the covert manipulation of political outcomes in foreign countries.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  24. Storyville Season 13 Episode 24 - Roman Polanski - Wanted and Desired
    0.0/10(0 votes)

    #24 - Roman Polanski - Wanted and Desired

    S13:E24

    In September 2009, Roman Polanski was arrested in Switzerland on a 30-year-old warrant. In 1978, the filmmaker skipped bail and escaped to France. For decades, no-one truly understood why. This documentary that reveals the truth about the bungled legal proceedings which brought about his escape. In her riveting reopening of this controversial and, as it turns out, very complex case, filmmaker Marina Zenovich fashions a perceptive and intelligent exploration of what really happened and casts a very different light on Polanski's decision, as well as the workings of the American legal system. Revisiting all of the key players, including the lawyers, the victim and the media, the film looks at the conduct of the judge whose handling of the case was unusual. In addition, it incorporates insightful interviews from the present, bringing new comprehension and clarity to events long clouded by myths and presumptions.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  25. Storyville Season 13 Episode 25 - Men of the City
    0.0/10(0 votes)

    #25 - Men of the City

    S13:E25

    People who work in the city either make money out of money, or from the proximity of money. But what do they feel about their jobs? In Men of the City, filmmaker Marc Isaacs goes behind the headlines to examine the state of mind and motivation of men in the city.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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Season 13 Ratings Summary

"Blast!" is the best rated episode of "Storyville" season 13. It scored /10 based on 0 votes. Directed by Unknown and written by Unknown, it aired on 1/7/2009. This episode is rated 0.0 points higher than the second-best, "Fashion Victim".