Storyville Reveals Summer Specials Slate & New Commissions

BBC’s Storyville has unveiled a new slate of summer specials that will begin premiering in June, as well as three new commissions for BBC Four and iPlayer.

Among the summer specials is Citizen Ashe, telling the story of tennis legend and social activist Arthur Ashe. The film, directed by Rex Miller and Sam Pollard, uncovers Ashe’s personal evolution and details how his activism grew and embraced all oppressed people throughout the world.

Ashe died of AIDS-related complications in 1993 and was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The documentary about his life is produced by Miller, Beth Hubbard, Anna Godas, Steven Cantor, Jamie Schutz and Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe.

Another summer special in the lineup is On The Morning You Wake (To The End of The World), recreating the moment on January 13, 2018, when an alert was issued to 1.4 million citizens of Hawaii warning of a ballistic missile threat. The people of Hawaii were forced to make decisions about what to do in the face of nuclear violence before learning the alert was a mistake. It will raise important questions about the country’s preparedness for nuclear war.

On The Morning You Wake’s creative team includes Mike Brett and Steve Jamison of Archer’s Mark, Pierre Zandrowicz and Arnaud Colinart of Atlas V, producer Jo-Jo Ellison and co-producer Kurban Kassam, who collaborated with technology studio Novelab. The script was developed Mike Brett and Steve Jamison in collaboration with Dr. Jamaica Heolimeleikalani Osorio, whose spoken word poem inspired the film’s title and provides a lyrical framework for each chapter of the experience. Original music is composed by Bobby Krlic (The Haxan Cloak), the award-winning musician behind Ari Aster’s Midsommar soundtrack.

Into My Name/Nel Mio Nome will also debut this summer. It follows 33-year-old Nico, 30-year-old Leo, 25-year-old Andrea and 23-year-old Raff as they start their gender transition at different times in their lives. It is directed by Nicolò Bassetti and produced by Bassetti, Lucia Nicolai and Marcello Paolillo. Executive producers are Elliot Page and Gaia Morrione.

New commissions by Storyville include 8 Bar: The Evolution of Grime, detailing the history of grime, a music genre that came about as a product of social unrest, urban culture and disenfranchised youth in the U.K. in the early 2000s.

A Story of Bones, meanwhile, centers on Annina Van Neel, chief environmental officer for Saint Helena’s airport project, who learned of the island’s unmarked mass burial ground of an estimated 9,000 formerly enslaved Africans in Rupert’s Valley. Van Neel now fights alongside African American preservationist Peggy King Jorde and a group of disenfranchised islanders to properly memorialize the forgotten victims.

Lastly, Storyville has commissioned Beneath the Surface, which examines generations of negligence and abuse suffered by indigenous Sámi women, men and children. At court, the community stands up to Norwegian authorities, unveiling a racial sub-order and discussing generational trauma.