SATURDAY 09 OCTOBER 2010

SAT 19:00 Life (b00ncr13)
Challenges of Life

In nature, living long enough to breed is a monumental struggle. Many animals and plants go to extremes to give themselves a chance.

Uniquely, three brother cheetahs band together to bring down a huge ostrich. Aerial photography reveals how bottle-nosed dolphins trap fish in a ring of mud, and time-lapse cameras show how the Venus flytrap ensnares insect victims.

The strawberry frog carries a tadpole high into a tree and drops it in a water-filled bromeliad. The frog must climb back from the ground every day to feed it.

Fledgling chinstrap penguins undertake a heroic and tragic journey through the broken ice to get out to sea. Many can barely swim and the formidable leopard seal lies in wait.


SAT 20:00 Michael Wood's Story of England (b00v3z4r)
The Great Famine and the Black Death

Groundbreaking series in which Michael Wood tells the story of one place throughout the whole of English history. The village is Kibworth in Leicestershire in the heart of England - a place that lived through the Black Death, the Civil War and the Industrial Revolution and was even bombed in World War Two.

Wood's fascinating tale reaches the catastrophic 14th century. Kibworth goes through the worst famine in European history, and then, as revealed in the astonishing village archive in Merton College Oxford, two thirds of the people die in the Black Death.

Helped by today's villagers - field walking and reading the historical texts - and by the local schoolchildren digging archaeological test pits, Wood follows stories of individual lives through these times, out of which the English idea of community and the English character begin to emerge.


SAT 21:00 BBC Four World Cinema Awards (b00v9g9b)
2010

Jonathan Ross hosts the annual celebration of world cinema from the British Film Institute. All the hits are featured, from The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo to Let the Right One In, while Bernardo Bertolucci, renowned director of The Last Emperor and Last Tango In Paris, is honoured.

In a strong shortlist, the contenders for film of the year include Michael Haneke's The White Ribbon, I Am Love, which stars Tilda Swinton, and Jacques Audiard's A Prophet.


SAT 22:00 Face to Face (b00v9g9d)
Bernardo Bertolucci

Jeremy Isaacs interviews Italian film director Bernardo Bertolucci about his life and work. They discuss his parents, childhood, decision to make films, political background and the nature of politcal filmmaking, other directors and their influence on him, working methods as a director and working with actors such as Marlon Brando, experience of psychoanalysis, themes he detects in his work and reaction to the popularity of some of his films.


SAT 22:30 Mad Men (b00v3z4t)
Series 4

The Chrysanthemum and the Sword

Don and Pete try to land a new Japanese client, but Roger's racist attitude may hand the lucrative account to a rival. Don has to read deeply and think quickly to salvage things. Betty is worried about reports of her daughter Sally's erratic behaviour and wonders about referring her to a therapist.


SAT 23:15 Crooked House (b00gf5l2)
Something Old

When schoolteacher Ben unearths an old door knocker in the garden of his new home, the curator suggests it may come from the now-demolished house, reputed to be haunted. Ben prompts the curator to tell him stories about the house's past.

In the 1920s, Lady Constance de Momery presides over a costume ball for her grandson, but all is not as it seems and when young heir to the estate Felix de Momery announces his engagement to sweetheart Ruth, his friends Billy and Katherine seem far from pleased.

Is the happy couple's destiny inextricably linked with another tragic wedding day many years ago and does the sight of a ghostly bride in a grave-stained wedding dress explain why there has not been a wedding at Geap Manor since then?


SAT 23:50 Timeshift (b00v3z0f)
Series 10

When Britain Went Wild

Timeshift explores the untold story of how Britain 'went wild' in the 1960s. It shows how the British people fell in love with animals and how, by the end of the decade, wildlife protection had become an intrinsic part of our culture. Before that time people knew very little about endangered species or the natural world - the very word 'environment' was hardly recognised. But the 1960s saw a sea change.

The film discovers how early television wildlife programmes with David Attenborough, writers such as Gerald Durrell and Gavin Maxwell and pioneers of conservation such as Peter Scott contributed to that transformation.


SAT 01:20 100 Years of Wildlife Films (b007xnvt)
From the most memorable wildlife films and rare cinematic gems, to amateur footage and the poignant last shots of vanished animals, Bill Oddie explores 100 years of wildlife filming. The documentary looks at how societal attitudes towards wildlife have shaped film-making - from hunting and safaris in the 1930s to a fresh-faced David Attenborough leaping on to animals to catch them for zoos in the 1950s.


SAT 03:20 BBC Four World Cinema Awards (b00v9g9b)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 today]


SAT 04:20 Churches: How to Read Them (b00tx3fg)
The Victorians and After

Richard Taylor discovers how, at the height of the Industrial Revolution, medieval imagery and ritual make a surprise return to Victorian places of worship and plunge the Anglican Church into conflict.

Richard retraces the controversy surrounding this Oxford Movement of Anglo-Catholics and explores their finest churches, showing how some of its most fervent supporters, including William Morris, had a change of heart about the radical restructuring that it brought to ancient buildings.

But the 20th century would bring even more powerful changes. Richard sees how the impact of war is reflected on imagery in our churches and how the First World War brought a return to another medieval practice - the commemoration of the dead. He visits a 21st century church that looks more like a rock venue and he finally finds the perfect place to reflect on what he has learned from his reading of Britain's churches.