Paul Robeson

The Film Programme

With Francine Stock.

Francine visits the setting and locations of The Proud Valley starring Paul Robeson, actor, activist, singer, linguist, lawyer and honorary Welshman. Historian Phil Carradice explains why Robeson became a folk hero in the Rhondda Valley and about the miners' campaign to get his passport returned when he was blacklisted by the United States government and banned from leaving the country.

The Proud Valley is being shown across South Wales and is the opening film at The Phoenix in Ton Pentre, a community cinema that closed its doors last year. There, Francine meets volunteer projectionist Mike Chapman, who has traced the history of the venue to its early days when it was a music hall, starring such turns as Ned Edwards and "His Two Little Queenies, the smallest artistes on the variety stage" as they were billed.

Otto Bell, the director of The Eagle Huntress reveals why he spent his life savings to make a documentary about a 13 year old Mongolian girl who tried to become the first female eagle hunter in 12 generations of her Kazakh family.

The director of Life, Animated, Roger Ross Williams, takes us behind the scenes of his documentary about an American family who used the language of Disney animations to communicate with their son, who was diagnosed with regressive autism at the age of three.