‘A testament to the bravery of the film’s subjects’
Debuting at the Sundance Festival in 2023, Beyond Utopia uses smuggled footage to uncover the lives of defectors from one of the most secretive countries in the world: North Korea. One judge described the film as “a bold acquisition offering an insight into stories that rarely get the chance to be told”.
In a place where mobile phones don’t work and there is no unmonitored access to the outside world, this BAFTA-nominated documentary gives its audience a glimpse of the lives of people who are willing to risk everything to escape, with interviews from successful defectors including activist Hyeon-seo Lee.
It also follows the Roh family, who under the guidance of South Korean Christian Pastor Seungeun Kim (himself a defector, who has helped over 1,000 others escape) plan to escape North Korea by travelling through China, Vietnam, and Laos to reach safety in Thailand.
Judges described the documentary as “a testament to the bravery of the film’s subjects”.
SHORTLISTED
Prisoner
DR for BBC
Winner of the Prix Italia Drama Award, Prisoner is a drama that explores the underlying problems in Danish society through the lives of four Danish prison officers.
Starring Sofie Gråbøl, a decade after her appearance on BBC4 drama The Killing, the series averaged 302K views per episode and peaked at 450K views. It has received 1.15m requests, with almost 450K requests for the first episode alone.
Sister Boniface S2
BBC Studios for Drama
Averaging 1.1m views across its 10 episodes, the second series of Sister Boniface was the second highest rated series on Drama in 2023, following on from its first series which was the highest rated series on Drama in 2022.
The cosy crime drama’s second series premiere was the third biggest launch ever achieved on the channel, pulling in an audience of 1.3m.
The Great American Buffalo
Florentine Films for BBC
The Great American Buffalo doesn’t shy away from the difficult topic of the erasure of Native American communities through their main food source, the North American buffalo.
The acquisition of this two-part documentary brings the history of colonialism in the US – which does involve the UK – to British audiences, and averaged 290K viewers per episode with 206K requests on BBC iPlayer.
No comments yet