Battle for the Trees

The full bizarre, tragic but celebratory story of Syd Barrett, the co-founder of Pink Floyd.

Wish You Were Here, released in September 1975, was the follow up album to the globally successful The Dark Side Of The Moon and is cited by many fans, as well as band members Richard Wright and David Gilmour, as their favorite Pink Floyd album. On release it went straight to Number One in both the UK and the US and topped the charts in many other countries around the world. This program tells the story of the making of this landmark release through new interviews with Roger Waters, David Gilmour and Nick Mason and archive interviews with the late Richard Wright. Also featured are sleeve designer Storm Thorgerson, guest vocalist Roy Harper, front cover burning man Ronnie Rondell and others involved in the creation of the album. In addition, original recording engineer Brian Humphries revisits the master tapes at Abbey Road Studios to illustrate aspects of the songs construction.

The turbulent life of soul and blues singer, the late Joe Cocker. A former gas fitter from Sheffield, catapulted to world stardom in 1969 at Woodstock with his legendary performance of the Beatles song, "A Little Help from My Friends". But in the early 1970s, Joe Cocker's inner demons nearly killed him. Overcoming his struggles with alcohol and drugs, he rebuilt his reputation as "one of the great primal rock and roll vocalists of all time" (Billy Joel's description). The film mixes Joe Cocker's own words, with rare archive. His wife (Pam Cocker) & family, friends and the legendary songwriters and musicians he collaborated with, tell Joe Cocker's story. The film has raw, historic, electric performance footage throughout. Extensive interviews of key people through his life include: Pam Cocker, Ben Fong-Torres (Rolling Stone magazine editor), Randy Newman, Jimmy Webb, Billy Joel, Rita Coolidge, Deric Dyer, Glyn Johns, and numerous others.

Omnibus was an arts-based BBC television documentary series, broadcast mainly on BBC1 in the United Kingdom. The programme was the successor to the long-running arts-based series 'Monitor'. It ran from 1967 until 2003, usually being transmitted on Sunday evenings. During its 35-year history, the programme won 12 Bafta awards. Among the series' best remembered documentaries are Cracked Actor, a profile of David Bowie, and Rene Magritte, a graduate film by David Wheatley, 'Madonna: Behind the American dream', a film produced by Nadia Hagger, and a profile of the British film director Ridley Scott. For a season in 1982, the series was in a magazine format presented by Barry Norman. The series was replaced by 'Imagine' hosted by Alan Yentob.

This film, which includes archival footage and interviews with convicted killer James Earl Ray, Martin Luther King III and former police officers, looks back at Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination in 1968 and lingering conspiracy theories.

A feature-length documentary about one of the most successful British bands in rock music. The film recounts their extraordinary musical story, exploring the songwriting and the emotional highs and lows.

Documentary covering the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal, a black nationalist and journalist in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, convicted of killing a Philadelphia police officer and sentenced to death in a trial marked by controversial prosecutorial and defense tactics and charges of racism.

In this Under Review we look at the genius of Syd Barrett.

Canaries were used by miners to alert them to the presence of poisonous gases underground. If a canary died, they knew the air was bad. This film is about human canaries - some of the first victims of a newly recognised and devastating illness emerging in America. People are being poisoned by some of the 60,000 chemicals in everyday use. A group of chemically ill people have found refuge in unusual homes in the clean air of the small Texan town of Wimberley - with painful and bizarre results.

A documentary that goes inside the dark, witty, surreal world of cult English singer/songwriter Robyn Hitchcock.

I Often Dream of Trains in New York was recorded live at Symphony Space in New York City in the fall of 2008 during the U.S. leg of Hitchcock s highly anticipated I Often Dream of Trains Tour. Deftly shot by acclaimed director John Edginton (The Pink Floyd and Syd Barrett Story), this concert film DVD (and accompanying audio CD) captures the cult songwriting icon recreating one of his most intimate and haunting albums in its entirety. Robyn is joined by Trains tour-mates Terry Edwards (vocals, keyboards, trumpet, soprano sax, guitar) and Tim Keegan (vocals, guitar) as well as guests Gaida Hinnawi (vocals) and Amir El Saffar (trumpet) from the Robyn-led band seen in Jonathan Demme s film Rachel Getting Married. As its title suggests, I Often Dream of Trains is a glimpse into the phantasmagorical mind of the artist himself. And I Often Dream of Trains in New York captures him fantastically raw and singularly in-the-moment in other words, quintessentially....Hitchcock.