BBC World offers a fascinating line-up of programmes all of April 2008

Company Brief

Mumbai, April 02, 2008

BBC World, the BBC's commercially-funded international 24-hour news and information channel, would like to share the April 2008 programming schedule with you.

Living Style

Show timings : Sat. 5th April at 2000; Sun. 6th April at 1400 ®, 2300 ®; Sat. 12th April at 2000; Sun. 13th April at 1400 ®, 2300 ®; Sat. 19th April at 2000; Sun. 20th April at 1400 ®, 2300 ®; Sat. 26th April at 2000; Sun. 27th April at 1400 ®, 2300 ®.

Gerry De Veaux, style guru and fashion expert, goes to the cutting edge of art, architecture, fashion, music and design. Gerry DeVeaux will cross continents for an on-set interview with the latest Bollywood siren, go backstage at the Dior by John Galliano coutre Paris show, go inside the design room and shoe closets of Jimmy Choo founder Tamara Mellon and look around the latest New York hip-hotel before it’s even opened.Living Style is the show that gives you the ultimate all access pass to the glamour and international trend setters behind the headlines.

Episode 1

Living Style with presenter Gerry DeVeaux kicks off with an exclusive interview with Pop Diva and Brit Award winner Kylie Minogue.

Episode 2

Gerry DeVeaux goes backstage and behind the scenes during Milan fashion week.

Episode 3

Living Style kicks off with British Artist, American-resident, Russell Young at his latest exhibition of celebrity police portraits.

Episode 4

Gerry DeVeaux gets behind the re-launch of the iconic 70s fashion brand Halston, making its New York debut.

Episode 5

Gerry DeVeaux flies to Miami for Art Basel to talk art with Charlie’s Angle actress turned painter, Lucy Liu.

Schools Out

Show timings : Wed. 9th April at 0100, 1500 ®; Thurs. 10th April at 2100 ®; Fri. 11th April at 1300 ®; Wed. 16th April at 0100, 1500 ®; Thurs. 17th April at 2100 ®; Fri. 18th April at 1300 ®; Wed. 23rd April at 0100, 1500 ®; Thurs. 24th April at 2100 ®; Fri. 25th April at 1300 ®; Wed. 30th April at 0100, 1500®.

This series travels to India, Japan, China, the US, the UK and Germany to look at the state of vocational training in each of those countries.Every economy needs skilled workers – electricians, plumbers, beauticians, chefs – jobs that don’t require degrees.

UK

Alasdair Craig – after flunking most of his exams left school at 16 was lucky enough to be taken on as an apprentice by a jeweller. Five years later his craft skills win him the title of Apprentice of the Year.

US

19 year old Chris Cox is training for one of the most dangerous jobs in California – a powerline engineer. If he passes his course, having learnt to scale 60ft pylons and work safely with high voltages – he’s almost guaranteed a job in an industry crying out for skilled workers.

Germany

Germany has always valued vocational training and has an impressive tradition of apprenticeships. Markus Henize is learning to hand make pianos at the Bechstein piano factory in Saxony. He’s one of a lucky handful of apprentices to be taken on in an area blighted by unemployment.

Japan

Shimozuma Kaori is competing for a highly sought after job in Japan’s huge animation industry. Enrolled on an animation course at one of Japan’s leading vocational colleges, she has to score top marks in her exams, to stand a chance of getting a job.

China

Liu Long was told by his school teachers that only stupid kids did vocational training but – ignoring their advice – he enrolled on a catering course and is now well on his way to a successful career as a talented chef.

India

In India – 19 year old Pooja Dhingra, despite never having flown before, has set her heart on becoming an air hostess in India’s booming aviation industry. Her parents have scraped together the necessary fees to get her into India’s top training school for air hostesses.

Imagination: Private Life Of A Masterpiece

Show timings : Sat. 19th April at 1340, 2240 ®; Sun. 20th April at 0640, 1940 ®; Sat. 26th April at 1340, 2240 ®; Sun. 27th April at 0640 ®,1940®.

BBC World’s popular art strand Imagination, continues with more programmes about art and culture. Private Life Of A Masterpiece explores the fascinating stories behind three renowned and iconic works of art.

La Primavera

Sandro Botticelli’s allegorical masterpiece, La Primavera, was painted in Florence, probably in the 1480s. It was one of the first large secular works since Greek and Roman times, and featured the first sensual female figures of the Renaissance in a city awash with pious Christian images. Now over half a millennium old, it remains one of the most perplexing and enigmatic of all the great paintings.

The programme includes contributions from Jonathan Nelson from the Syracuse University in Florence; Patricia Rubin, of the Courtauld Institute, London; art historian Jenny Graham; and Camille Paglia, cultural commentator at the University of the Arts, Philadelphia.

The Great Wave

Possibly the most famous Far Eastern image in art, Katsushika Hokusai’s woodblock painting depicts human vulnerability in the face of nature, with three fragile cargo boats about to be swamped by a giant wave. Hokusai was aged 70 when he created The Great Wave. He had been retired for some time but had been ruined by a profligate grandson who gambled away all his money. Homeless and destitute, Hokusai resumed work and designed The Great Wave as part of his celebrated sketch-book of works, Thirty Six Views of Mount Fuji, begun in the 1820s.

Little Dancer Aged Fourteen

The cause of a major scandal when it was first exhibited in Paris in 1881, Edgar Degas’ sculpture, Petite danseuse de quatorze ans (The Little Dancer), is now rightly recognised as one of the most important works produced during the 19th Century. By using real fabric and real hair to complete the groundbreaking work, Degas blurred the distinction between art and life and paved the way for modern sculpture. Also revealed is the tragic story of the young model, 14-year-old Marie van Goetham, on whom The Little Dancer was based.

The Sunflowers

Van Gogh’s masterpiece is one of the most famous works of art in the world, but few people know the hidden history behind the painting. Inspired by a bunch of flowers that the artist found lying in a gutter, The Sunflowers was a favourite of Van Gogh’s and he made 10 versions of the original. Shortly afterwards, Van Gogh ended his own life. At the funeral, his coffin was covered in the sunflowers he loved so much and it was only after his tragic death that Van Gogh’s work finally received the acclaim it deserved.

Whistler's Mother

Whistler’s famous painting of his elderly, Puritan mother is one of the most satirised paintings of all time. Yet when his sombre masterpiece was first unveiled, it was seen as a radical departure from the sentimental images beloved of the Victorians, which Whistler loathed. Provocatively entitled An Arrangement in Grey and Black, it was considered outrageous when it was first exhibited in 1871. But then, much of Whistler’s work baffled the critics and scandalised the public. However, the painting is now regarded as a precursor of abstract art, the first example of American image-making, and a powerful icon of Motherhood.

Women on The Frontline

Show timings : Sat. 19th April at 0100, 1000 ®; Mon. 21st April at 1500 ®; Tues. 22nd April at 2100 ®; Wed. 23rd April at 1300 ®; Sat. 26th April at 0100, 1000 ®; Mon. 28th April at 1500 ®; Tues. 29th April at 2100 ®; 30th April at 1300®.

BBC World will broadcast the first in a seven-part series documenting the different kinds of violence practiced against women and girls.

Presented by Annie Lennox, Women on the Frontline takes the front to the homes, villages, and cities of our world where a largely unreported war against females is being waged. We hear the victims give testimony and gain an insight into how widespread gender-based violence is:

Nepal

The programme follows the rescue of a young mother trafficked to a brothel in India, and asks if her poverty will force her back into the sex trade?

Turkey

A government keen to enter the European Union has cracked down on so-called ‘honour killing’ - but has it surfaced in a rash of suspicious suicides?

Colombia

The programme follows a women judge. See through her eyes how the drugs and the world’s longest civil war have brutalized teenage girls.

Democratic Republic of Congo

Women On the Frontline visits the clinics where the ‘lucky’ few among the victims of mass rape are getting treatment for fistula, the vaginal condition that leaves women outcastes.

Mauritania

The moral codes that mean women who are victims of rape are being imprisoned under Sharia Law are investigated.

Seven women directors have filmed for a year with survivors of gender based violence - honour killings, sex trafficking and torture - in seven countries where campaigns and grassroots media, as well as lawmakers’ action, is making a difference to the rights and wellbeing of women.

Its not all bad news. In surprising places there are signs of hope that countries are taking note of CEDAW (Convention on Elimination Of All Forms Of Discrimination) and that a women’s lot can improve.

Morocco

The first Truth and Reconciliation Commission in the Arab world has enabled women who were tortured by the state to tell their stories.

Austria

The authorities have found a novel way of protecting women from a repeat of domestic violence – the men are ejected from their homes.

For further information, please contact:

Genesis Burson-Marsteller

Nikita Crasta

Tel: +91 22 24911783

e-mail: nikita.crasta@bm.com