House by The Cemetary

Charlie Luxton returns for a new run of the show about the best coastal properties on the Mediterranean.

How did a treasure trove of banned Soviet art worth millions of dollars end up stashed in the far-off desert of Uzbekistan in a communist-funded museum? Thanks to the passion and daring of one man, Igor Savitsky, who loved the work too much to let the repressive Moscow government extinguish it forever.

In the late 1940s, the incandescent Hollywood star Ingrid Bergman found herself so stirred by the revolutionary neorealist films of Roberto Rossellini that she sent the director a letter, introducing herself and offering her talents. The resulting collaboration produced a series of films that are works of both sociopolitical concern and metaphysical melodrama, each starring Bergman as a woman experiencing physical dislocation and psychic torment in postwar Italy. It also famously led to a scandalous affair and eventual marriage between filmmaker and star, and the focus on their personal lives in the press unfortunately overshadowed the extraordinary films they made together. Stromboli, Europe ’51, and Journey to Italy are intensely moving portraits that reveal the director at his most emotional and the glamorous actress at her most anguished, and that capture them and the world around them in transition.

The arresting sight of Sister Wendy Beckett, all teeth and glasses, burst on to our screens in the 1990s. An instant star, she travelled the world in her habit telling us the story of Christian art and painting but revealing little of her own extraordinary story. Arena goes in search of the 'real' Wendy, who, at 82, talks frankly, humorously, and profoundly about her life and spirituality for the first time.

A dazzling new version of a much-loved classic performed by the Mariinsky (Kirov) Ballet. Acclaimed Russian artist Mihail Chemiakin returned to the original story by E.T.A. Hoffmann to create a darkly magical childhood world of dancing snowflakes, sinister rats and a dangerous journey to the City of Sweets. Tchaikovsky's complete score is conducted by the celebrated music director of the Mariinsky Theatre - Valery Gergiev.

This exclusive video collection is jam-packed with the gritty best from noted New York filmmaker Richard Kern. His sexually-charged work has been alternately dismissed as “violent” and “offensive” by the mainstream press, but embraced by the underground as the perverse standard. Says Kern, “I've tried it all: crime thrills, drug thrills, sex thrills. Nowadays, I get most of my thrills by offending people with my films. I don't even have to be there. I can sit far away and think, “Someone's watching my video right now and thinking, Yeeughh!”

The first Venezuelan supernatural thriller: Dulce is a mother of two who suddenly experiences terrifying encounters with mysterious apparitions inside her old house.

Eleni, the wife of a very rich man, spends the summer on an island in the Aegean Sea, doing archaeological research. One day her stepson comes to visit. The sea, the sun, the shepherds with ancient half-lingual rites, a handsome youth, not yet an old woman - no one remembered what happened in Ancient Greece.

Art critic Alastair Sooke delves into the murky world of art theft. Despite the high stakes - and often daring - involved, many cases are shrouded in mystery and go unnoticed by the media. Around 47,000 works of art are reported missing each year, yet it is only the heists involving the world's most valuable paintings that hit the headlines. But high-profile or not - once gone, the works are rarely recovered. Alastair meets one of America’s most notorious art thieves, Myles Connor.

The world's first trial against German war criminals took place in Kharkov, Ukraine in December 1943.
The trial opened on the 15th of December and by the 18th the defendants were executed.