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Title: CHOSEN PEOPLE

Reference number: 7875

Date: 2000

Director: d. Seona Robertson, Les Wilson

Sponsor: BBC Scotland and The Scottish Arts Council National Lottery Award

Producer: Seona Robertson, Les Wilson

Production company: Caledonia, Sterne & Wyld

Sound: sound

Colour: bwcol

Fiction: non-fiction

Running time: 99.04 mins

Description: In 1947 the world’s leading photo journalists chose ten families at random for an American Magazine, the Ladies Journal to represent our common humanity in the wake of war. In this film, we’ve tracked down these families throughout the world to learn of their lives over the extraordinary past half century.

A feature length film documentary following the lives of ten families living on four continents since they were first photographed by MAGNUM photographers in 1947.

First transmitted BBC 2, 3rd January 2000. See also Caledonia TV website at http://www.caledonia.tv/ [last accessed 10/2/2009]

Credits: narr. Julie Christie
m. composed and performed by Jim Sutherland

Thanks to Dr. Aluma Araba; Cathy Costain, The British Council, Cairo; Daniel Zheng, The British Council, Shanghai; Dan Collison, Christian Aid; New Sudan Council of Churches; Gamal Shafik, Press Centre, Cairo; Reagan High School, Houston; Phil Schultz; Yan Xiaoqian, Shanghai Civil Affairs Bureau; Seme Solomona, Bishop of Yei; Telecom Italia, Florence; Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago

Archive sources The Ladies Home Journal, Magnum, George Rodger Estate, Horace Bristol Estate, Larry Burrows Estate, John G. Morris Collection University of Chicago, The Meredith Corporation, Time Inc., The Mitchell Library Glasgow

camera ass. Frank Battersby, Derek Little, Faye
video camera Bob Batchelor
telecine colourist Chris Goding
online ed. Andrew McGuirk
rostrum camera Malcolm Paris
dubbing mixer Cy Jack
location man. Rashid Bakhit, Cao Wenquing, Romany Helmy, Isaac Seme
production accountants Brian Murray, Peter Graham
researchers Chris Dolan, Anna Coombes, Stephen Townsend
p. ass. Lorna Galt
associate p. (China) Xiasong Atiyah, Zhang Yongning
associate p. (Egypt) Mourad El Essawi
associate p. (France) Sandy Lockhart
associate p. (Germany) Anette Kempf
associate p. (Italy) Nina Salvadori
associate p. (Japan) Yuzuru Koga
associate p. (Mexico) Chloe Sayer
associate p. (Sudan) John Aduwe Enosa, Dina Kojo
exec. p. for BBC Scotland Katie Lander
ph. Patrick Duval
sd. rec. Brian Howell
ed. Peter Blackie
p. man. Aileen Kane
p. and d. Seona Robertson, Les Wilson

BBC Scotland and the Scottish Arts Council National Lottery Fund in association with Southern Star realised with the assistance of MAP-TV EC Media Programme and the Glasgow Television Development Fund.

© BBC Scotland and Caledonia, Sterne & Wyld MCMXCIX

[The Families
The Hes | China
The Alumas | Sudan
The Redouins | France
The Pratts | USA
The El Gamels | Egypt
The Hiatts | England
The Stieglitzes | Germany
The Gonzalezes | Mexico
The Guercinis | Italy
The Okamotos | Japan]

Shotlist: In 1947 some of the world’s most respected war photographers set off on their first peacetime mission. Their brief was to visit 12 countries, and in each one to choose a farming family who represented life in that nation. Chosen People is a fascinating BBC Two documentary film inspired by their photographs. It offers an intriguing and timely opportunity to reflect on how history has affected family life around the world over the past fifty years.

The original pictures were published in a magazine under the title which reflected the spirit of post-war pacifism through common humanity and understanding, People Are People The World Over. The magazine featured adobe huts in Mexico, Italian peasants still living under a feudal lord, food rationing in the Cotswolds, a fortune teller in China.

And now? Will the Okamotos still be working the land in high-tech Japan? Will Arleen have realised her ambition to be a farmer’s wife in Iowa? And what of the Alumas of Southern Sudan whose country has been plagued by civil war?

How have lives and loves, concerns and pleasures, hopes and dreams changed over the years? Does the 1947 editor’s view that “people are pretty much people wherever you find them” still hold true?

Eight years in the making, ambitious in scope and poetic content, Chosen People re-visits ten families, inviting viewers to draw their own conclusions on what they tell us about the human state.

[Synopsis from Caledonia TV website at http://www.caledonia.tv/, last accessed 10/2/2009]