FEEL IT.STREAM
?

Nigel Finch

Directing

Biography

Nigel Lucius Graeme Finch was an English film director and filmmaker whose career influenced the growth of British gay cinema. Finch began working as co-editor for the BBC television documentary series Arena in the early 1970s. He produced and directed many notable programs including My Way (1978), and The Private Life of the Ford Cortina (1982). He rose to prominence with the documentary Chelsea Hotel (1981), which profiled the famed New York hotel, and its legacy of famous gay guests, including Oscar Wilde, Tennessee Williams, William S. Burroughs, Quentin Crisp and Andy Warhol. His documentary subjects include artist Robert Mapplethorpe (1988), filmmaker Kenneth Anger (1991), and artist Louise Bourgeois (1994). Finch went on to direct films such as the BAFTA-nominated drama The Lost Language of Cranes, and the musical soap opera The Vampyr. Finch died from AIDS-related illness in London in 1995 during post-production of his first full-length feature film Stonewall, a docudrama loosely based on events leading up to the 1969 Stonewall riots in New York City.

Known For

Bergerac
6.7

Jim Bergerac is a detective sergeant in The Foreigners Office who likes to do things his own way. While dealing with his own personal demons Bergerac has a knack of finding trouble, and sometimes causing it.

Bergerac

1981
Screen Two
7.1

Series of single made-for-television dramas.

Screen Two

1985
Arena
7.2

Arena is a British television documentary series, made and broadcast by the BBC. Voted by leading TV executives in Broadcast as one of the top 50 most influential programmes of all time, it has run since 1 October 1975 with over five hundred episodes made, directed by the likes of Martin Scorsese, Alan Yentob, Roly Keating, Frederick Baker, Volker Schlondorff and Vikram Jayanti. Arena's subjects are a roll-call of the world's best known cultural figures from the 20th and 21st centuries, from singers Bob Dylan and Amy Winehouse to academics Edward Said and Eric Hobsbawm, from writers Jean Genet and V S Naipaul to artists Francis Bacon and Louise Bourgeois. The current series editor is Anthony Wall.

Arena

1975
Paris Is Burning
8.0

Where does voguing come from, and what, exactly, is throwing shade? This landmark documentary provides a vibrant snapshot of the 1980s through the eyes of New York City's African American and Latinx Harlem drag-ball scene. Made over seven years, PARIS IS BURNING offers an intimate portrait of rival fashion "houses," from fierce contests for trophies to house mothers offering sustenance in a world rampant with homophobia, transphobia, racism, AIDS, and poverty. Featuring legendary voguers, drag queens, and trans women — including Willi Ninja, Pepper LaBeija, Dorian Corey, and Venus Xtravaganza.

Paris Is Burning

1991
Stonewall
5.7

A group of gay friends try to live with dignity and self-respect while events build to the opening battle in the major gay rights movement.

Stonewall

1995
No image
8.0

This TV documentary shows some of the colourful residents of and people connected with the New York Chelsea Hotel. Some highlights include Andy Warhol and William Burroughs having dinner; Quentin Crisp pontificating in a blue rinse hairdo on his balcony and Nico forgetting what she is talking about halfway through a dour rendition of "Chelsea Girls". A number of lesser-known characters also appear, linked together by a tour guide walking around the building and some sub-Shining sequences of a child cycling round the landings on a rickety tricycle.

Chelsea Hotel

1981
The Lost Language of Cranes
5.9

When a young gay man comes out of the closet, his friends support him, but when he comes out to his parents, he stirs up a wealth of hidden feelings and secrets in their relationship.

The Lost Language of Cranes

1992
Van Morrison: One Irish Rover
N/A

One Irish Rover, a documentary focusing on the words and music of Van Morrison, was broadcast in 1991 on BBC 2 Arena TV special and on A&E cable television program. It is a series of live songs with commentary by Morrison about music and poetry, it has some truly amazing performances. It includes the footage of Morrison and Dylan in Greece, Georgie Fame at Ronnie Scott’s, John Lee Hooker, The Chieftains and Danish Radio Big Band.

Van Morrison: One Irish Rover

1991
The Strange Case of Yukio Mishima
3.5

A BBC television documentary on the life of Yukio Mishima that highlights the many known major aspects of his life and personality.

The Strange Case of Yukio Mishima

1985
Ligmalion: Or How to Help Yourself in Self-Help Britain
9.0

Drama documentary which takes the form of an up-dated version of Pygmalion. With a special music score by jazz group Working Week, with real "society" characters and locations from 1984.

Ligmalion: Or How to Help Yourself in Self-Help Britain

1985
Fear and Loathing on the Road to Hollywood
7.1

Fear and Loathing on the Road to Hollywood, also known as Fear and Loathing in Gonzovision, is a documentary film produced by BBC in 1978 on the subject of Hunter S. Thompson, directed by Nigel Finch. The road trip/film pairs Thompson with Finch's fellow Briton the illustrator Ralph Steadman. The party travel to Hollywood via Death Valley and Barstow from Las Vegas, scene of the pair's 1971 collaboration. It contains interviews with Thompson and Steadman, as well as some short excerpts from some of his work.

Fear and Loathing on the Road to Hollywood

1978
Oooh Er Missus! The Frankie Howerd Story
10.0

Documentary about the life of Frankie Howerd, with help from friends and colleagues and including highlights from his TV and film career.

Oooh Er Missus! The Frankie Howerd Story

1990
BBC Arena: Woody Guthrie
N/A

Documentary on the life of Woody Guthrie, the travelling songwriter and singer who paved the way for the likes of Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen.

BBC Arena: Woody Guthrie

1988
The Errand
7.0

A soldier at an elite military institution is sent on a strange and increasingly nightmarish errand in this full-on fever-dream thriller from long-time Pete Walker collaborator David McGillivray (House of Whipcord).

The Errand

1980
The Rolling Stones: 25x5 - The Continuing Adventures of The Rolling Stones
7.5

The Rolling Stones emerged in the summer of 1963 as the so-called "bad boys" antidote to the Beatles, a characterization that became one of the foundations of modern rock 'n' roll. In the 25 years that followed, the Stones have succeeded in outraging, mystifying, confusing yet always inspiring their fans. 25 X 5: The Continuing Adventures of The Rolling Stones is the first time that the Stones have gone on camera to tell their own story. Over two hours of devastatingly frank narratives by Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts, Bill Wyman, and Ron Wood are underscored by rare interview segments with Brian Jones and Mick Taylor, and rare and never-before-seen archival film, video, and newsreel footage.

The Rolling Stones: 25x5 - The Continuing Adventures of The Rolling Stones

1993
Kurt Vonnegut: So It Goes
9.0

A documentary featured on BBC's Arena series in 1983. The author discusses his life, his work and his thoughts and opinions.

Kurt Vonnegut: So It Goes

1983
The Confessions of Robert Crumb
7.9

In 1987, Robert Crumb presents himself: raised by a Marine father, educated in Catholic schools, married at 21 in Cleveland where he worked for a greeting card company, dropping acid in 1965, heading to San Francisco and getting in on the formation of Zap Comix, gaining celebrity, loving old time jazz, starting a band, living in a commune, meeting Aline Kominsky who became his second wife and his partner in art, having a daughter, and developing a more realistic drawing style. The confessions include his loneliness, his obsessions with women, his bewilderment by fame, his sense of the disintegration of Sixties' subculture, his nervous breakdown in 1973, and his peace now.

The Confessions of Robert Crumb

1987
The Tip of the Iceberg
N/A

A documentary on the ways in which the symbolism of the breast is expressed in film, fashion and filth, how the bosom is idealised and the means by which it is trivialised and denigrated. Contributors include Barbara Windsor, Jane Russell, Marina Warner, Sheila Kitzinger, American poet Audre Lorde, Vivienne Westwood, Anna Raeburn and Russ Meyer.

The Tip of the Iceberg

1989
My Way
N/A

Arena documentary investigating the history and influence of iconic song 'My Way'

My Way

1979
Voices from the Island
N/A

Nelson Mandela and his fellow ex-prisoners recall their incarceration on South Africa's Robben Island. For three decades, the island housed not only political prisoners but convicts, lepers and the mentally ill. Yet amidst the hopelessness, Nelson Mandela and his comrades devised strategies and subterfuges with which they transformed life on the island, while the vision of a new South Africa began to take shape.

Voices from the Island

1994