pmforster

This was a very enjoyable series that showed the Victorian origins of many features of Christmas today, such as the Christmas tree and Christmas cards. All those involved did a very good job of bringing it to life and obviously had to work very hard!

'The Watchmaker's Apprentice' is the best film I've seen for a long time. It's a documentary about a watchmaker and the younger man who eventually becomes his apprentice. But it's also about things that are fading and becoming valued less these days - patience, beauty, great craftsmanship, excellence and creating things that are, ironically, timeless.

This documentary spends a summer with a community of holocaust survivors in the Catskill Mountains. Most were liberated from concentration camps at the end of WWII - free, but with nothing and no-one. Here, a group of about 50 or so families who had moved to the USA come together for the summer every year. They allowed the documentary crew to join them one year to record their stories, celebrations, reminiscences and tears. It is a funny and moving story of a group of real survivors.