The BBC’s Delivering Quality First cost-cutting initiative has “smiled on” international film strand Storyville, opening up a regular late-night slot on BBC2.

The strand, part-way through a run on BBC4, will launch on BBC2 on 1 February for an initial 12 weeks on Wednesdays at 11.20pm.

BBC2 will showcase some of the best of Storyville’s recent back catalogue, opening with Beeban Kidron’s film Sex, Death and the Gods, about Hindu girls who are married to a deity in childhood, and Guerrilla – The Taking of Patty Hearst, Robert Stone’s film about one of the most well-known political kidnappings in US history.

The BBC2 slot will host new films that fit in with topical items likely to appear on Newsnight, such as the Iranian elections in March and November’s US elections.

But Storyville is not being allocated extra funding and there are no changes to the commissioning and acquisitions strategy as the move comes under DQF plans to air repeats late at night. A total of 25 Storyville films a year are shown on BBC4.

Storyville editor Nick Fraser said: “DQF has smiled on us. We can try to bring the best and most provocative films to a different audience, and we will have a direct inheritance from Newsnight, which attracts the kind of people who love docs.”

The series has more than 360 films in its back catalogue, which have accumulated four Oscars, 18 Griersons, three Peabodys and four International Emmys.

This story was originally published by Broadcast.

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