Recommended Documentaries

I recently saw Gypsy Blood on TV in the UK and was incredibly happy to see this style of doc (no voice over and space between the scenes) on main stream TV with a prime-time slot of 10pm. The trailer makes it look like a doc on bare knuckle fighting. But this, i believe, was just a way to sell it to the masses as in fact it goes much deeper than that, in to a community and their values, as well as the relationship between father and sons. A first ever film, shot by photographer Leo Maguire on a Canon 5D it looks beautiful and i hope gets some festival showings as it deserves to be seen on a large screen.
The embed video would not take this URL for some reason –
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldDwfNLD5F8

Tribute to an almost entirely forgotten documentary filmmaker: Robert Vas came to London as a refugee from Hungary in 1956, to make over thirty films in the next twenty years, most of them for the BBC. This tribute made shortly after his death in 1978 is presented by fellow exile Karel Reisz (note that the film starts very quietly)

Full disclosure: a decade ago, I tried to make a film portrait of Vas with producer John Wyver, but we couldn't get anywhere with the BBC (a certain commissioning editor's explanation being "we're interested in the future not the past"); in the meantime, many of those who knew him have passed on themselves. Check out this entry on Vas, Robert who? on the excellent blog John maintains for his company Illuminations.

Just saw THE ACT OF KILLING at the Telluride Film Festival (its world premiere, I believe). I had to pick up my jaw off the floor after they turned on the lights at the end of the show. This has been one of the most talked about films of the festival and I can't wait to hear the broader doc community react to this one.....

Wow. That looks astonishing.

Fiona, what was your personal reaction, thoughts?

Already heard amazing things about The Act of Killing. What else did you see there that you liked, Fiona?

In reply to Fiona Otway's post on Mon 3 Sep 2012 :

That's amazing. The only other doc treatment of the 65' massacres is in a multi-part Australian doc "Riding the Tiger", which used some B/W footage from the time. (BBC I think). My doc on the Indonesian Student movement of 98 used some BBC footage and interviewed some of the survivors and witnesses. I have a good friend in Indonesia, Lexy Rambedeta, who has also worked on this issue.

Watch Sean McAllister's films for free at Doc Alliance between Sept 10-16

Sean McAllister is a British documentary filmmaker who has brought stories from Israel, Iraq, Japan, and most recently Syria and Yemen. Sean's films portray people with characteristic intimacy and frankness, specifically in the film Japan: A Story of Love and Hate.

Watch the retrospective of a filmmaker who Michael Moore marks as "one of the most brave and powerful filmmakers around" for FREE from September 10 to 16

In reply to Fiona Otway's post on Mon 3 Sep 2012 :

A friend of mine just saw it at TIFF and was one of his favourite films. The other very intriguing doc at TIFF is Leviathan by Lucien Castaing-Taylor (Sweetgrass) and Véréna Paravel.. can't wait to watch those films.

In reply to Danielle Beverly's post on Tue 4 Sep 2012 :

I thought THE ACT OF KILLING was fascinating for its attentive form/content relationships, which raise lots of juicy questions about the representation of history (personal/social/political), propaganda, memory, truth, witnessing, power, violence, forgiveness, performance, transformation.... Some people in the audience were very suspicious of having been emotionally manipulated by the filmmaker, others had moral qualms with the premise of the film as well as the filmmaker giving voice to warlords (similar to critiques of REDEMPTION OF GENERAL BUTTNAKED, I think), and some were concerned about sensationalizing genocide. Personally, I think this is one of those films that leaves you with way more questions than answers – questions that you have to really ponder for a while and hopefully talk to others about too – and I loved it for that reason. There are so many layers for discussion in this film.... I really enjoyed hearing the director, Joshua Oppenheimer, speak about the film too – a very thoughtful guy.