Recommended Documentaries

Recommended Docs

  • Public

This is a topic where you can say which documentary has really impressed you, and why people should see it. Can be a recent one or an all-time favourite. Can't be your own though, sorry...

Praise the work of others, not your own. If you want to beat the drum for your own documentary, please don't do it here. Professionals have their own Shameless Self-Promotion topic.

We also have a Documentary Films topic for our Professionals where the debate is private and possibly more controversial. This topic here is for recommendations to the documentary-interested public.

John Burgan

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.

Daniel McGuire

Re: Fiona Otway's post on Mon 3 Sep 2012: View thread

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.

John Burgan

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

Fiona Otway

Re: Danielle Beverly's post on Tue 4 Sep 2012: View thread

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.

Fiona Otway

Re: Doug Block's post on Tue 4 Sep 2012: View thread

None of the other films I saw really affected me as strongly as THE ACT OF KILLING. But I also ended up seeing more fiction than documentary at this festival.

THE GATEKEEPERS was another very popular doc at the festival. It has some incredible historical significance, however in terms of form, it's a fairly conventional talking heads documentary. The motion graphics were very impressive immersive 3D recreations of archival photographs.

WADJDA was very charming. A simple story about a spunky Saudi Arabian girl who wants a bicycle. Well told and satisfying. First-ever film by a Saudi Arabian woman, they said.

GINGER AND ROSA was pretty and sweet. Made me want to see more of the director, Sally Potter's work. That said, I met a few people at the festival who walked out of this screening because they were bored and disappointed.

NO was a little too long, but interesting. Also deliberately plays with the relationship between form and content. I'm still thinking about it.

AMOUR won the Palme d'Or at Cannes this year. Most everyone I talked to loved this film, but I saw a short documentary on the same subject at Full Frame earlier this year, and I was way more moved by that.

Wish I could have seen STORIES WE TELL, WHAT IS THIS FILM CALLED LOVE, and PARADISE LOVE. I've been hearing great things.

Pablo, I'm also very eager to see LEVIATHAN!

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