Documentary

Cannes 2012: Trashed

British documentary about waste pollution could have done with burrowing deeper

24 May 2012

Watching British documentary Trashed it’s curious to think who the filmmakers imagined their audience to be. Exploring the impact and problems of waste disposal, the film barely scrapes the surface of its subject matter, giving the air of a dry…

Sing Your Song

A thorough account of the life of Harry Belafonte that occasionally lapses into hagiography

16 May 2012

This timely and thorough account of the extraordinary life of Harry Belafonte finds so much in its subject that it almost suffers by an over-abundance of material. A matinee idol whose benign appeal to white audiences masked fierce political…

Lawrence of Belgravia

Intimate and touching documentary about the eccentric Felt frontman

10 May 2012

Lawrence - surnameless former front man of the variably appreciated 80s-90s indie bands Felt and Denim, and current leader of the barely-appreciated-at-all Go Kart Mozart – is a bit like the picture in Jarvis Cocker’s attic, psychologically speaking.

Two Years at Sea

Meditative documentary about recluse Jake Williams, from British artist Ben Rivers

4 May 2012

Artist and filmmaker Ben Rivers’ debut feature film, Two Years At Sea is a handsome and meditative documentary about Jake Williams, a man living an isolated existence in northern Scotland. Shot on textured 16mm black and white film, Rivers captures…

Constance Marks, director of puppet doc Being Elmo - interview

The documentary shows the life of puppeteer Kevin Clash

25 Apr 2012

‘I backed into it innocently,’ says Constance Marks of her project to illuminate the man behind the world’s most famous fuzzy red baby monster. Whilst working as a cameraman on Sesame Street, Marks’ husband brought home a personal recorded message from…

Town of Runners

Touching but hesitant documentary about an Ethiopian town's knack for producing athletes

23 Apr 2012

The tiny town of Bekoji in Ethiopia has produced an astonishing number of champion long-distance runners. Jerry Rothwell’s pretty and thoughtful documentary frustratingly resists analysing exactly why this is – we’re left to guess at a lucky combination…

Being Elmo

A revealing and heartfelt insight into the work of Kevin Clash, the man behind the puppet

17 Apr 2012

(tbc) 80min The recent Muppet movie and attendant hype has reaffirmed the peculiar genius of Jim Henson’s life’s work: that is to say, even when we can literally see the wires, even when we know we’re looking at manipulated felt and hearing actors…

Trailer from Ice T's Something from Nothing: The Art of Rap

New documentary marks new wave of hip hop films

16 Apr 2012

Hip hop, like most trends to grace the cinema, comes in waves. The last big one was in the early 1990s, with the likes of Boyz N The Hood, New Jack City and Menace II Society following the era-defining late 1980s releases of NWA's Straight Outta Compton…

This is Not A Film

A snapshot into the life of embattled Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi

12 Apr 2012

(U) 75mins This is Not a Film shows us the world of acclaimed Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi - currently under house arrest in Tehran and facing a 6 year prison sentence and 20 year ban on filmmaking - all for planning to make a film that was deemed…

Into the Abyss: A Tale of Death, A Tale of Life

Werner Herzog documentary more than righteous polemic against capital punishment

19 Mar 2012

(12A) 107min In an interview to promote Into the Abyss, the German filmmaker Werner Herzog declares that, ‘it is absolutely clear that the crimes of the persons in my film are monstrous, but the perpetrators are not monsters’. Although Herzog himself…

Khodorkovsky

Disjointed but nonetheless absorbing study of the Russian criminal oligarch

28 Feb 2012

(12) 112min A detailed and absorbing documentary on Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky which looks at the rise and fall of the businessman amid the bigger picture of the country’s relationship with capitalism. Following a public conflict with…

Bill Cunningham New York

Illustrates how New York Times photographer’s significance extends beyond fashion

17 Feb 2012

(12A) 84min You don’t need to be a fashionista to fall for Richard Press’ feature debut, an exuberant, occasionally intimate portrait of Bill Cunningham, a former milliner and New York Times photographer specialising in street fashion and society…

GFF 2012 - Day planner

Our highlights for each day of the Glasgow Film Festival

6 Feb 2012

It can be difficult, when any festival rolls around, to decide which events to skip in favour of others. Searching rigorously through the programme, referring back to the calendar, trying to fit in as much as possible - it's a painstaking piece of work…

Take One Action Film Festival Scottish Tour

The political film festival is set to travel around the country throughout February 2012

3 Feb 2012

The Take One Action Film Festival - Scotland's biggest film festival dedicated to cinema with a political edge - is to tour Central and Northern Scotland throughout February. Among the films scheduled to screen on the tour is Even the Rain, the Gael…

Girl Model

Clinical expose of the modeling industry

27 Jan 2012

(tbc) 78min Far from the fairy-tale fiction of America’s Top Model is Girl Model, a clinical, disturbing industry expose by documentary makers David Redmon and Ashley Sabin (Mardi Gras: Made in China). Ashley Arbaugh is an ex-model and now a…

Bombay Beach

Half real, half dream-like American documentary from director Alma Har'el

23 Jan 2012

(Cert tbc) 80min There was a time when documentary at least generally gave the impression of being a medium distinct from fiction, where various movements (Direct Cinema, cinema verité) put their faith in the relative objectivity of the image, as…

Profile: Carol Morley

Director of documentary-drama Dreams of a Life

9 Dec 2011

Born 1966, Stockport, England. Background The sister of music critic Paul Morley, film director Carol left school aged 16 to pursue a career as a singer in various post-punk Mancunian bands. Having studied fine art film at Central Saint Martins…

Interview: Alex Gibney, writer-director of Magic Trip – Ken Kesey’s Trip for a Kool Place

Documentary on iconic 60s group the Merry Pranksters

15 Nov 2011

What was your inspiration for making a documentary about the cross-America bus trip undertaken by Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters in the summer of 1964? I was going out to the Sundance film festival in 2005 with my film Enron: The Smartest Guys in…

Blood In The Mobile

Documentary explores mineral extraction in Eastern DR Congo for use in phone handsets

9 Nov 2011

(12A) 85min The mobile phone, that universal symbol of convenience and progress, comes at quite a price. We are not talking fiscal here, we are talking of a price above rubies, a cost measured in blood, sweat and tears. All mobile phones contain…

Self Made

Gillian Wearing's study of acting blurs the line between fiction and reality

17 Oct 2011

(15) 87min An intriguing debut feature from Young British Artist-turned director Gillian Wearing, which in a manner reminiscent of Clio Barnard’s The Arbor skilfully blurs the boundaries between documentary and fiction filmmaking. Having responded to…

Document 9 film festival highlights

The documentary film fest celebrates a 'year of protest' theme

12 Oct 2011

Boasting one of their best film line ups in years, the Document 9 human rights festival takes the theme of protest as its mascot this year. The festival opens with Andrea Roggon's Soy Libre (I am Free) about life and hope in modern day Havana. The next…

Interview: Bernadette: Notes on a Political Journey at 2011 Document 9 film festival

Director Leila Doolan's doc on radical Irish politican Bernadette Devlin

11 Oct 2011

Leila Doolan's remarkable documentary Bernadette: Notes on a Political Journey is one of the absolute highlights in Glasgow-based human rights film festival Document 9's very strong line up this year. The film follows the ideological and political…

You’ve Been Trumped

Controversial doc on Donald Trump's Scottish golf course plan a triumph

22 Sep 2011

(12) 95min Unless you’ve had your head buried in the sand for the past few years, you’ll no doubt be aware of American tycoon Donald Trump’s controversial plans to build a golf course and hotel complex in an area of outstanding natural beauty and…

Life and Debt

Heartbreaking and pertinent documentary about Jamaica's economic misfortunes

22 Sep 2011

Made the year after the launch of the Jubilee 2000 campaign to cancel third world debt at the beginning of the new millennium, Stephanie Black’s agitprop documentary looks at the case of Jamaica. In 1977, fifteen years after achieving independence from…

You've Been Trumped - Anthony Baxter interview

Director of Donald Trump doc on being shunned by Scottish film bodies

22 Sep 2011

‘I live in Montrose and it’s 40 miles south of the Menie Estate, where Donald Trump was planning to build his golf course resort. I read the newspapers every day and I was surprised that the coverage was so one-sided. The other side of the story, as I…

Fix ME

Meandering fly-on-the-wall documentary filmed in Palestine

22 Sep 2011

Palestinian filmmaker Raed Andoni suffers from frequent headaches. His doctors tell him there is nothing physically wrong, and advise him to seek the help of a therapist. As Andoni talks about his life – about what it means to him to be a Palestinian…

Hell and Back Again

Moving but occasionally muddled documentary about the war in Afghanistan

14 Sep 2011

(15) 86min Constant television coverage of the Vietnam War so shocked American households that it is said to have helped turn the tide of public opinion against the conflict. The war in Afghanistan has received saturation coverage across all media…

Page One: Inside the New York Times

Personality-driven documentary about the world-famous publication

14 Sep 2011

(15) 91min These are dark days for the newspaper business. Advertising revenues and circulations are slumping in the face of ‘free’ online competitors, whilst scores of titles have already folded. Andrew Rossi’s fly-on-the-wall documentary charts a…

Steam of Life

Beautiful but bleak documentary about Finnish sauna culture

9 Sep 2011

There are five million people in Finland, and an estimated two million saunas – roughly one per household. They form an integral part of Finnish culture: women are encouraged to give birth in them, while men use the steamy rooms both as social venues…

Project Nim

Excellent ape project documentary a complex meditation on human nature

9 Aug 2011

(12A) 99min It’s not surprising that director James Marsh has chosen to follow his Oscar-winning 2008 documentary Man On Wire by taking an approach often favoured by bands following up a hit album: don’t mess with the formula, just try and do the…

The Interrupters

Intimate documentary exploring gun crime in the US

4 Aug 2011

(12A) 125min Best known for his epic account of teenaged African-American basketball hopefuls Hoop Dreams, director Steve James returns in collaboration with the writer Alex Kotlowitz to inner-city Chicago for this sprawling documentary, which…

Senna

Fast-paced documentary on life and death of Formula One racing driver

28 Jun 2011

(12A) 106min This fast-paced documentary about the life and death of the legendary Formula One racing driver Ayrton Senna plays more like a dramatic biopic than a feature-length doc. Taking his lead from and building upon dramatic documentaries such…

Kings of Leon prepared for criticism

Music Gossip

27 Jun 2011

Kings of Leon think their new documentary could make people "dislike" them more. The 'Sex On Fire' hitmakers' rise to fame is chronicled in new film 'Talihina Sky: The Story Of Kings Of Leon', and while they are hopeful the footage will earn them…

Calvet - Dominic Allan & Jean Marc Calvet interview

Documentary charting extraordinary life of French artist

25 Jun 2011

CALVET depicts the struggles of Jean Marc Calvet, now an artist with burgeoning international success, to come to terms with his past and, more particularly reconcile with the son he abandoned. So far, so straightforward, but Jean Marc has quite a few…

Convento - Jarred Alterman interview

Portrait of Dutch artist family and kinetic sculpture

25 Jun 2011

Jarred Alterman, director of the documentary Convento, takes me round the tie-in exhibition at Teviot Row House, full of the kinetic sculptures by Christiaan Zwanikken that populate Alterman’s dreamlike film. Passing a gang of creepy, animated and…

Project Nim - James Marsh interview

Man on Wire director charts 1970s chimp experiment in extraordinary film

21 Jun 2011

‘I’m here bleary-eyed straight from four weeks of shooting a feature film in Dublin!’ So claims Project Nim director James Marsh when I meet him, but you wouldn’t know it from the espresso-fuelled 30 minutes of rapid discussion that follows, in which…

Bobby Fischer Against The World

Lovingly realised documentary on American chess master

21 Jun 2011

(12A) 93min Bobby Fischer was the greatest of all past chess masters, and certainly the best America has ever had. Like most geniuses, however, Fischer’s life was a bizarre trajectory of success, fame, delusion and ultimately (possibly) madness.

Party-loving dwarf documentary to hit TV

TV Gossip

9 Jun 2011

A new series about party-loving dwarves is set to become a huge hit. Channel 4's latest programme 'Seven Dwarves' - which follows the lives of seven dwarves as they lived together in a 'Big Brother'-style house while they prepared for a 'Snow White…

Profile: Sue Bourne - director of Irish dance documentary Jig

Director's cinema debut profiles World Irish Dancing Championships

26 May 2011

Born London, then moved to Ayr, Scotland at one year old. Background Bourne is an award-winning documentary maker who has made her name producing and directing work that sheds new light on familiar subject matter. Her films include My Street…

The Pipe

Risteard O’Domhnaill's stirring documentary shows a community's fight against big business

23 May 2011

(12A) 83min In 1996 natural gas was discovered off the west coast of Ireland. Shortly afterwards, Shell UK announced plans to run a pipe through the waters and land of Rossport in County Mayo to an inland refinery. Risteard O’Domhnaill’s remarkable…

Wonderland: The Men Who Won't Stop Marching

Intriguing documentary subject that avoids asking challenging questions

23 May 2011

While the men of the Shankill Road blast away on their flutes and bang against their bass drums, it acts as a stark contrast with the inner turmoil that results in many of them living in silence, the worst stirrings of their memories leaving them mute…

Countdown to Zero

Documentary highlights the problems with nuclear weapons, but proposes no solutions

23 May 2011

Following the success of last year’s Oscar-nominated Waste Land, British filmmaker Lucy Walker returns with a persuasive argument for nuclear disarmament in her latest documentary, Countdown to Zero. Featuring a range of high-profile talking heads…

Life in a Day

Kevin Macdonald's documentary is an ambitious global undertaking

23 May 2011

(12A) 94min This film is the result of a massive YouTube project, directed by Kevin Macdonald and produced by Ridley Scott, that asked people around the world to make a film of their life on a specific day, 24 July 2010. From the 80,000 videos…

Sue Bourne's Irish Dancing documentary Jig fails to excite

25 Apr 2011

(PG) 97min A year on from being named one of the UK’s top ten directors by Broadcast magazine, documentary filmmaker Sue Bourne would seem to actually be obeying the law of diminishing returns. Her last film for Channel 4’s Cutting Edge series The…

Vidal Sassoon

Documentary provides a brief look at th style icon, but ultimately lacks depth

20 Apr 2011

Some bold claims are made about the subject of this documentary, the hairdresser Vidal Sassoon, in the opening sequence alone. ‘It’s impossible to overestimate his importance,’ declares one off-screen voice, while he’s also compared to Ali, Einstein and…

Wim Wenders' dance documentary Pina

An exploration of the life and works of late choreographer Pina Bausch

24 Mar 2011

(U) 103min Filmmaker Wim Wenders had a big problem: in 2009 his long-time friend and colleague Pina Bausch died suddenly, just days before they were to begin the rehearsal shoot for a new 3D film about her and the work she’d been making for 35 years…

Profile: Ken Wardrop, director of documentary His & Hers

Irish director paints collective picture of woman in Irish Midlands

10 Mar 2011

Wardrop grew up in a farming community in rural Ireland. After a stint working in London he enrolled at the National Film School, Dublin where he graduated in 2004 specialising in creative documentary making. His graduating short film, Undressing My…

Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer

Former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer is the subject of Alex Gibney's new documentary

2 Mar 2011

This intriguing investigative documentary from Alex Gibney (Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, Taxi to the Dark Side) chronicles the spectacular rise and fall of the American politician Eliot Spitzer; as the latter himself comments, ‘The only…

Cave of Forgotten Dreams

Werner Herzog's documentary about the ancient Chauvet-Pont-d-’Arc caves

2 Mar 2011

(15) 90min Cinema’s capacity to transport the viewer into the most extraordinary of locations is memorably illustrated in Werner Herzog’s immersive new documentary Cave of Forgotten Dreams in 3D. Back in 1994 the limestone Chauvet-Pont-d-’Arc caves…

Benda Bilili!

A documentary on the Congolese rhythm'n'blues band Staff Benda Bilili

2 Mar 2011

Kinshasa is the largest city in the Democratic Republic of Congo. It’s rated as one of the most dangerous cities in the world in terms of crime with a spiraling homeless problem that includes over 20,000 children under the age of 18 living rough…