A group of Indian filmmakers created an alternative festival to the MIFF in twenty days on a shoestring budget. The festival evolved from a protest action into a huge success and a celebration of diversity and committed filmmaking.
The 26th edition of the Cinéma du Réel festival took off in an agitated atmosphere due to the cancellation of one of the screenings of the documentary “Route 181, Fragments d’un voyage en Palestine”, by Eyal Sivan and Michel Khleifi. The incident did not affect the rest of the festival, however, which lived up to its image by offering documentaries addressing social and political issues with a personal and critical approach.
The “Steps for the Future” doc collection was established to take an innovative approach to addressing the serious HIV/AIDS problems in Southern Africa. A recently completed ‘Steps Impact Study’ and a new doc film take a closer look at the actual effect of the collection.
Siyamo is another excellent example of how fuzzy the distinction between fiction and documentary is for so many Iranian filmmakers.
It was a unique experience for me – a novice of classical music – to be totally spellbound for ninety minutes, following the creative process of three young conductors taking part in a masterclass with the world-famous conductor Valerie Gergiev.
Re-enacting events is a growing trend in history documentaries. This was one of the issues highlighted at the third World Congress of History Producers which took place in Paris this past December.
“The Corporation” does something very few docs do: goes directly for the jugular of the world’s true power institutions, i.e., the corporations, and insistently runs this phenomenon through a merciless examination from a historical, legal and critical angle, even subjecting it to psychoanalysis (concluding that it has the personality of a psychopath!).
Portrait, filmed partly by the inmates themselves, of the daily life in Carandiru, the largest prison in Latin America.
A documentary film about the Kosice swimming pool where history came to bathe.