A surprising gut punch of a documentary that is as tense as a thriller and an emotional tribute to volunteers.
Continue readingFire Front (2022)
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Under Cover (2022)
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I walked into this film thinking I knew what kind of experience it was going to be. It’s a documentary by Sue Thomson about the growing number of women aged over 55 in Australia who are finding themselves unexpectedly homeless.
Continue readingBecause We Have Each Other (2022)
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This sad and beautiful documentary is about an ordinary family who is in fact quite extraordinary.
Continue readingThe United States of America (2022)
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I love having an unexpected film experience. James Benning gives us an alphabetical tour of the states, territories and districts of the USA that is part meditation and part lexophile’s delight with a paraprosdokian sting in the tail (look it up).
Continue readingAudrey Napanangka (2022)
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You can see that this film has been a labour of love and a way for director Penelope McDonald to honour her friend, Warlpiri artist and actor Audrey Napanangka. It took 10 years of filming and collaboration, over 160 hours of footage – while introducing the film McDonald aptly quotes Da Vinci, “Works of art aren’t finished, they’re abandoned.”
Continue readingMy Old School (2022)
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Oh my heart! This inventive and engaging Scottish documentary about small town scammer ‘Brandon Lee’ is more a celebration of humanity than a salacious exposé.
Continue readingEverybody’s Oma (2022)
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I cried right through the end of this touching documentary that shines a light on the experience of hidden carers.
Continue readingThe Pawnshop (Lombard) (2022)
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Clips from the US ‘reality’ TV show Hard Core Pawn occasionally appear in my socials and its depiction of pawnshops is firmly rooted in the capitalist myth that those without somehow deserve their lot. The owners unapologetically buy low and sell high and aggressively eject the many grifters trying to con them with worthless or stolen junk. In Lukasz Kowalski’s empathetic observational documentary Lombard, we see poverty in all its forms in Poland’s largest pawnshop.
Continue readingRadiograph of a Family (2020)
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Firouzeh Khosrovani constructs a surprisingly tender collage of her parents’ lives that shows the fractures caused by the Iranian Revolution.
Continue readingThe First 54 Years – An Abbreviated Manual for Military Occupation (2021)
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It is hard not to despair of the world and the depravities that humans will perpetrate as you watch this measured dissection of the mechanics of a military occupation. Avi Mograbi balances the message by having former Israeli soldiers dispassionately recount their part in the occupation of Palestine, illustrating a system that seeks to colonise, dehumanise and deconstruct a nation.
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