He Named Me Malala (2015)
★★★☆☆
A fascinating though soft-focus documentary, Davis Guggenheim’s He Named Me Malala reveals the inspirational teenager fighting for girls’ right to education.
documentary
Festival Review: They Will Have To Kill Us First (2015)
★★★☆☆
Malian music in exile, Johanna Schwartz’s documentary They Will Have To Kill Us First is a celebration of music and its invincible power.
Festival Review: Francofonia (2015)
★★★★☆
An impressionistic portrait of the Louvre Museum under Nazi occupation, Alexander Sokurov’s Francofonia reveals the chequered history of art.
Festival Review: My Nazi Legacy (2015)
★★★☆☆
Revisiting history through the descendants of two high-serving Nazis and a Holocaust survivor, David Evans’My Nazi Legacy bites off more than it can chew.
Festival Review: He Named Me Malala (2015)
★★★☆☆
After An Inconvenient Truth, Davis Guggenheim’s He Named Me Malala brings Malala Yousafzai’s story to the masses. Just a little too easily.
How To Change The World (2015)
★★★★★
Jerry Rothwell’s inspirational documentary How To Change The World explores the birth of Greenpeace and the tumultuous sea-change it sparked in environmentalism.
The Confessions of Thomas Quick (2015)
★★★★☆
A haunting portrait of Sweden’s one and only serial killer, Brian Hill’s The Confessions of Thomas Quick reimagines the collaborative nature of storytelling.
The Salt Of The Earth / Das Salz der Erde (2014)
★★★★☆
A retrospective of Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado, Wim Wenders and Juliano Ribeiro Salgado’s The Salt Of The Earth sees man and mankind come to life.
What Happened, Miss Simone? (2015)
★★★★☆
Charting the rise, fall and rise again of Nina Simone, Liz Garbus’s What Happened, Miss Simone? creates an icon of the High Priestess of Soul.
Argerich Bloody Daughter (2012)
★★★☆☆
A family portrait and a fly-on-the-wall bio-doc of a great pianist, Stéphanie Argerich’s Argerich – Bloody Daughter wraps itself up in maternal knots.
The Decent One / Der Anständige (2014)
★★★☆☆
Diagnosing the internal conflict of high-ranking Nazi and family man Heinrich Himmler, Vanessa Lapa’s The Decent One exposes the indecency of the “decent”.
Altman (2014)
★★☆☆☆
Ron Mann’sAltman is a stoic by-the-numbers documentary celebrating the films of the great director, but offering little insight into the man behind the lens.
Festival Review: Fassbinder To Love Without Demands (2015)
★★★★☆
With unique archive footage, Christian Braad Thomsen’s Fassbinder To Love Without Demands delivers an honest and intelligent portrait of the German director.
Dancing In Jaffa (2013)
★★★☆☆
Israeli and Palestininan schoolchildren overcoming their prejudices as they are taught to ballroom dance together is movingly captured in a fly-on-the-wall documentary.