The SFF program has landed, and there is an absolute cornucopia of documentaries to choose from. With 50 feature docs found in categories across the main competition, international documentaries, focus on South Africa, Sounds on Screen, family films and the Documentary Australia Foundation Award for Australian Documentary, the ability of the doc to bring us the kookiest, most personal, most political, and most affecting stories is clearly on show. It would be possible to devise a viewing program based purely on the heavy hitters and masters of the doc, or alternatively to look only into the more obscure corners of human existence. There are multiple international prize winners, and two (yes two!) documentaries on Russell Brand.
Here are 10 that cover a range of bases and are not to be missed.
Sherpa
The only doc and one of three Aussie flicks in the main competition, this film from director Jennifer Peedom is sure to be an absolutely gripping tale. With intentions to film a story of Everest from the perspective of the sherpas, Peedom found herself on the ground when tragedy unfolded – an avalanche that crushed 16 sherpas. The cinematography alone begs to be seen on the silver screen, and you’re bound to come away a little more illuminated about the cost of rich westerners’ grand dreams of ascent.
Source: Sydney Film Festival
The Russian Woodpecker
If kooky conspiracy crossed with modern day civil conflict is your bag, get yourself a ticket to The Russian Woodpecker. Winner of the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize for Documentary at the Sundance Film Festival this year, this film looks to be a total trip. It follows Ukrainian artist Fedor Alexandrovich as he interviews former Soviet officials and scientists about the purpose of a shady structure that clicked away near the Chernobyl nuclear power plant before the explosion, and is set against the backdrop of the recent Ukraine conflict. Directed by Chad Gracia.
Source: Sydney Film Festival
The Look of Silence
Joshua Oppenheimer’s Oscar-nominated (2012) is one of the most mind-blowing films of the past decade, and by all accounts this companion piece does not disappoint. This is the film that Oppenheimer was trying to make when he stumbled upon incredible access to the perpetrators of mass killings in Indonesia in the 1960s, leading to The Act of Killing. Here, he is instead focusing on the victims and their families as they search for answers and perhaps broader meaning in the past events. Some critics of the first film bemoaned the missing voices of the victims; here, they speak.
Source: Sydney Film Festival
Women He’s Undressed
The latest from the grand dame of Aussie film, Gillian Armstrong (Love, Lust & Lies (2010), Oscar and Lucinda (1997)), Women He’s Undressed is a profile of Orry-Kelly, an Oscar-winning Australian costume designer who dressed the stars during Hollywood’s golden era but has somehow disappeared into the footnotes of cinema history. See this film not only for the fabulous frocks on screen and glimpses of an age of Hollywood glitter and glamour, but also to understand how an Aussie in Hollywood was an early representative of alternative sexualities, at a time when anything non-mainstream was completely taboo. And if you’re lucky enough to score an invitation to the film’s premiere, you’ll stroll the blue carpet onto the first ever Australian premiere on a ship in Sydney Harbour.
Source: Sydney Film Festival
Iris
Another film to catch for some sumptuous fashion on screen, Iris of course offers much more in addition to the threads on show. Doc-maestro Albert Maysles’ (Grey Gardens (1975), Salesman (1968)) final film before his death this year, Iris is a portrait of the unique New Yorker Iris Apfel, immediately identifiable by her enormous bug-eyed spectacles and her uncompromising take on fashion and design.
My Love, Don’t Cross that River
Find the secret to a long and happy relationship in My Love, Don’t Cross that River, a slow burner that will reward. It follows a Korean couple, married for 76 years, as they go about their daily life in a remote mountain village. See this for a heartwarming take on love and life spiked with questions of mortality, as the older of the pair, at 98, is not as nimble as he once was. Directed by Jin Mo-young.
Source: Sydney Film Festival
Amy
My desire to see musician biopics is usually only slightly greater than my desire to have my fingernails forcibly extracted, but a treatment from Asif Kapadia immediately sparks my interest. The director of Senna (2010) has turned his attention to Amy Winehouse, British singer/songwriter extraordinaire, and the trailer alone sets up a haunting vibe. Voiced by a young Amy before she hit super-stardom, some eerily prescient remarks set an intriguing tone.
Dreamcatcher
British director Kim Longinotto has an impressive knack for unearthing the most incredibly resilient women working in oppressive circumstances around the world, and telling their complex stories in unadorned and deeply caring fashion. Dreamcatcher follows former sex worker Brenda Myers-Powell as she mentors streetwalkers in Chicago. It sounds like a cross between Longinotto’s Rough Aunties (2008) and Steve James’s The Interrupters (2011), and promises to be no less hard hitting and compassionate.
Welcome to Leith
Prepare to be infuriated and terrified at what unfolds in the small town of Leith, North Dakota. This unassuming prairie town with a population of 24 is shaken to its core when Craig Cobb moves in, with plans of creating a haven for fellow white supremacists by buying up cheap land. Observed against the backdrop of black deaths at the hands of police across the country, this film is yet another demonstration of the endemic racism and race relations crisis unfolding across the US. Directed by Christopher K. Walker and Michael Beach Nichols.
Freedom Stories
Providing much-needed respite from the political soundbites that accompany discussions of asylum seekers and refugees, Freedom Stories from Australian director Steve Thomas presents a number of refugees, now Australian citizens, who have spent the last decade making this country their home. Arriving from the Middle East into an hysterical political climate around the Tampa and Howard’s demonisation of asylum seekers, these individuals found themselves in mandatory detention. Thomas profiles their struggles and attempts to build new lives for themselves.
Source: Sydney Film Festival
