The Quiet Power of Isla Badenoch’s The Elvermen At Sheffield DocFest Lydia Rostant June 6, 2021 Features, Independent, Interview In Isla Badenoch’s The Elvermen, fish are the size of men and men are of mythical proportions. The film (which premiered on June 5, 2021 at Sheffield DocFest), was shot in a narrow window of time, between...
Portrait of Kaye: Ben Reed on the Moral Quandaries of the Documentary Form Lydia Rostant June 9, 2021 Features, Independent, Interview There is a common misconception in filmmaking which presumes the director to have total and divine confidence in both their subject matter, and the various processes by which they tell the story. Ben Reed’s...
Brigitte – Sheffield Doc/Fest 2020 Review Nick Davie June 14, 2020 Reviews Lynne Ramsay’s latest work is a short documentary film, showing at Sheffield Doc/Fest, capturing a detailed and intimate conversation with photographer Brigitte Lacombe. French photographer Lacombe is a...
One Room With A View – UK Blog Awards! David Brake January 5, 2016 Analysis, Features, One Off Hello! One Room With A View is on the long list for the UK Blog Awards 2016 in the Arts & Culture category. Yay! This is our first time up for any sort of award, and we're pretty thrilled about...
A Syrian Love Story – Review Alex Flood September 21, 2015 Reviews Love, hatred, fear, laughter, sadness; you name it, Sean McAllister’s heart-breaking documentary about a family of Syrian refugees has it in spades. As compelling a romance as any you’ll find on screen,...
Tell Spring Not To Come This Year – Doc/Fest 2015 Review Phil W. Bayles June 26, 2015 Reviews At first glance, Tell Spring Not To Come This Year feels like more of what we’ve already seen in war documentaries like Sebastian Junger’s Restrepo and Korengal. We see soldiers relaxing in the barracks or...
Coming Out As A Muslim: An Interview With Parvez Sharma Phil W. Bayles June 22, 2015 Behind The Curtain, Features, Interview In A Sinner in Mecca, director Parvez Sharma documents his Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca - knowing that, as an openly gay man, he could be executed just for setting foot in Saudi Arabia. We sat down with Sharma...
A Young Patriot – Doc/Fest 2015 Review Phil W. Bayles June 19, 2015 Reviews There are two things that every university student must do, says young idealist Zhao Changtong: get a job in the students’ union, and fall in love. It sounds like pretty standard practice for students...
Drone – Doc/Fest 2015 Review Phil W. Bayles June 19, 2015 Reviews The debate about drones is only in its infancy, but Drone proves that there’s plenty of discussion to be had. Interviews with former drone pilots in the US and human rights lawyers in Pakistan highlight...
The Russian Woodpecker – Doc/Fest 2015 Review Phil W. Bayles June 10, 2015 Reviews The first time we meet young Ukranian artist Fedor Alexandrovich, he’s producing a play called Dreams of a Ridiculous Man. It’s an apt description of Fedor himself. With his wild eyes and unkempt facial...
Orion: The Man Who Would Be King – Doc/Fest 2015 Review Phil W. Bayles June 10, 2015 Reviews Doc/Fest was made for films like Orion: The Man who would be King – stories so ridiculous and unbelievable that they must be true. The archival footage of singer and Elvis sound-alike Jimmy Ellis gyrating...
Generation Right – Doc/Fest 2015 Review Phil W. Bayles June 9, 2015 Reviews Given that, in the words of director Michelle Coomber, Britain "voted itself back into the 1980s" last month, Generation Right could hardly feel more timely. Coomber interviews academics, activists and...
Match Me! – Doc/Fest 2015 Review Phil W. Bayles June 9, 2015 Reviews Imagine Richard Curtis directed Catfish and you’ll have some idea of what Lia Jaspers’ Match Me! is all about. We follow three people as they try various methods of finding a partner. Johanna attends a...
Surviving Sandy Hook – Doc/Fest 2015 Review Phil W. Bayles June 9, 2015 Reviews In a way, it will always be "too soon" for a documentary about the tragic elementary school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. Jezza Neumann’s film shows a community ripped apart by the cataclysmic event,...
Containment – Doc/Fest 2015 Review Phil W. Bayles June 9, 2015 Reviews One imagines Brad Bird would be very enamoured with Moss and Galison’s work – there are parallels to be drawn between the message of Tomorrowland and the tone of this documentary about the disposal of...