The BAFTAs have announced their final nominations in all categories ahead of the February 16th awards ceremony. Five films have been nominated for Best Documentary : Black Box Diaries by Shiori Ito ; Daughters by Natalie Rae and Angela Patton ; No Other Land by Yuval Abraham, Basel Adra, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal ; Will & Harper by Josh Greenbaum ; Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story by Ian Bonhôte, Peter Ettedgu
The liberal democratic model is at a crossroads. Elections and political unrest around the world have exposed the cracks in our individualist, utilitarian path towards progress. As democracy recedes, people are turning towards authoritarian and theocratic leaders. It is sometimes hard to see this tide turning, but thankfully, documentaries are here to help. Doc Weekly was in attendance at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) to pick out five of the of the most urgent films on the subject, including new 2024 and 2025 releases from Petra Costa and Asif Kapadia.
We inherit much from our families. Some things, like Chloe Abraham’s sweet memories of her ancestral land’s ripe Sri Lankan mangoes, bring joy. Others are as hard and unyielding as the stone at the fruit's core. In her debut feature film, The Taste of Mango, Abraham offers a raw yet warm self-documentation of shared trauma spanning three generations.
Doc Weekly was in attendance at the 2024 edition of International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) where Trains by Maciej J. Drygas picked up the Best Film and Best Editing in the International Competition. A bitter sweet archival portrait of the people of 20th century Europe, Trains captures their hopes, desires, dramas, and tragedies.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences have announced shortlists in 10 categories for the 97th Academy Awards including Documentary Feature Film and Documentary Short Film. Among the films nominated, there are The Bibi Files by Alexis Bloom, Black Box Diaries by Shiori Ito, Dahomey by Mati Diop, No Other Land by Yuval Abraham, Basel Adra, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal, Queendom by Agniia Galdanova, Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat by Johan Grimonprez and many more. Read the full lists here.
Doc Weekly was in attendance at the 2024 edition of International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) where our writer Laoise Murray caught the world premiere of A Want in Her by Myrid Carten, a raw, gut-punching and surprisingly funny examination of the meaning of unconditional love.
In Cape Town, a city as breathtakingly beautiful as it is brutal, a young man leads a daring urban revolution at the intersection of political and property power. Doc Weekly writer Pheladi Sethusa had the chance to see the documentary Mother City by Miki Redelinghuys and Pearlie Joubert in Johannesburg during a screening hosted by the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation.
Doc Weekly is attending IDFA 2024 ! Here are our hottest tips from the films premiering in the competition sections of tof the world’s largest documentary film festival of the year…
Doc Weekly is covering this year’s BFI London Film Festival with reviews and interviews from some of our favourite documentaries. Our writer Ellie Malpas interviewed Shiori Itō , director of Black Box Diaries, which comes out in UK cinemas today, the 25th of October 2024. Shiori Ito is known as a leader of Japan’s #metoo movement, after she chose to pursue the man who raped her, an influential journalist.
As part of Doc Weekly’s coverage of the BFI London Film Festival we spoke with Juliet Klottrup, about her film Travelling Home and the five years that she spent meeting and photographing the travellers that pass by her road as they make their annual pilgrimage to Appleby Fair.
As part of Doc Weekly’s coverage of the BFI London Film Festival we had the chance to see one of this year’s most exciting documentaries, Black Box Diaries by Shiori Itō, the journalist who investigated her own sexual assault to expose Japan's outdated patriarchal laws and become the country’s key #metoo figure.
Doc Weekly is covering this year’s BFI London Film Festival with reviews and interviews of some of our favourite documentaries from the selection. As Noites Ainda Cheiram a Pólvora, or The Nights Still Smell of Gunpowder, by Inadelso Cossa first premiered at this year’s Berlinale. Over 30 years after the end of the Mozambican civil war, Inadelso Cossa returns to his grandmother’s village to record untold stories of the conflict.
Doc Weekly was at this year’s États généraux du film documentaire in Lussas, France, for a rare screening of “The Invasion”, (2024) followed by a Q&A with Sergei Loznitsa. Weeks after seeing it, scenes and characters from Sergei Loznitsa’s new film, “The Invasion”, documenting daily life in Ukraine since Russia’s invasion, remain burned into the retina.
Documentary Weekly is back and as committed as ever to bringing you the latest and best in documentary filmmaking. When we're not at documentary festivals and seeing documentaries ourselves, we rely on our fantastic community of contributors to review films for us. Now, we're reaching out to renew our team.
World-renowned wildlife photographer Vincent Munier and novelist Sylvain Tesson’s search, deep in the Tibetan highlands, for the Snow Leopard, notoriously one of the world’s rarest animals.
On the edge of the Trans-Saharan national road, a café-restaurant stands like a fortress. Hassen Ferhani’s latest film reveals Malika and her little kingdom within.
Amidst the chaos and devastating loss of the past year, our perceptions, our ways of working and the art we produce have been transformed, opening up new, creative opportunities. Will Hazell returns to our series with a beautiful, pensive and uplifting film focused on his housemate and fellow innovative artist, Fran.
For three years, Gianfranco Rosi filmed armed conflicts in the Middle East along the borders of Iraq, Kurdistan, Syria and Lebanon, witnessing the scars of violence and destruction left across their harsh landscapes.
On 13th February 2017, Kim Jong-nam was assassinated at Kuala Lumpur International Airport by two female assassins using the fastest acting poison in existence, VX. But no one could have foreseen the elaborate hoax which led the women, Siti Aisyah and Doan Ti Huong, to the airport that day.
We’re extremely excited to see so many of our favourite films from the past year included in this record-breaking tally of Oscar shortlisted documentaries. For every one that we’ve covered you’ll find a link to our review, including a trailer and a link to watch the film for yourself.
