This year, Swiss documentary film festival Visions du Réel has made the bold move to shift the entire event online, making nearly all its films available to watch online, for free. Festivals around the world are facing tough choices but Visions du Réel is one of the few making its films so readily available - a joy for doc fans all around the world!
Today marks the Hubble telescope’s 30th birthday. To celebrate, we teamed up with Instagram page OneMovieEachDay for a look back at the stunning documentary Hubble 3D.
BAFTA-Winning director of “73 Cows” and “Test Subjects” Alex Lockwood joined us for episode 7 of What Are You Watching, from his home in Birmingham for the our latest Quarantine Edition.
If You Knew, MARINA and A Sonic Pulse are three short documentaries that flip the assumed disadvantage of sensory disability on its head, painting a warm and dynamic picture of life - relationships, leisure, coming of age - not in spite of, but alongside, their subjects’ sensory disabilities.
Welcome to the experimental world of Camp Jened, where the stiff, immovable hierarchies of old began to appear more malleable to social exiles, the disabled.
Callum’s last watch was “Disconnected”, a timely short on loneliness, his favourite true crime is “OJ, Made in America” and next he’s watching “Still Bill” to find out more about the late legend Bill Withers, sadly a recent victim to Coronavirus.
Despite the global pandemic, Sheffield Doc/Fest will deliver on its promise to filmmakers and industry representatives, exceptionally holding its flagship pitching initiatives, MeetMarket (for features and series) and Alternate Realities Talent Market (for new media creatives), via virtual video-conferencing from the 8th to 10th of June 2020.
Director Will Hazell came up with an ingenious filming technique in order to capture people’s feelings, worries and musings on the Covid-19 outbreak while maintaining a safe distance in his car. He speaks to friends, members of a London Covid-19 Facebook page, and captures balcony and window performances by Desree and Mazaika.
Tam is a self-confessed true crime junkie (like so many of us), naming "The Jinx" as her most wtf documentary and "Who Killed Little Gregory?" as one that made her cry. And the last documentary she watched? The addictive Tiger King that pretty much everyone is talking about...
Part hallucinatory exploration of Bucharest’s street life and its medley of personalities, part biography of a boy denied a childhood, Vandebrug’s eye-catching picture is as raw as it is beautiful.
For our fourth episode, Tihana talks us through her latest watch: What Happened Miss Simone?, the most sinister documentary series she’s ever seen: Killer Women with Piers Morgan and Knock Down the House, the inspiring Netflix hit featuring Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez.
FREE OF THE WEEK
To create her latest documentary film, Giulia Gandini lent an iPhone to Lily for three days. At the time, Lily had been sleeping rough for a year and a half.
Alice picked "Touching the Void" as her most WTF documentary (one of our favourites too), she was inspired by The Ponds and was inexplicably fascinated by Channel 4's "The Family" as a kid. You can find details on all the films mentioned, as well as links to watch them, below.
Did you know that IDFA has a huge online collection of free documentaries? There’s never been a better time for you to find out. But to help you navigate the 300 films available, we’ve picked out 3 fantastic pictures that you can start your binge with.
FREE OF THE WEEK
Everyday for the the last 10 years, Betty has fed the 'outside animals'. Feeding everything from house cats to raccoons and coyotes, she places her 30 bowls of lovingly prepared food outside everyday, through rain, sleet or snow.
CPH:DOX, Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival, is one of the biggest documentary film festivals in the world and just the latest one to have fallen victim to the global Coronavirus outbreak.
For our second episode we met Lucie while in Coronavirus quarantine at her parents’ house. She suggests listening to the BBC's "Tunnel 29" podcast, reckons she was unduly manipulated by the "Kony 2012" documentary and most of the documentaries she's seen have made her cry.
Released online early following the Coronavirus outbreak, Alla Kovgan’s “Cunningham” is a trance-like experiential 3D ode to the legendary American choreographer Merce Cunningham. Blending contemporary artistic performance with archival footage, interviews and excerpts from letters, this is a film that stretches the boundaries of its genre.
FREE OF THE WEEK
Every morning Grand Master Chan Hui performs Tai Chi to cultivate his mental energy and calm his mind. What makes him even more unusual, is that he chooses to do so under the bridge in Canning Town, London.
But fear not! The organisers have got you covered with plenty of fantastic docs available to watch online. In partnership with Mediapart, you can now discover Cinéma du Réel’s thirteen “Premières Fenêtres” selections for free.
