My book has the (semi)arbitrary cutoff of 2010-2019, so it seems fitting to do a couple of decade-in-review lists of some of my favorite festival documentaries. It’s not a best-of exactly, but a round of up films that moved me and impressed me on first viewing and stuck with me.
One challenge of my topic is that films often do not get distributed, or distributed only on smaller platforms. My hope is to give a boost to those with niche distribution. I’m ignoring the super big festival hits, which aren’t always my favorite anyway.
I’m starting with those available on video on demand, either per-view (TVOD) or subscription like Doc Alliance or OVID (SVOD) I’m setting aside Netflix for now since their holdings change frequently. I’ll compile a list of DVDs in another post.
- Here… I Mean There (Laura Capatana Juller, 2013) Character-driven docs have gained a bad reputation, but this portrait of a Romanian family whose parents work in Spain shows how strong the form can be. There’s a raw and immediate rapport with its subject. Streaming at Doc Alliance.
- Toponimia (Jonathan Perel, 2015) The structural treatment of 4 Argentine planned towns is a powerful rumination on the gap between architecture and lived space, and between political trauma and its aftermath. Streaming at Doc Alliance, iTunes, and YouTube)
- Oyster Factory (Kazuhiro Soda, 2015) Soda’s work continues to gain a following. I particularly love this film, how it starts from observing its subjects and then extrapolates to broader social issues facing Japan. Streaming on Vimeo and on Amazon.
- Crop (Marouan Omara, Johanna Domke, 2013) Journalistic documentary has always been an unspoken Other to the festival doc. That’s one reason Crop is so powerful: part essay film, part slow poetic doc, the film is both a love letter to and critique of legacy news media in Egypt. Streaming at Doc Alliance.
- My Fathers, My Mother, and Me (Paul-Julien Robert, 2012) I’m not always crazy about personal docs, but Robert has quite the story to tell about the Friedrichshof commune, and he knows how to make the most of it. Streaming at Doc Alliance. (Also on DVD)
- The Queen (Manuel Abramovich, 2013) follows its 11-year old subject preparing for her role in an Argentine Carnival pageant. Her ordeal & the tight framing make for some tough watching, but the short develops so much in 18 mins. Streaming on Vimeo.
- Depth Two (Ognjen Glavonić, 2016). I love both the structure and the use of audio source material as evidence in this slow-build Serbian documentary about a massacre of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. Gripping. Streaming at Doc Alliance and on Kanopy.
- On Rubik’s Road (Laila Pakalniņa, 2010). Pakalniņa is an auteur not well known in the US but her work always has a wonderful eye for observation. This is a concise reflection on post-independence Lavtian society. Streaming at Doc Alliance and on GuideDoc.
- Propaganda (MAFI collective). I liked this observational collective doc about Chile’s 2013 election when I first saw it. But its critical view of modern party politics seems to resonate even more given recent events. Streaming at Doc Alliance.
- The Second Game (Corneliu Porumboiu, 2014) A simple yet austere structural film re-showing the entirety of 1988 Romanian soccer match as the director and his father provide commentary. Encounter between Communist past and post-Communist present. (On Amazon).
- Plastic China (Jiu-liang Wang, 2016) This character-driven doc is two films in one: an expose of environmental waste in a globalized economy and a snapshot of Chinese society in transition. I liked the interplay between the two. Streaming on Vimeo, iTunes, Amazon and Youtube)
- Sons of the Land (Edouard Bergeon, 2012) A personal doc that uses the director’s family experience as entry to the the crisis facing family farmers in France. Gut wrenching. Streaming on Vimeo.
- Screens (Hanna Slak, 2012) A gem of a short, only 8 minutes long, about what it means to remember and commemorate human rights atrocity. Streaming on Vimeo.
- Steel Mill Cafe (Goran Dević, 2017) The final week of a bus station bar gives a snapshot of a town in the throes of post-Yugoslav de-industrialization. At once light-hearted and moving. Streaming on Vimeo.
- Close Ties (Zofia Kowalewska, 2016) A charming and poignant short about an estranged elderly Polish couple. Also, an impressively concise development of character structure. Streaming on iTunes.
- Wrong Time Wrong Place (John Appel, 2012) interweaves the stories of those affected by the July 22 Norway terror attacks. Contemplative more than political, the sort of film that falls off radar (unfairly) after festival run: Streaming on Vimeo.
- A Memory in Khaki (Alfoz Tanjour, 2017) Many festival docs are works of exile cinema, and Memory in Khaki is an effective example, juxtaposing a poetic rumination on the director’s experience with the contemporary politics of Syria. Streaming on YouTube.
- Notorious Deeds (Gabriel Tempea, 2016) is a refracted personal doc, focusing on the Tempea’s classmate who gave an act of defiance against Ceausescu and paid the price. A kind of doc counterpart to New Wave thematics. Streaming at Doc Alliance.
- The Red Soul (Jessica Gorter, 2017) combines observational and interview footage from contemporary Russia to address the rehabilitation of Stalin’s legacy. I liked how the doc developed complexity over its running time. Streaming on OVID TV
- Praxis (Bruno Moraes Cabral, 2011) The hazing initiations of a Portuguese university could be an easy target, but Praxis’s detached observational style lets the viewers to decide what allegory we’re watching Streaming at Doc Alliance.