The Grierson Trust has announced the final nominations for the 2023 British Documentary Awards in association with All3Media.
Five single documentaries and series have been nominated for two awards: A Bunch of Amateurs(Best Entertaining Documentary and Best Cinema Documentary. Labor of Love Films for theatrical release); A Paedophile in My Family: Surviving Dad(Best Single Documentary – Domestic, and Best Documentary Presenter. Frank Films for Channel 4); All That Breathes(Best Single Documentary – International, and Best Cinema Documentary. Rise Films, Kiterabbit Films, Tangled Bank Studios for HBO/Sky Documentaries); Nothing Compares(Best Music Documentary and Best Cinema Documentary. Tara Films and Ard Mhacha Productions, in association with Field of Vision, Screen Ireland, BFI Doc Society Fund, ie: Entertainment and Northern Ireland Screen for theatrical release) and Once Upon a Time in Northern Ireland(Best History Documentary and Best Documentary Series. KEO Films and Walk on Air Films for BBC, PBS and The Open University for BBC)
This year’s nominees for the coveted Best Documentary Presenter award include newcomers Emily Victoria for A Paedophile in My Family: Surviving Dad, Munya Chawawa for How to Survive a Dictator with Munya Chawawa, and Runako Celina for Racism for Sale, alongside Hannah Fry for Making Sense of Cancer with Hannah Fry.
The BBC tops this year’s nominations with 22 finalists across its channels and on iPlayer, followed by Netflix with nine, Channel 4 with seven, Sky with four, ITV with three, Disney+ with two, and Prime Video, Apple TV+, Dogwoof on Demand, theguardian.com, and WePresent/New York Op Docs with one each.
KEO Films is the most nominated production company, with three nominations for Once Upon a Time in Northern Ireland and Chimp Empire. Other producers with multiple nominations for different films and series include: Frank Films (A Paedophile in My Family: Surviving Dad), South Shore Productions (Life After Deaf – John & Joe Bishop and Freddie Flintoff’s Field Of Dreams), RAW (Parole and Trainwreck: Woodstock ’99), BBC Studios Documentary Unit (Fight the Power: How Hip Hop Changed the World and Inside Our Autistic Minds), and National Geographic Documentary Films (Retrograde and Fire of Love).
Lorraine Heggessey, Chair of The Grierson Trust says: “The nominations for this year’s Grierson Awards reflect the incredible depth of talent behind such a wide range of outstanding documentaries produced for television, cinemas and digital platforms. Whether they are from established names or breakthrough voices, and whether telling diverse new stories or bringing contemporary insights to a well-trodden subject, they all demonstrate the continuing power of documentary filmmaking to inform, entertain and impact the lives of audiences in the UK and worldwide.”
The Sky Documentaries Grierson Hero of the Year Award, now in its third year, which recognises the achievements of someone working behind the scenes in documentary or factual TV who has had a real impact on the industry over the last twelve months, will be announced next month.
The full list of nominations
ENVY Best Single Documentary – Domestic
A Paedophile in My Family: Surviving Dad
Sophie Oliver, Jessie Versluys, Colette Hodges, Jamie Balment, Mia Harvey, Val Croft
Frank Films – Channel 4
Emily Victoria is a successful businesswoman and mother, who, on the surface, has an enviable life. Unbeknown to friends, she carries the weight of a childhood no one should experience, repeated sexual abuse by her father. Emily contacts people from her past to ask how the abuse remained hidden. She uncovers a shocking revelation about her father’s manipulation and cowardliness. It’s an emotional portrayal of the effects of long-term abuse and the power of speaking up.
Lewis Capaldi: How I’m Feeling Now
Joe Pearlman, Sam Bridger, Alice Rhodes, Marisa Clifford, Isabel Davis, Stuart Soutar
A Netflix Documentary, BMG Presents in association with Quickfire Films, A Pulse Films Production – Netflix
This intimate, all-access documentary chronicles Lewis Capaldi’s journey from ambitious teen with a viral performance to Grammy-nominated pop star.
Lyra
Alison Millar, Jackie Doyle, Chloe Lambourne, Siobhan Sinnerton, Mark McCauley, David Holmes
In association with Northern Ireland Screen and TG4 and HiddenLight – Channel 4
Lyra is an intimate portrait of murdered journalist, Lyra McKee made by her close friend Alison Millar. Using personal archive, recordings from Lyra’s dictaphone and her written word, the film is carefully crafted to allow Lyra to tell her own story. From growing up as a ‘ceasefire baby’ in Belfast to becoming an internationally renowned journalist who tirelessly sought justice for others, the film examines the fragility of peace through her life and her death.
Name Me Lawand
Edward Lovelace, Fleur Nieddu, Sam Arnold, Beyan Taher, Neil Andrews, Marisa Clifford
Pulse Films, BFI Doc Society, Electric Shadow Company, BFI Distribution – Theatrical release
Name Me Lawand is a rapturous portrait of a deaf Kurdish boy’s emotional journey towards discovering how to express himself. A love letter to the power of communication and community.
HBO Documentary Films Best Single Documentary – International
A House Made of Splinters
Simon Lereng Wilmont, Monica Hellström, Sami Jahnukainen, Tobias Janson, Darya Bassel, Vika Khomenko
Final Cut for Real, Donkey Hotel, STORY, Moon Man, BBC – BBC
In a large ramshackle house near the front line in war-torn eastern Ukraine, a group of Ukrainian women run an orphanage. Children whose homes have been shattered by poverty, violence and alcohol can safely stay there for up to nine months until a decision is made on whether to return them home, foster them or move them to another orphanage.
Filmed before Russia’s invasion in February 2022.
All That Breathes
Shaunak Sen, Aman Mann, Teddy Leifer, Sean B. Carroll, David Guy Elisco
Rise Films, Kiterabbit Films, Tangled Bank Studios – HBO/Sky Documentaries
As legions of birds fall from New Delhi’s darkening skies, and the city smoulders with social unrest, two brothers race to save a casualty of the turbulent times: the black kite, a majestic bird of prey essential to their city’s ecosystem.
Escape from Kabul Airport
Jamie Roberts, Dan Reed, William Grayburn
AMOS Pictures, HBO Documentary Films and BBC in association with ARTE France – BBC
This dramatic documentary tells the inside story of the largest airlift in modern US history, marking the end of America’s longest war, the 20-year-face-off between the Afghan Taliban and US-led NATO forces. Featuring never-before-seen footage and exclusive interviews with evacuees, eyewitnesses, US Marines and Taliban fighters, a historic confrontation plays out amidst the desperate crowds, gunfire and explosions as the US Marines stand-off against the Taliban.
The Fire Within: Requiem for Katia and Maurice Krafft
Werner Herzog, Julien Dumont, Mandy Leith, Peter Lown, Alexandre Soullier, Jessica Winteringham
Brian Leith Productions, Titan Films, Bonne Pioche, Abacus Media Rights – BBC
June 3rd, 1991, on Mount Unzen, a pyroclastic flow descended at over 100mph from the peak of the volcano. The flow killed dozens including Katia and Maurice Krafft, French volcanologists and filmmakers. The Kraffts left a huge archive of footage, unprecedented in its spectacular beauty. With use of this archive, Werner Herzog creates a requiem to observe their work and pay homage to the way filmmaking can celebrate the hypnotic power of nature.
Televisual Best Current Affairs Documentary
Children of the Taliban
Marcel Mettelsiefen, Jordan Bryon, Stephen Ellis, Nevine Mabro, Sayed Aman, Farzad Fetrat
Moondogs – Channel 4
This documentary tells the story of four young children living in Kabul, Afghanistan. It focuses on two boys and two girls whose lives have changed dramatically ever since US troops completed their withdrawal from the country last summer, and the Taliban swept to power.
Exposure – Inside Russia: Putin’s War at Home
Esella Hawkey, Gesbeen Mohammad, Vasiliy Kolotilov, Sasha Odynova, Maria Merkulova, Mark Summers
Hardcash Productions – ITV1
Filmed in secrecy across Russia, this is the compelling inside story of defiant Russians risking their freedom to oppose Putin’s war in Ukraine. This intimate character-led documentary follows the lives of activists, a filmmaker, an academic, and two journalists investigating the true figure of Russian casualties. Facing the worst human rights crackdown since the Soviet era, their lives are transformed forever. It’s the human story of the 21st century struggle between freedom and authoritarianism.
Retrograde
Matthew Heineman, Caitlin McNally, Carolyn Bernstein, Baktash Ahadi, David Fialkow, Joedan Okun
National Geographic Documentary Films – Disney+
Oscar-nominated and Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Matthew Heineman’s latest film offers a cinematic and historic window onto the end of America’s longest war, and the costs endured for those most intimately involved.
Exposure – The Crossing
Handa Majed, Jamie Welham, Majed Neisi, Ella Newton, Ben Ferguson, David Modell
DM Productions – ITV1
The Crossing set out to forensically investigate exactly why at least 31 lives were lost on the 24th November 2021 in the English Channel; the busiest shipping lane in the world. A diverse and dedicated group of journalists worked with the families of those who died to establish who was on the doomed boat, the reasons why they risked everything that night, and who was responsible for their deaths.
Best Arts Documentary
“Sr.”
Production Team
A Netflix Documentary in association with TEAM DOWNEY & LIBRARY FILMS Production – Netflix
A portrait of the life and career of filmmaker Robert Downey Sr. that evolves into a larger meditation on art, mortality, and healing generational dysfunction.
Arena – James Joyce’s Ulysses
Adam Low, Joanna Crickmay, Michael Hewitt, Diarmuid Lavery, Martin Rosenbaum
DoubleBand Films, Lone Star Productions – BBC
One hundred years since it was published, Adam Low’s Arena – James Joyce’s Ulysses unlocks Joyce’s masterpiece in all its surprising, poetic, moving, verbose, sexually explicit and endlessly hilarious glory.
Becoming Frida Kahlo – A Star is Born
Louise Lockwood, Becky Marshall, Ether Gimenez, Nancy Bornat, James Rogan, Mark Hedgecoe
Rogan Productions Scotland – BBC
Dangerous politics and turbulent love shock Frida’s world. After conducting a short affair with Leon Trotsky, Diego’s political mentor, she finally achieves her own solo exhibition in Europe. But all does not go according to plan, and she returns to Mexico to find that Diego wants a divorce. Pouring her pain into work, she creates one of her most famous masterpieces – The Two Fridas.
Is That Black Enough for You?!?
Elvis Mitchell
A Netflix Documentary, a Makemake Entertainment Production – Netflix
Culture critic and historian Elvis Mitchell traces the evolution — and revolution — of Black cinema from its origins to the impactful films of the 1970s.
Best Music Documentary
Fight the Power: How Hip Hop Changed the World – Under Siege
Production Team
BBC Studios Documentary Unit – BBC
Chuck D of Public Enemy leads a cast of musical icons and cultural commentators to chart the meteoric rise of Hip Hop in 80s America. During this turbulent period of US history, this pioneering genre explodes as Reaganomics flourishes, crack cocaine obliterates inner city communities, and the War on Drugs leads to militaristic policing. Against this backdrop, a new breed of artists speak truth to power with acts such as Public Enemy, NWA and Ice T leading the way.
Little Richard: I Am Everything
Lisa Cortes, Robert Friedman, Caryn Capotosto, Liz Yale Marsh, Mike Powers, Anita May Rosentstein
Bungalow Media + Entertainment for CNN Films and HBO Max, in association with Rolling Stone Films – Dogwoof on Demand
Premiering at Sundance Film Festival, Little Richard: I Am Everything uncovers the alternative origins of rock’n’roll through its originator and most influential pioneer, Little Richard, all through a wealth of archival footage and interviews with renowned artists including Mick Jagger, Tom Jones, Billy Porter and Nile Rodgers.
Moonage Daydream
Brett Morgen
Live Nation Productions and Public Road Productions – Theatrical release
Moonage Daydream illuminates the life and genius of David Bowie, one of the most prolific and influential artists of our time. Told through sublime, kaleidoscopic, never-before-seen footage, performances and music, Brett Morgen’s feature length experiential cinematic odyssey explores David Bowie’s creative, musical and spiritual journey. The film is guided by David Bowie’s own narration and is the first officially sanctioned film on the artist.
Nothing Compares
Eleanor Emptage, Michael Mallie, Kathryn Ferguson, Mick Mahon, John Reynolds, Charlotte Cook
Tara Films and Ard Mhacha Productions, in association with Field of Vision, Screen Ireland, BFI Doc Society Fund, ie: Entertainment and Northern Ireland Screen — Theatrical release
Nothing Compares is the story of Sinéad O’Connor’s phenomenal rise to worldwide fame and how her iconoclastic personality resulted in her exile from the pop mainstream. Focusing on her prophetic words and deeds from 1987-1993, the film reflects on the legacy of this fearless artist through a contemporary feminist lens.
Broadcast Sport Best Sports Documentary
Blood, Sweat and Cheer
George Hoagy Morris, Oliver Baker, Georgia Mills, Tammy Kennedy, Louise Bray, Steve Robinson
Little Bird Films Ltd – BBC
For the Welsh national cheer squad, nothing means more than representing their country at the highest level. They’re willing to give it everything, but how will they fare in a final showdown for gold against cheerleading superstars Team USA? Capturing the highs, lows, twists and turns, this empowering film, from first-time director George Hogay Morriss, follows the disabled and non-disabled athletes of Team Wales Adaptive Abilities on and off the mat, as they prepare for the World Cheerleading Championships in Florida.
FIFA Uncovered – Episode 3
Production Team
A Netflix Documentary Series, a Ventureland and Passion Pictures Production – Netflix
Following Russia and Qatar’s unexpected wins of the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bids, shifty transactions come to light, suggesting bribery and betrayal.
The Real Mo Farah
Leo Burley, Hannah Richards, Rick Barker, Marvyn Benoit, Shona Thompson, Zad Rogers
Atomized Studios, Red Bull Studios – BBC
Sir Mo Farah reveals the shocking truth about his childhood, the journey he made from Somaliland to the UK as a young boy, and the subsequent years that led to him to become the most successful British track athlete in modern Olympic Games history.
Super Eagles ‘96
Yemi Bamiro, Nic Zimmermann, Lia Nicholls, Julia Nottingham, Jaime Ackroyd, Monica Mwangi
Dorothy St Pictures – Prime Video
Super Eagles ‘96 charts the thrilling journey of the Nigerian men’s football team at the Summer Olympics in Atlanta Georgia in 1996. Despite a backdrop of intense political and social unrest which had engulfed Nigeria for decades, the hope that the national football team offered, (fittingly nicknamed as the Super Eagles) helped unify a divided country in ways nobody had ever imagined.
Best History Documentary
Murder in the Pacific – Episode 1
Chloe Campbell, Caroline Hawkins, Raissa Botterman, Jennie Baker, Gregg Morgan, Anna Brett
Oxford Scientific Films – BBC
The first of three-parts. It’s 1985 and Greenpeace activists are in the Pacific protesting against nuclear weapons-testing following the devastation it has caused to island communities in the region over decades. As they prepare for their mission, two bombs go off, sinking their ship and killing a crew member. The hunt for the perpetrators begins.
Nelly & Nadine
Magnus Gertten, Ove Rishøj Jensen
Auto Images, Associate Directors, UpNorth Film – BBC
Nelly & Nadine is the unlikely love story between two women falling in love on Christmas Eve, 1944, in the Ravensbruck concentration camp. In the middle of the horrors of the war, the two women begin their life-long love journey.
Once Upon a Time in Northern Ireland – Episode 3
Production Team
KEO Films and Walk on Air Films for BBC, PBS and The Open University – BBC
Twenty-five years on from the Good Friday Agreement, this landmark documentary gives voice to the people who lived through the Troubles, sharing intimate testimonies from all sides of the conflict. Combining unfiltered personal accounts with archive footage, the series tells the story of ordinary men and women who were drawn, both willingly and unwillingly, into the violence that spanned three decades and who are still dealing with its legacies today.
The Princess
Simon Chinn, Jonathan Chinn, Ed Perkins, Jinx Godfrey, Daniel Lapira, Vanessa Tovell
Lightbox, Sky in association with HBO – Sky Documentaries
Relying strictly on archival footage, this stirring documentary offers a completely new perspective on Lady Diana’s life, work, and tragic death.
The Open University Best Science Documentary
Disability and Abortion: The Hardest Choice
Maia Liddell, Kate Monaghan, Rosa Moratiel, Clare King, Ruth Madeley, Ruben Reuter
RDF Television, Hey Sonny – Channel 4
A powerful documentary examining the complex and nuanced issues around terminating a pregnancy after 24 weeks where there may be a chance of impairments or health conditions. Presented by BAFTA-nominated Ruth Madeley and RTS-winning actor Ruben Reuter who have spina bifida and Down’s syndrome respectively.
Inside Our Autistic Minds – Episode 1
Amanda Lyon, Joe Myerscough, Emma Jones, Shiva Talwar, Nick Ransom, Eloise Millard
BBC Studios Documentary Unit, The Open University – BBC
Naturalist and presenter Chris Packham experiences the world differently… because he’s autistic. He’s concerned that the wider world doesn’t fully understand what being autistic means and wants to bridge this gap. By teaming up with filmmakers, graphic designers and musicians, Chris helps a group of autistic people create short films to reveal to their friends and families how they’re truly feeling inside – what’s really going on inside their autistic minds.
My Dead Body
Sophie Robinson, Hannah Brownhill, Rachael Swindale, Bud Gallimore, Matt Lowe, Toby Stevens
141 Productions, an Objective Media Group company – Channel 4
My Dead Body is Toni Crews’ story. Discovering her cancer was terminal at 29, Toni agreed to donate her body to medical science, consenting for it to be on public display. Narrated by her own words, the film follows Professor Claire Smith, Head of Anatomy at Brighton and Sussex Medical School, and her team as they dissect Toni’s body, charting the course of the disease from initial diagnosis to Toni’s death four years later.
A Trip to Infinity
Production Team
A Netflix Documentary, a Room 608 and MakeMake Production – Netflix
Eminent mathematicians, particle physicists and cosmologists dive into infinity and its mind-bending implications for the universe.
Best Natural History or Environmental Documentary
Big Oil vs the World – Denial
Dan Edge, Jane McMullen, Emma Supple, Sarah Waldron, Raney Aronson-Rath, Ella Newton
Mongoose Pictures, BBC, PBS Frontline and ARTE – BBC
Big Oil vs the World tells the decades-long secret history of how the oil industry delayed action on climate change. Drawing on thousands of newly discovered documents, Denial is a revelatory and forensic look at how major oil companies fuelled climate change science denial, despite warnings from their own scientists of the risks carbon emissions posed to the planet – the catastrophic consequences of which we are living through today.
Chimp Empire – Paradise
James Reed, Matt Houghton, Callum Webster, Matt Cole
KEO Films and Underdog Films – Netflix
Within the central group of Ngogo chimps, alpha male Jackson faces possible threats to his leadership and mother-of-two Christine educates her new baby.
The Elephant Whisperers
Kartiki Gonsalves, Guneet Monga, Achin Jain, Douglas Blush, Karan Thapliyal, Sanchari Das Mollick
A Netflix Documentary, a Sikhya Entertainment Production – Netflix
Bomman and Bellie, a couple in south India, devote their lives to caring for an orphaned baby elephant named Raghu, forging a family like no other.
Fire of Love
Sara Dosa, Shane Boris, Ina Fichman, Greg Boustead, Carolyn Bernstein, Jessica Harrop
National Geographic Documentary Films – Disney+
The extraordinary love story of intrepid French scientists Katia and Maurice Krafft, who lived capturing the most spectacular imagery ever recorded of their greatest passion: volcanoes.
Prime Video Best Entertaining Documentary
A Bunch of Amateurs
Kim Hopkins, Margareta Szabo, Lisa Marie Russo, Caroline Cooper Charles, Megan Gelstein, Capella
Labor of Love Films, BFI/DocSociety, Screen Yorkshire, Catapult Film Fund – BBC
Growing old amid flickering memories, one of the oldest amateur film clubs in the world is teetering on the brink of survival. Desperately clinging to their dreams, and to each other, this hilarious and moving portrait of artistic folly speaks to the delusional escapist dreamer in us all.
Life After Deaf – John & Joe Bishop
Andrew Mackenzie, Caroline O’Neill, Charlie Melville, Drew Hill
South Shore Productions LTD – ITV1
This intimate documentary follows comedian John Bishop and his son Joe, who is 28 and going deaf – as they learn British Sign Language together. Their lessons expose the family’s painful avoidance of Joe’s deafness to date, but sign language, and some new friends in the deaf community, help father and son begin to communicate where words have so far failed them. John sets himself the challenge of performing a gig in BSL.
Pepsi, Where’s My Jet? – The Kid from Seattle
Production Team
A Netflix Documentary Series, Boardwalk Pictures, Untapped, North of Now – Netflix
Seven million Pepsi Points to win a fighter jet? It should have been impossible. But 20-year-old John Leonard sees the ad in 1995 – and finds a loophole.
Trainwreck: Woodstock ’99 – You Can’t Stop a Riot in the 90s
Tom Pearson, Tim Wardle, Cassandra Thornton, Sasha Kosminsky, Jamie Crawford, Roger Houston
A Netflix Documentary Series, A RAW Production – Netflix
Tainted water and price gouging mar day three. Fear grips the finale, fires spread, and the mob takes over. Later, sexual assault allegations emerge.
Channel 4 Best Constructed Documentary Series
Freddie Flintoff’s Field of Dreams
Andrew Mackenzie, Naomi Templeton, Cath Tudor, Drew Hill
South Shore Productions LTD – BBC
Sporting legend Freddie Flintoff takes on his toughest challenge yet, creating a cricket team from scratch. But can he inspire the next generation to give cricket a chance?
Monster Factory
Production Team
An Apple TV production in association with Public Record produced by Vox Media – Apple TV+
Welcome to The World-Famous Monster Factory, a school where spandex-clad misfits escape the confines of everyday life to chase the dream of going pro.
Race Across the World
Production Team
Studio Lambert – BBC
Race Across the World is back, as five teams race 16,000 km across the second-largest country in the world, Canada. Without smartphones, internet access or credit cards, and armed only with the cash equivalent of the route’s airfare, their ingenuity and determination is tested to the extreme. Along the way they must visit seven checkpoints and rely on the kindness of strangers. It’s an epic and adrenaline-fuelled adventure into the unknown.
The Rap Game UK
Steve Earley, Trent Williams-Jones, Tom O’Brien, Natalie Wall, Eve Allen, Elisha Mansuroglu
Naked TV (a Fremantle label) and A&E – BBC
DJ Target, Krept and Konan return to Manchester for The Rap Game UK season four, where six up and coming artists battle it out to win £20k to further their music career. Over six episodes, the trio set various challenges to test the artists, and school them in key aspects of the music industry. The artists must show they have the best bars, and the stage presence to become the UK’s next big rap star.
Netflix Best Documentary Series
Dublin Narcos
Benedict Sanderson, Sacha Baveystock, Edmund Coulthard, Claire McFall, Laura Dunne, Bradley Manning
Blast! Films – Sky Documentaries
Featuring extraordinary first-hand accounts, this docudrama recounts how drugs changed the very fabric of Dublin as it transformed from a recession-blighted city in the 1980s to a growing metropolis.
Libby, Are You Home Yet?
Anna Hall, Celia Jennison, Danielle Jones, Luke Rothery, Josephine Besbrode, Joanna Wilcock
Candour Productions – Sky Crime
Three-part series, Libby, Are You Home Yet? tells the story of Libby Squire, a 21-year-old student, who was abducted and murdered walking home from a club in her university city of Hull in 2019. Libby’s disappearance sparked the largest manhunt in Humberside Police history, which culminated in the arrest of local man, Pawel Relowicz, who had been leading a sick double life in which he stalked and sexually assaulted young women.
Once Upon a Time in Northern Ireland
Production Team
KEO Films and Walk on Air Films for BBC, PBS and The Open University – BBC
Twenty-five years on from the Good Friday Agreement, this landmark documentary gives voice to the people who lived through the Troubles, sharing intimate testimonies from all sides of the conflict. Combining unfiltered personal accounts with archive footage, the series tells the story of ordinary men and women who were drawn, both willingly and unwillingly, into the violence that spanned three decades and who are still dealing with its legacies today.
Parole
Liesel Evans, Alice Mayhall, Chris Taylor, Rick Barker, Lindsay Konieczny, Rob Weber
Raw TV with The Open University – BBC
Parole, a new five-part series, goes inside the high-stakes world of parole hearings, where prisoners’ and victims’ and/or their families’ futures hang in the balance. Filmed over a year with Parole Boards from across England and Wales, this series tackles the fundamental questions underlying the British justice system, around crime, punishment, reform, rehabilitation, repentance, and morality, and ultimately puts us, the viewer, at the centre of the debate. What would you decide?
Red Bull Studios Best Cinema Documentary
All That Breathes
Shaunak Sen, Aman Mann, Teddy Leifer, Sean B. Carroll, David Guy Elisco
Rise Films, Kiterabbit Films, Tangled Bank Studios – Theatrical release
As legions of birds fall from New Delhi’s darkening skies, and the city smoulders with social unrest, two brothers race to save a casualty of the turbulent times: the black kite, a majestic bird of prey essential to their city’s ecosystem.
A Bunch of Amateurs
Kim Hopkins, Margareta Szabo, Lisa Marie Russo, Caroline Cooper Charles, Megan Gelstein, Capella
Labor of Love Films, BFI/DocSociety, Screen Yorkshire, Catapult Film Fund – Theatrical release
Growing old amid flickering memories, one of the oldest amateur film clubs in the world is teetering on the brink of survival. Desperately clinging to their dreams, and to each other, this hilarious and moving portrait of artistic folly speaks to the delusional escapist dreamer in us all.
Eternal Spring (長春)
Jason Loftus, Masha Loftus, Yvan Pinard, Kevin Koo, David St-Amant, Daxiong
Lofty Sky Entertainment Inc. – Theatrical release
When Falun Gong members hack China’s state TV to expose repression, lives are changed. Comic artist Daxiong resents having to flee in the aftermath, but once overseas, he meets the lone surviving hijacker to escape. He uses his art to tell the resilient story of those fighting for freedom of belief. Hot Docs-winnerEternal Spring (長春) is the first documentary, first animation, and first Mandarin film to represent Canada at the Oscars® for best international feature.
Nothing Compares
Eleanor Emptage, Michael Mallie, Kathryn Ferguson, Mick Mahon, John Reynolds, Charlotte Cook
Tara Films and Ard Mhacha Productions, in association with Field of Vision, Screen Ireland, BFI Doc Society Fund, ie: Entertainment and Northern Ireland Screen — Theatrical release
Nothing Compares is the story of Sinéad O’Connor’s phenomenal rise to worldwide fame and how her iconoclastic personality resulted in her exile from the pop mainstream. Focusing on her prophetic words and deeds from 1987-1993, the film reflects on the legacy of this fearless artist through a contemporary feminist lens.
All3Media Best Student Documentary
Dear Daughter
Yuqi Tang
UCL – University/College Screening
Shortly after she relocates to the UK, the filmmaker receives a message from her estranged mother in China. To understand why her mother became the woman she is, the filmmaker starts to record their conversations. She asks, tentatively, “What were you like before you had me?” After a long pause, her mother replies, “Happy.” Dear Daughter takes us on a personal yet universal journey into a mother-daughter relationship – sometimes frustrating, sometimes loving, and almost always, ambivalent.
Tahlila [a lullaby]
Baha‘ AbuShanab
Goldsmiths – University/College Screening
A portrayal of a mother and daughter negotiating their shifting relationship. Amal must care for her daughter Rawan, who is balancing leaving from under her mother’s wing and challenging the social norms in Palestine.
Two Copper Wires
Miranda Stern, Yiwei Pu, Alex Faingold, Niklas Sandahl, Carl Mason, Jo Abel
NFTS – University/College Screening
One filmmaker tries to find connection by calling the UK’s last public telephone boxes. Like the filmmaker, the anonymous strangers who pick up are also looking for something at the other end of that line. Something we’ve lost somewhere along the way. And after finding that intangible thing, the filmmaker is liberated to speak openly about her own recovery from heroin, because the opposite of addiction isn’t sobriety, it’s connection. Authentic and meaningful human connection.
With Woman
Mia Harvey, Yu-Pu Pon, Luke Barnfather, Diana Duah, Sophie Esslemont, Mara Ciobra
NFTS – University/College Screening
In Illinois, home-birth midwifery has been outlawed. Despite this, Star, a Black home-birth midwife, motivated by the high maternal mortality rates for Black women in hospitals, guides first time mother Raven through her perilous home-birth.
Fullwell 73 Best Documentary Short
#BlackBoyJoyGone
Ashley Karrell, Isaac Ouro-Gnao, Lisa Marie Russo, Melanie Abrahams, Ashley Karrell
Panoptical – Festival release
Blending interviews, poetry, dance and storytelling, #BlackBoyJoyGone shares the hopeful perspectives of UK Black men who experienced mental illness, sexual trauma, and find strength through brotherhood. Directed by Ashley Karrell and Isaac Ouro-Gnao, the film shares the hopeful perspectives of men through the Black Boy Joy motif and is a play on how we’re never ‘too far gone’ if we seek the right help to heal our wounds.
Heart Valley
Christian Cargill, Kiran Sidhu, Lily Wakeley, Erland Cooper, Guy Chase, Max Ferguson-Hook
The New Yorker, Dalmatian Films – BBC
Heart Valley follows a day in the life of Wilf Davies, a kind and inquisitive shepherd from the small village of Cellan, Wales. He has never left his valley, eats the same meal every day and works his farm alone, where his family of one hundred black-spotted sheep rely on him. The film looks at the world through Wilf’s eyes, asking questions about what it is we should truly value as a society.
Lady of the Gobi
Khoroldorj Choijoovanchig, Chantal Perrin, Tessa Louise Salomé, Simon Le Berre, Luc Sorrel, Gael Rakotondrab
Petite Maison Productions – theguardian.com
On Mongolia’s coal highway to the Chinese border, truck driver Maikhuu dreams of a better life and financial security for her three children. However, the road from the mines to China is riddled with accidents, toxic pollution, poor hygiene and now, amid the Covid crisis, drivers face days of quarantine on the border. Trapped in a hazardous industry, Maikhuu’s journey reflects the human and environmental costs of Mongolia’s mining boom.
The Score
Aleksandra Bilic, Alice Popplewell, Mike Simpson, Alice Powell, Maja Bilic, Nikola Medic
My Accomplice – WePresent/New York Op Docs
In a little house in Reading, Maja Bilic agrees it is time to compose a piece of music that could have defined her career – had it not been for the Bosnian war. To finish the piece she must return home, where her old piano still stands, untouched since 1992, to finally perform her piece of music. The Score is an intervention, a collaboration and an immersion between the director and her mother.
Disney+ Best Documentary Presenter
Emily Victoria for A Paedophile in My Family: Surviving Dad
Frank Films – Channel 4
Emily Victoria is a successful businesswoman and mother, who, on the surface, has an enviable life. Unbeknown to friends, she carries the weight of a childhood no one should experience, repeated sexual abuse by her father. Emily contacts people from her past to ask how the abuse remained hidden. She uncovers a shocking revelation about her father’s manipulation and cowardliness. It’s an emotional portrayal of the effects of long-term abuse and the power of speaking up.
Hannah Fry for Making Sense of Cancer with Hannah Fry
Curious Films – BBC
Professor Hannah Fry is used to investigating the world around her through numbers. When she’s diagnosed with cervical cancer at the age of 36, she starts to interrogate the way we diagnose and treat cancer, to ask whether we are making the right choices in how we treat this disease. Hannah charts her own cancer journey in raw and emotional personal footage, where the realities of life after a cancer diagnosis are laid bare.
Munya Chawawa for How to Survive a Dictator with Munya Chawawa
Rumpus Media – Channel 4
Comedian Munya Chawawa wanted to return to his homeland, Zimbabwe to make a documentary about its notorious dictator, Robert Mugabe. His bags were packed, his flights were booked. But then his filming visas were mysteriously cancelled. With absolutely no explanation. So now he is travelling to South Africa to meet with Mugabe’s friends, his family, his victims and his henchmen in an attempt to make the show in spite of them.
Runako Celina for Racism for Sale
BBC Africa Eye — BBC
Racism For Sale reveals how African children are being exploited to make personalised videos, including racist content, for sale on Chinese social media as part of a multi-million-dollar video industry. After analysing hundreds of videos and cross-referencing them against satellite imagery, Lead Investigator-Reporter Runako and the BBC Africa Eye team track down and confront one prolific Chinese video producer who used very young children from rural Malawi to make and sell thousands of videos.
Jon Creamer
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