Our coolest subscribers will have spotted that Something Real has been put on ice for a spell. While our doc-endorsing digits thaw out fully in time for the New Year, wrap up warm to discover two frosty films brought in for you from the cold.
The original record of Irvine and Mallory's doomed Everest expedition of 1924, crafted from beautifully restored footage and set to a specially commissioned new score.
US: Netflix / Fandor UK: BFI Player
Where we grow, the spaces we share and the streets we walk shape who we are. We in turn decorate the character of that place. See this NYT article on a New York state of mind, and these incredible portraits of the city's people.
A beautiful, vibrant record of a largely Puerto Rican & Dominican community in South Brooklyn of the 1980s.
Dir. Diego Echeverria (1984)
US: Vimeo on Demand / Googleplay / Youtube / Amazon UK: Vimeo on Demand
An hour-long nocturne portrait of a Harlem street corner with near-hallucinatory intensity.
Dir. Khalik Allah (2015)
US: Vimeo (Free) UK: Vimeo (Free)
A real-life thriller, (T)ERROR is the first documentary to place filmmakers on the ground during a live FBI counterterrorism sting operation.
Dirs. Lyric R. Cabral & David Felix Sutcliffe (2015)
Mexico's drug cartels are shockingly illuminated in this striking documentary. "El Sicario" is a frank portrait of an individual who was a hitman for 20 years.
Dir. Gianfranco Rosi (2010)
US: Amazon UK: DocAlliance
It's been a busy few weeks in filmlandia with some directors collecting gongs at The Emmys and others launching Oscar campaigns at TIFF. Behind all this polished metal are people who love making and talking about film. Here are some to watch tonight.
A love letter to cinema and two if its renowned talents. This illuminating documentary explores the art and influence of Alfred Hitchcock through his famed 1962 interview with French auteur François Truffaut.
Dir. Kent Jones (2016)
US: HBO GO UK: Curzon Home / iTunes / Amazon / Googleplay
A documentary film that recounts the inspiring and entertaining life of world-renowned film critic and social commentator Roger Ebert – a story that is by turns personal, funny, painful, and transcendent.
Dir. Steve James (2014)
US: Netflix / iTunes / Googleplay / Youtube UK: Netflix / Amazon / Googleplay
The perilous state of existence for refugees trying to reach Britain has only worsened in recent weeks. These two stories document the trials of movement and recognition of migrants.
A six-part documentary about the dangerous paths of Syrian asylum seekers in the E.U.
Dir. Matthew Cassel (2016)
US: New Yorker UK: New Yorker
In this autobiographical work Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas becomes a crusader for immigration reform.
Dir. Jose Antonio Vargas (2013)
US: Direct / iTunes / Youtube / Googleplay UK: Direct
A recent study suggests that our trust in the words we read is affected by how they are printed. Get to know your Arial from your Optima this weekend.
A film about a typeface that delves into the world of graphic arts and takes a deeper look into style changes and the controversies over the role of graphic designer since World War II.
Dir. Gary Hustwit (2007)
New fabric of devastation and tragedy wraps our daily newspapers, but little time is given to regret, revisiting, and healing. These two visions playfully approach and address lingering historic wounds.
A deeply moving documentary about reconciliation and justice in the Lebanon, bringing two people together whose lives have been changed forever by the civil war.
Dir. Eliane Raheb (2012)
This playful documentary tells the story of an Israeli ex-soldier who participated in a revenge operation in which two Palestinian policemen were murdered, and who now seeks forgiveness for what he has done.
Dir. Avi Mograbi (2008)
US: DocAlliance / Distrify UK: DocAlliance / Distrify
'In the great prison where I was then incarcerated, I was merely the figure and the letter of a little cell in a long gallery. One of a thousand lifeless numbers, as of a thousand lifeless lives.' – Oscar Wilde. Inspired by a series of prison reading events we are serving two lock and key docs.
A riveting examination of a horrible crime which probes the human psyche to explore why people kill and why the state kills.
Dir. Werner Herzog (2011)
US: iTunes / Amazon / Sundance Doc Club UK: Googleplay / iTunes
A town in the middle of nowhere with 36,000 souls and 13 prisons, one of which is Supermax, the new 'Alcatraz' of America. A prison town where even those living on the outside live on the inside.
Dirs. David Dufresne & Philippe Brault (2010)
US: Arte Webdocs UK: Arte Webdocs
Texas is a State of complexity and controversy. Dovetail these two deep south tales into your weekend for some poetically solid enlightenment.
For decades, two towns on opposite sides of the Texas-Mexico border have coexisted quietly, but encroaching drug-related violence threatens the peace.
Dirs. Bill and Turner Ross (2015)
As summer stretches its jaw from eyefuls of ice-cream to BBQ banquets, diet fever is served up in new plans, books, and apps. Get your teeth into these two beefy shock docs!
This eye-opening film reveals what happens when actor and director Damon Gameau adopts a diet high in refined sugar for 60 days, to the detriment of his physical, emotional and mental well-being.
Dir. Damon Gameau (2014)
It's music festival season and fields are filled with bodies moved by summer sounds. If you aren't the outdoorsy type, pitch a tent in your living room, burn some gigabytes and stream these bangers.
An inventive, lyrical ode to creativity and an intimate examination of the artistic process of musician and cultural icon Nick Cave.
Dirs. Iain Forsyth & Jane Pollard (2014)
US: iTunes / Youtube / Googleplay / Vimeo UK: Curzon / iTunes / Amazon
This intimate and inventive portrait uses material from the Cobains' personal archives in an in-depth examination of the Nirvana frontman's childhood, music career and untimely death.
Dir. Brett Morgen (2015)
US: Amazon / HBO NOW UK: iTunes / Youtube / Googleplay
Solidarity marches across the US and UK have illuminated protests after the latest police shootings of black men in US. Stay informed by watching these two moving stories of recent protest and injustice.
Reveals the deep racial prejudices and tragedies that ensue as a result through the murder of Jordan Davis and trial of shooter Michael Dunn.
Dir. Marc Silver (2015)
US: HBO GO UK: Googleplay / iTunes / Amazon
A series of racist acts prompts three University of Missouri students to pick up cameras and take us inside a peaceful student movement whose protests brought down the college president.
Dirs. Adam Dietrich, Varun Bajaj, Kellan Marvin (2016)
US: Field of Vision UK: Field of Vision
A legal case deciding the right to access abortion clinics in Texas concluded this week, prompting wider actions across America to repeal restrictions. These two hard-hitting docs explore the ethical and moral struggles of the right to abort.
A sea captain navigates through loopholes in international law to provide abortions on the high seas.
Dir. Diana Whitten (2014)
US: Netflix / Youtube / Amazon / iTunes / Vimeo On Demand UK: Vimeo On Demand / Netflix
This week we are saying flixit to the Brexit with a composition of two constitutional conundrums. Sit back and vote with your remote.
After Zimbabwe's disputed 2008 election results, political enemies are asked to write a new constitution and save their country from a bleak future.
Dir. Camilla Nielsson (2015)
US: Netflix UK: Netflix / Amazon / Googleplay / iTunes
After the passing of one boxing legend, we're floating a couple butterflies that sting like bees over your way. Enjoy round 1 and 2 on us.
An intimate coming-of-age story about a new kind of American heroine. Claressa “T-Rex” Shields is the youngest female boxer fighting for gold at the 2012 Olympics.
Dirs. Drea Cooper and Zackary Canepari (2015)
US: Vimeo on Demand UK: Vimeo on Demand
A cinematically rich and intimately observed portrait. In central China, a Master coach recruits poor rural teenagers and turns them into Western-style boxing champions.
Dir. Yung Chang (2012)
US: Amazon / iTunes UK: Vimeo on Demand
A pseudo anthropological study of a man and a woman, both labelled 'the perfect human'. Each 'functioning' in a white boundless room, as though they were subjects in a zoo.
Jorgen Leth (1967)
US: Youtube / Doc Alliance UK: Youtube / Doc Alliance
Middlefart is an entirely mediocre place. From stories about civil disobedience to the mayor's visit to a fortune teller, the individual scenes of this film serve as display cabinets at a virtual museum about ordinary Denmark in the year 2011
Dir. Michael Madsen (2011)
US: Doc Alliance UK: Doc Alliance
After discovering one of Prince's fine and secret gestures, this week's watchlist is a double-bill of goodwill.
A high-spirited runaway boy in Pakistan tries to find his way back home from the orphanage in which he lives, aided by a sympathetic ambulance driver.
Dirs. Omar Mullick, Bassam Tariq (2013)
As Cuba thaws the cultural kitsch of communism is once more en vogue, but not without complications. Share your living room tonight and see these two retro visions of Soviet life.
The enlightening story of the Soviet Union's famed Red Army hockey team through the eyes of its players.
Dir. Gabe Polsky (2014)
US: Googleplay / Youtube / Amazon / iTunes / VUDU UK: Talk Talk / Googleplay / iTunes / Amazon / Curzon
Little introduction is needed to the father's of modern hip-hop featured in this week's recommended docs, but we do want to share this piece paying ode to mothers of great rappers.
An adventure into the mind of Popa Wu, the patriarch of the world renown rap group Wu Tang Clan.
Dir. Khalik Allah (2010)
US: Vimeo on Demand UK: Vimeo on Demand
A crazy season in the English top football league came to an end this week with outsiders Leicester City defying 5000-1 odds to claim the title. Here are two more sporting stories of underdogs finding their feet.
Dutch coach Thomas Rongen attempts the nearly impossible task of turning the American Samoa soccer team from perennial losers into winners.
Dirs. Mike Brett, Steve Jamison (2014)
US: Vudu / Amazon / Youtube / Googleplay UK: Googleplay / iTunes / Amazon / TalkTalkTV
A gripping insight into the dirty business behind the beautiful game: In 2007, investors buy the bottom-ranked Queens Park Rangers soccer team and launch an ambitious plan to promote them to the Premier League.
Dir. Mat Hodgson (2011)
US: Vimeo on Demand UK: Vimeo on Demand
Photographer Edward Burtynsky explores the ways in which humanity has shaped, manipulated and depleted one of its most vital and compromised resources: water.
Dirs. Edward Burtynsky & Jennifer Baichwal (2014)
US: Googleplay / Youtube / Amazon / VUDU / iTunes UK: iTunes
Three families live in a village partially submerged by water in Northwestern Mexico. Despite their loneliness and fear, they refuse to leave.
Dir. Betzabé García (2015)
US: Googleplay / Youtube / Amazon / Vimeo on Demand / iTunes UK: Vimeo on Demand / Amazon / iTunes / Googleplay
As the New York's political wheels begin to turn, we offer two primary supplementaries documenting America and its discontents.
In the tiny town of Williston, North Dakota, tens of thousands of unemployed hopefuls show up with dreams of honest work and a big paycheck under the lure of the oil boom.
Dir. Jesse Moss (2014)
US: iTunes / VUDU / Amazon / Googleplay / Youtube UK: iTunes
Anchored by a series of interviews with Noam Chomsky, this definitive documentary of the “Two Americas” is an unvarnished account of how policies have helped concentrate wealth in the hands of a few at expense of everyone else.
Dirs. Peter Hutchison, Kelly Nyks, Jared P. Scott (2015)
US: Vimeo on Demand / Amazon / Youtube / Googleplay UK: Vimeo on Demand
After a short Spring break Something Real is back with some brain food. So put your mind to the matter by tuning into this contemporary and classic doc platter.
After suffering a stroke at age 34, a woman documents her struggles, setbacks and eventual breakthrough as she relearns to speak, read and write.
Dirs. Lotje Sodderland, Sophie Robinson (2015)
Eccentric Japanese professor Kenji Sugimoto takes a wild and wonderful road trip through the US in search of the true location of Einstein's mysterious brain.
Dir Kevin Hull (1994)
Today the Orwell prize announced a profound shortlist of works that make political writing an artform. Thus we are sharing two political and pensive artworks addressing the subject of justice.
A family of survivors discovers how their son was murdered, as well as the identities of the killers. This unprecedented film initiates and bears witness to the collapse of fifty years of silence.
Dir. Joshua Oppenheimer (2014)
US: Youtube / GooglePlay / Amazon / iTunes / Netflix UK: Netflix / iTunes / Googleplay / Amazon
A tense court-room drama about the trial of the four-member team of serial killers, who during the course of one year killed several Roma people.
Dir. Eszter Hajdu (2012)
US: Vimeo On Demand UK: Vimeo On Demand
After an enlightening visit to Laura Poitras’ first solo museum show at the Whitney, we're following up with two chilling new visions of government, technology and security.
The film that begins with Edward Snowden’s decision to reveal evidence of mass surveillance by the National Security Agency and charts the events that followed.
Dir. Laura Poitras (2014)
This week as rambuctious ruminations rumble in the US primaries, the Brits bluntly bombast about a brexit from Europe.
In 1968, ideological opposites William F. Buckley Jr. and Gore Vidal hold a series of riveting, nationally televised debates that usher in a new era of public discourse and pundit TV.
Dirs. Robert Gordon, Morgan Neville (2015)
US: Youtube / VUDU / Googleplay / Amazon / iTunes UK: Netflix / Amazon / iTunes / GooglePlay
As one cold war revolution thaws we discovered these images of other red uprisings that gained much less global attention.
This visually sobering documentary outlines Africa's long struggle against colonial domination and the continent's continued exploitation.
Dir. Göran Hugo Olsson (2013)
US: Netflix / Googleplay / Youtube / Amazon / iTunes UK: iTunes / Dogwoof TV
Finding Fela takes a look at Afrobeat creator Fela Kuti and how his life and music inspired an entire continent and brought Pan Africanist politics to the world.
Dir. Alex Gibney (2014)
US: iTunes / Googleplay / Youtube UK: Netflix / Googleplay / Amazon / iTunes
Take time out from talk of who will be pipped to the post at the upcoming Oscars with these two top docs about reaching the finish line.
A heart-racing gallop into the notoriously closed world of this ancient horse race and the larger-than-life people involved.
Dir. Cosima Spender (2015)
US: Youtube / VUDU / Vimeo On Demand UK: iTunes / Amazon / Vimeo on Demand / Blinkbox / Googleplay
In 2015, colouring books were king of the non-fiction bestseller charts and Christmas even saw the publication of a Jeremy Corbyn colouring book! Where will crayon-addiction take us next? These two portrait docs reveal all.
Dirs. Dan Rybicky and Aaron Wickenden (2014)
US: Vimeo On Demand / Amazon / Fandor UK: Vimeo On Demand
For several decades, gifted and incredibly prolific forger Mark Landis compulsively created impeccable copies of works by a variety of major artists, donating them to institutions across the country and landing pieces on many of their walls.
Dirs. Sam Cullman, Jennifer Grausman, Mark Becker (2014)
US: Googleplay / Youtube / Amazon / Vudu / iTunes UK: Netflix / GooglePlay / iTunes
This London exhibition has us thinking about how community is defined by our attempts to create it. If a raucous NYE still has you creeping past your neighbours’ doors, put post-party tensions to rest by offering your cohabitants a consolatory film night containing these two small-town greats.
The result of McElwee turning his camera on his family and their neighbors, this film is a humorous and poignant look at odd moments in a genteel Southern USA town.
Dir. Ross McElwee (1984)
US: Sundance Doc Club UK: Sundance Doc Club
Eccentric inhabitants of a small Southern town share anecdotes and opinions with filmmaker Errol Morris.
Dir. Errol Morris (1981)
US: iTunes / Amazon / Sundance Doc Club UK: Sundance Doc Club
A new year is a wonderful excuse to indulge your quill in the crisp white pages of a pocket diary. Perhaps our journals will be more mundane than those of Samuel Pepys, but as these two films show: the very act of recording life can be an event in itself.
In 1977, Sam Klemke started obsessively documenting his entire life on film. Beginning decades before the modern obsession with selfies and status updates, we see Sam grow from an optimistic teen to a self-important 20 year old, into an obese, self-loathing 30-something and onwards into his philosophical 50s creating a strange and intimate portrait of what it means to be human.
Dir. Matthew Bate (2015)
US: Vimeo On Demand UK: Vimeo On Demand
For the last eight years, Ida has kept a video diary in order to ease her mind and structure her thoughts. In her diary we get a unique insight into a world of fear and anxiety, but also precious moments of everyday victories and self-discovery.
Dir. August B. Hanssen (2014)
US: Vimeo On Demand UK: Vimeo On Demand
The recent passing of two great cinematographers made us think about incredible lives behind the camera and beyond the images on the screen. Here are two great documentaries about the madness and the making of movies.
Mohsen Makhmalbaf gives an advertisement in the newspapers and informs those who are interested in acting that in a test some of them would be chosen for making a movie on the occasion of the hundredth year of the birth of the Cinema. The result is a compelling portrait of Iran and our obsession with movies.
Dir. Mohsen Makhmalbaf (1995)
US: Vimeo On Demand UK: Vimeo On Demand
Troll 2 star Michael Stephenson steps behind the camera to explore the phenomenon behind the low-budget Italian-produced horror sequel that young movie fanatics have christened "the Rocky Horror of our generation" in this documentary which proves that just because a movie is awful doesn't mean it won't find an audience.
Dir. Michael Stephenson (2009)
US: iTunes / Netflix / Microsoft / Googleplay UK: Netflix
