Introduction
The documentary is a film, short or long, shot filming reality without a pre-established script, without an intent to manipulate real facts. The director makes himself available to follow the flow of real life events, with the intention of bringing the events to the screen as they actually take place.
The documentary film therefore acquires a different value from fictional cinema: it is a document, a testimony of what was filmed, of a historical period, of a place, of people.
What Is The Documentary
In fictional cinema, reality is mediated by the imagination of the director and screenwriters. In fact, the characters and environments are manipulated and organized to be filmed with the camera in a certain way, to express the director’s inner world.
There are certain films that want to tell a story in the most likely way possible and where a pact is created with the viewer. Such as films inspired by a true story, or cinema truth. The spectator, even knowing that it is a staging with actors, suspends his judgment to immerse himself in the impression of reality. This implicit pact is at the basis of the enjoyment of the cinematographic show. If the film tries to create this impression of reality and fails, the viewer’s disinterest soon arrives.
On the other hand, there are films that explicitly tell a story through an unrealistic style, making clear the staging and the filmic construction of the fiction. In this case the director becomes a storyteller in the eyes of the viewer: what he tells could be true, or it could be a lie, but it doesn’t matter. What matters is how fascinating and engaging his story is.
The Director’s Vision in The Documentary
In reality, the difference between documentary cinema and fictional cinema is very complex and involves important philosophical and spiritual questions. Is it possible for a director to film an objective reality in a totally impartial way? Even if it is not the director who imposes a vision, as in the case of propaganda documentaries, it is always present and reality is always manipulated.
Even in the so-called observation documentaries, in which the author tries to disappear by looking for a totally realistic image, becoming a sort of supreme observer, the manipulation typical of cinema is also present there.
In fact, it is the director who chooses what to observe In which place from which angle of observation. The director who chooses what to highlight and what not to choose a close-up or a long shot. The film In practice, despite being a pure documentary, it does nothing but reflect the inner world and the personality of the director or creator.
Reality is organized and assembled according to its specific sensitivity and interests. The narrative is organized according to its worldview and its values. It is therefore not wrong to say that documentary cinema is also a cinema of artifices, a world built by those who create it. Absolute reality is not perceptible to the human being.
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A Brief History of Documentary Cinema
The Birth Of The Documentary
Cinema was born with the documentary film, in the projections of the first films of the Lumiere brothers shot in France. Subsequently, the inventors of the cinema will send dozens of operators around the world to film distant countries: exotic places never seen by the less affluent that could now be known on the big screen. Documentary cinema has the ability to open wide windows of otherwise inaccessible worlds in our space and in our time.
The Travel Documentary
Cinema has always represented for the public the possibility of traveling to other worlds while sitting on an armchair. Even today, even if the world has changed radically and many distant places have become easily accessible, we watch documentaries to discover distant places and people. Worlds that we will probably never meet in real life. Or that maybe we will decide to reach right after seeing a documentary.
Some of the earliest short documentaries consisted of filmed landscapes that were shown at fairs. They were called Hale’s Tours, and they were projections of landscapes that spectators saw from the window of fake railway carriages, made between 1905 and 1912 by the American George C. Hale.
A wealthy Parisian banker, Kahn, promotedin the 1910s and 1920s Les archives de la planète, making a team of operators film various parts of the world destined for a utopian encyclopedic-geographical catalog. Another travel film director was the Italian Luca Comerio. His shots were used as archive material in the film From the Pole to the Equator, in 1986.
The Documentary In The 1920s
The documentary has the capacity to multiply knowledge and perception of reality in an incredible way. the exploration documentary could give viewers both the thrill of a dangerous adventure and the knowledge of distant worlds. The places that most attracted the filmmakers were certainly the ice of the poles.
The great white silence (1924) by Herbert G. Ponting, It was one of the first important exploration films. The signed materials were first used in lectures, then reassembled with a soundtrack in 1933, with the title 90 ° South.
South (1917) by Frank Hurley, is a documentary film dedicated to another expedition to the South Pole, that of E. Shackleton. The list of exploration films shot in Britain is long. Perhaps the most important is The epic of Everest Joel BL Noel’s(1924).
In the United States,are worth seeing Grass (1925) and Chang (1927, Elefante) by Ernest B. Schoedsack and Merian C. Cooper, the authors of the future King Kong,. They are films shot in Kurdistan, Turkestan and Northern Thailand.
Simba, the king of beasts (1928) by Martin and Osa Johnson, was shot in Africa; in France, La croisière noire (1926) by Léon Poirier and, in the sound era, La croisière jaune (1933) by André Sauvage, on the promotional expeditions of Citroën in Africa and Asia; Voyage au Congo (1927), in which Marc Allégret follows his uncle André Gide on his African journey, followed in 1952 by the biopic Avec André Gide.
In the Soviet Union,is produced Document on Shanghai by Jakov M. Blioch, Turksib (1929) by Viktor A. Turin, on the construction of the railway line between Turkestan and Siberia. Salt for Svanetia, 1930, by Georgian Mikhail K. Kalatozov. In Germany we find Arnold Fanck’s mountain films, who specialized in the genre, such as Der heilige Berg (1926) and The tragedy of Pizzo Palù, in 1929. Die letzten Segelschiffe (1926-1930) by Heinrich Hauser, on the latest sailing ships. The genre of exploration films had become so popular that someone decided to parody it, as in the short film, Crossing the Great Sagrada (1924) by the English director Adrian Brunel.
In the 1920s the documentary mixes with fiction thanks to the extraordinary films of Robert Flaherty: Nanook, The Last Eden and The Man of Aran. Flaherty invented poetic documentary cinema, a genre that artists such asconfronted themselves with Jean Epstein and Luchino Visconti.
In 1929 the director Dziga Vertov, convinced of the superiority of the documentary over fictional cinema, condenses his experience as a propaganda documentary maker, as an editing theorist and his cinematographic talent to shoot an avant-garde documentary that will mark the history of cinema: Man with a Movie Camera.
The Sound In The Documentary
In the thirties, with the arrival of sound, the production of documentaries and fiction films becomes much more expensive. The means of sound recording were very heavy and limited the possibilities of documentary makers to move easily on trips.
A very original use of sound to circumvent this production problem is Enthusiasm, also known as the Don Basin Symphony. Director Dziga Vertov, after the cine-eye, theorizes the radio-eye by putting the new instrument into practice with real enthusiasm.
He uses sound in synchrony and counterpoint in a game of voices, noises, music that compose, with a very complex and layered montage, at a time when the mixing of sounds was still impossible, the first great documentary symphony and abstractof cinema sound. The film remains an example with no successors.
Due to the technical difficulties few other directors try to use live sound in their documentary films. Some examples can be found in La croisière jaune, Campo de ‘Fiori, Housing problems (1935) by the English Edgar Anstey and Arthur Elton. Newsreels also use the dubbing method by recording sounds and narrating voice in the studio. Subsequently shooting. Only a few directors decide to record ambient noises and sounds on the real shooting location, and then insert it in post production.
Documentary And The Creative Use of Sound
Some directors choose a creative use of sound in their documentary films, confirming what Jean Luc Godard said years after: every great documentary film is a fiction film.
In Philips radio (1931) the director Ivens makes a rhythmic use of sound. While in North Sea Watt’s(1938) it is used as a tool for realistic identification. In some English films, sound is used as a literary and poetic tool: Coal face (1935) by Cavalcanti, Night mail (1936) by Watt and Basil Wright, Listen to Britain (1942) by Jennings. In Las Hurdes – Tierra sin pan (1932) by Luis Buñuel uses voice and music in an apparently conventional way, but in reality they conflict with the images of extreme poverty shown in the film.
The Fictional Documentary
In the Thirties, documentary cinema mixes with fiction He begins to use non-professional actors with the direction of directors. For example in Hunger in Waldenburg Phil Jutzi’s, Chang, L’or des mers, a Swiss propaganda documentary. Ein werktag Richard Schweizer’s(1931); the unfinished ¡Qué viva México! (1931-32) by Sergej M. Ejzenštejn, Redes (1935) by Strand and Fred Zinnemann, Man of Aran (1934) by Flaherty. The edge of the world (1937), shot by Michael Powell in the Shetland Islands, A handful of rice (1938), shot in Thailand by the Hungarian Paul Fejos and the Swede Gunnar Skoglund. Native land, Fires were started (1943) by Jennings, a documentary film about the firefighters during a German raid on London.
Documentary And Neorealism
Italian Neorealism owes a great deal to documentary cinema, from which it draws enormous inspiration. Men at the bottom (1941) and Alfa Tau! (1942) by Francesco De Robertis and La nave bianca (1941) by Roberto Rossellini are the first examples of neorealist documentaries. As Jean-Luc Godard said, “all great fictional films tend towards the documentary, just as all great documentaries tend towards fiction”.
Documentary And Television
After the arrival of television, it devoted itself to spreading the popular documentary, while the cinema continued to propose the documentary as arthouse films with high-level artistic, dramaturgical and aesthetic contents. In recent years, the documentary has been re-evaluated compared to fictional films. Documentary films have won the most prestigious awards at festivals around the world. The distinction between documentary and fictional film is now obsolete.
The Voice-Off In Documentaries
The first narrating voices in the 30’s and 40’s were often entrusted to a male voice. It was a very impersonal method that didn’t give the film any personality. It almost seemed that it was a single narrator that was the same for all documentaries, so much so that many dubbed it in an ironic way the voice of God.
Some directors tried to give their films a more original sound narrative, in some cases playing the role of the narrator themselves. For example in Nieuwe gronden, in The land (1942) by Flaherty, in The battle of San Pietro (1944) by John Huston.
In other films, a popular voice was employed, such as that of Ernest Hemingway and Orson Welles in Spanish Earth. In The 400 million (1938), both by Ivens; in Native land (1942) by Leo Hurwitz and P. Strand, with the voice of black actor Paul Robeson. In the documentaries of the English Humphrey Jennings, London can take it (1940) with the voice of the American commentator Quentin Reynolds.
In Words for battle (1941) the voice of Laurence Olivier, The true story of Lili Marlene (1944), voice of Marius Goring, A diary for Timothy (1945) voice of Michael Redgrave. Let there be light (1946) by Huston, with the voice of his father Walter Huston, a documentary about soldiers suffering from psychotic disorders, censored until 1980.
Independent Cinema And Documentary
If there is a favorite genre from independent cinema and avant-gardeis certainly the documentary, because it allows, without the artifices of fictional cinema, to experiment with new languages and create important works without having large budgets. The difference between documentary and fictional cinema has no reason to exist because even the author of the documentary, if he films reality, filters it through his own vision of the world.
Nothing is as real as the subjective gaze of the beholder. The documentary maker also creates his film starting from his imagination, making choices of storytelling, framing, editing and sound. The documentary interprets and reinvents reality as fictional cinema, using “pieces” of real life.
Types of Documentary
The Fake Documentary
It’s all true and F for fake: with these two titles Orson Welles experiments with the fake documentary as a pioneer. The false documentary is a genre in which events are staged through the method of fiction, but are presented as evidence of real facts and actions. The director can use actors directing them as in a fiction film but making the audience believe that it is all true, recorded in direct contact with reality, without his intervention.
In reality, the fake documentary is a much older invention. Among the first films that we can mention is the masterpiece Haxan, by Benjamin Christiansen, a film that mixes horror, documentary and essay film. In this film we move with incredible ease from a rich fantasy staging, to sequences in which the narration is carried on as a (fake) scientific documentary.
The false documentary found, in the late nineties and early 2000s, a great application in Horror cinema. Many horror films, such as The Blair Witch Project, are shot in a realistic style, often with the camera used by hand, to create an impression of reality that makes the narrative scarier.
This is thetechnique found footage, where the discovery of a video constitutes the principle of narration. In some cases, such as Don’t Open That Door, the found footage makes up only a small part of the film, and is embedded within a general structure of fiction. In The Blair Witch Project, on the other hand, the pretext of found footage is the basis for the storytelling and style of the entire film, from start to finish.
Other directors like Woody Allen use the fake documentary by creating newsreels with a very realistic style, similar to propaganda newsreels. An example is Allen’s film Zelig, where the adventures of the main character are told through these fake journalistic inserts.
Mockumentary
While the false documentary has a narrative intent and the tone with which the narrator tells the story is plausible, the mockumentary has an intent to manipulate reality with parody effects. In the mockumentary, the director can go into abstract territory, where he uses reality to make fun of reality. The mockumentary is therefore primarily a question of style.
The narrator uses the aesthetics of the documentary but the events are obviously unreal, grotesque, excessive. As for example in that strange cinematographic object that is Fellini: A Director’s Notebook by Federico Fellini: a masterpiece that takes the mockumentary genre to a level never yet experienced.
Docufiction
Docufiction should not be confused with fake documentary or mockumentary. These are generally films in which some events of the narrative are reconstructed with fiction, due to the impossibility of actually filming them. For example, documentaries where there is a need for period reconstructions with actors, documentaries in which a staging of the past, of the future is necessary. Or a present that cannot be filmed.
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Cult Documentaries to Watch
Nanook of the North (1922)
“Nanook of the North” is a groundbreaking 1922 American silent documentary film directed by Robert J. Flaherty. It follows the life of Nanook, an Inuit hunter, and his family as they struggle to survive in the harsh Arctic environment. The film was shot in the Ungava Peninsula of northern Quebec, Canada, and is considered to be one of the first films to document the lives of indigenous peoples.
The film was a critical and commercial success, and it was praised for its realistic portrayal of Inuit life. It also had a profound impact on the development of documentary filmmaking. Flaherty’s use of non-fiction techniques, such as natural lighting and long takes, helped to set a new standard for documentaries.
However, the film has also been criticized for its staged nature. Some critics have argued that Flaherty manipulated the Inuit to create more dramatic scenes. Others have argued that the film’s portrayal of Inuit life is romanticized and inaccurate.
The Man with a Movie Camera (1929)
After a few years spent making propaganda documentaries Dziga Vertov realizes his masterpiece, inspired by the theories on reality cinema and Kinoglaz. An experimental visual symphony with futurist roots. An ordinary day of a cinematographer wandering around the city with no apparent purpose in search of the life to be filmed.
Certain works of art such as The Man with a Movie Camera have an objective art quality. In subjective art, the artist does not consider who is looking at the work of art, he merely brings out his own inner world. The objective work of art, on the other hand, has an inherent quality that can be passed on for thousands of years. Masterpiece to be included among the documentaries to watch.
Berlin, Symphony of A City (1927)
One of the most important avant-garde films of the city symphony genre, in the style of “The Man with a Movie Camera” by Dziga Vertov, inspired by the theories of Soviet editing. The film marks the passage of the artist Walter Ruttmann from abstract cinema to reality cinema. Pillar of documentary cinema, not to be missed.
About Nice (1930)
First documentary of the mythical Jean Vigo, shot in 1930. With an old used camera bought with the money loaned by his wife’s father, Jean Vigo shoots a documentary about Nice. The meeting with Boris Kaufman changes the French director’s initial project, which will be influenced by the operator of Dziga Vertov. The nature and tourist locations of Nice: casinos, carnivals, beaches, bars with tables in the sun. Upper bourgeois Nice is compared with poor neighborhoods.
Taris, or the Swimming
Documentary of Jean Vigo about the French swimmer Jean Taris, specialized in freestyle, swimming champion in France in 1929. Commissioned to Jean Vigo by the sports editorial team of a French news bulletin of Gaumont, the director uses commissioned work to experiment with innovative shooting techniques: very first plans with glances towards the camera, slow motion scenes, abrupt sound cuts between noises and silences, underwater shots.
Three Songs About Lenin (1934)
The most famous film while the director Dziga Vertov was alive, a great success of socialist documentary cinema. An experimental documentary celebrating Lenin with the use of sound and folk songs. The liberation of Muslim women in Uzbekistan, footage of her Lenin funeral, her public appearances and one of her speeches recorded live. Among the fundamental documentaries to watch, for those who love the genre.
Night and Fog (1955)
“Night and Fog” (Nuit et brouillard) by Alain Resnais, a 1955 documentary about the Holocaust. The title is a reference to the German phrase “Nacht und Nebel”, which means “night and fog” and was the name of a Nazi decree that authorized the internment in concentration camps and the subsequent physical elimination through gas chambers of all opponents of the regime.
The film is composed of a series of black-and-white images of archival footage, photographs, and objects belonging to the deportees, alternated with color footage of the Auschwitz and Majdanek concentration camps, as they appeared in 1955, the year the film was made. The audio commentary, read by Jean Cayrol, is poetic and reflective, and focuses on the need to remember the horror of the Holocaust and to prevent it from happening again.
“Night and Fog” is an important and moving film that has helped to raise awareness of the Holocaust. It was a critical and commercial success and won numerous awards, including the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival.
The House is Black (1962)
The house is black is a lyrical, transcendent film that places a gaze full of compassion and religiosity towards a suffering humanity. The only source of harmony is found outside the leper colony, in nature: suffering reigns inside.
Little known at the time of its release, La casa è nera became the benchmark of Iranian cinema in the following years. It can be considered the first film that gave birth to the Iranian New Wave movement. Forough Farrokhzad, a famous Iranian feminist poet with a controversial and modernist style, was one of the most important female voices in poetry and Iranian cinema. Unmissable.
The Endless Summer (1966)
“The Endless Summer” is a surf movie from 1966 directed by Bruce Brown. The film follows two surfers, Mike Hynson and Robert August, on a journey around the world to find the best surfing waves. Crossing Africa, Australia, Hawaii and other exotic places, surfers encounter new cultures and face exciting challenges on their surfboards. ‘The Endless Summer’ has been hailed as one of the most influential surf movies of all time and has helped spread surf culture globally.
“The Endless Summer” follows the story of two young surfers, Mike Hynson and Robert August, who decide to travel around the world in search of the best surfing waves. The film shows them as they traverse different parts of the world, encountering new cultures and challenges along the way. Throughout their journey, surfers meet people who share their passion for surfing and face challenges such as language and cultural barriers as well as harsh weather conditions. However, despite these obstacles, the two surfers continue to pursue their dream and enjoy the waves they ride.
The film was acclaimed for its spectacular visuals and soundtrack, as well as its message of adventure and freedom. “The Endless Summer” has also influenced many generations of surfers and helped spread surf culture globally.
Titicut Follies (1967)
Titicut Follies (1967) is a groundbreaking direct cinema documentary film produced, written, and directed by Frederick Wiseman that sheds light on the harsh realities of the Bridgewater State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, a Massachusetts Correctional Institution in Bridgewater, Massachusetts.
The film follows the daily lives of the patients, who are often treated with disdain and cruelty by the staff. The film also depicts the hospital’s harsh conditions, including overcrowding, poor sanitation, and a lack of treatment.
Salesman (1968)
Salesman (1968) is an American documentary film directed by David Maysles, Albert Maysles, and Charlotte Zwerin. It follows four door-to-door Bible salesmen as they travel across America trying to sell expensive Bibles to working-class Catholics.
The film is considered a landmark in direct cinema filmmaking. It was shot in a style that was highly naturalistic, with the filmmakers using minimal narration and interference. This allowed the film to capture the raw emotions and struggles of the four salesmen, as well as the everyday lives of the people they interacted with.
The film was praised for its honesty and its insights into the lives of ordinary Americans. It was also criticized for its portrayal of the salesmen, who were sometimes shown to be manipulative and exploitative.
Apollo 11 (1969)
Apollo 11 (1969) is a critically acclaimed documentary film that chronicles the first manned mission to land on the Moon. Directed by Todd Douglas Miller, the film utilizes archival footage, audio recordings, and interviews with the astronauts to create a compelling and immersive experience for viewers.
The film follows the astronauts of Apollo 11 – Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins – from their training at NASA to their journey to the Moon and their historic landing on July 20, 1969. Miller’s use of archival footage and audio recordings is masterful, allowing viewers to feel as if they are right there with the astronauts as they experience the highs and lows of their mission.
The interviews with the astronauts are also revealing, providing insights into their motivations, their fears, and their sense of accomplishment. Miller’s thoughtful editing and narration weave together these elements to create a comprehensive and moving portrait of this landmark achievement.
Gimmie Shelter (1970)
Gimme Shelter (1970) is a documentary film that chronicles the Rolling Stones’ 1969 U.S. Tour and culminates in the disastrous Altamont Free Concert. Directed by Albert and David Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin, the film is a raw and unflinching look at the dark underbelly of the counterculture movement of the 1960s.
The film follows the Stones as they travel from city to city, performing to sold-out stadiums and packing arenas with screaming fans. However, the tour is marred by violence and chaos, with the Altamont Free Concert serving as the nadir. The concert, which was intended to be a peaceful gathering of hippies and rock fans, descended into chaos and violence, culminating in the stabbing death of Meredith Hunter.
F for Fake (1973)
F for Fake (1973) is a groundbreaking documentary film directed by Orson Welles. The film is a labyrinthine exploration of the nature of truth and illusion, using as its jumping-off point the story of Elmyr de Hory, a renowned art forger.
Weaving together interviews, archival footage, and Welles’ own signature narration, F for Fake delves into the world of art, deception, and the power of the media. Welles examines the ways in which reality is often manipulated and distorted, and he questions our ability to distinguish between fact and fiction.
F for Fake was a critical and commercial success. It was praised for its innovative structure, its complex themes, and Welles’ masterful narration. The film has been cited as one of the most important documentaries ever made.
Koyaanisqatsi (1982)
Koyaanisqatsi (1982) is an experimental documentary film directed by Godfrey Reggio. The title is a Hopi word meaning “life out of balance”. The film is an exploration of nature and civilization, using images of natural and urban landscapes, set to a minimalist score by Philip Glass.
The film begins with images of natural landscapes, such as rivers, forests, and mountains. These images are accompanied by a Glass score that creates a sense of peace and tranquility. As the film progresses, the images become more urban and frenetic. Urban landscapes, factories, and cars are shown. The Glass score becomes more intense and cacophonous.
The film ends with images of a burning city. These images are accompanied by a Glass score that creates a sense of chaos and destruction.
Koyaanisqatsi is a powerful and provocative film that has had a profound impact on experimental cinema. The film has been praised for its visual beauty and its engaging score. It has also sparked discussions about the relationship between nature and civilization.
Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse (1991)
Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse (1991) is a behind-the-scenes documentary that chronicles the production of Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 epic war film Apocalypse Now. Directed by Eleanor Coppola, the film provides a candid and often harrowing glimpse into the making of the film, which was plagued by numerous challenges and setbacks.
Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse was praised for its honesty, its insights into the filmmaking process, and its portrayal of Coppola’s descent into madness. The film won several awards, including a BAFTA Award for Best Documentary, and it is considered to be one of the greatest documentaries ever made.
Baraka (1992)
Baraka is a documentary film without narration or commentary. Explore the motifs through a collection of natural events, life, human activities and phenomena filmed in 24 countries on 6 continents over a period of 14 months. The film takes its name from the Sufi idea of baraka, which indicates essence, blessing or breath.
The film is Ron Fricke ‘s sequel to Godfrey Reggio’s non-verbal documentary Koyaanisqatsi. Fricke was director of photography and collaborator of the Reggio film, and for Baraka he began by himself to refine and expand the photographic strategies used on Koyaanisqatsi. Shot in 70mm, it is made up of a mix of photographic styles consisting of slow motion and time-lapse. To achieve this, two shooting systems were used. A Todd-AO system was used to shoot traditional pricing, but to make the time-lapse series of the film Fricke built a special camera that integrated time-lapse digital photography with impeccably handled motion.
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New Documentaries to Watch
Bowling for Columbine (2002)
Bowling for Columbine (2002) is a documentary film directed by Michael Moore that examines the high rate of gun violence in the United States. It explores the reasons behind the violence and proposes solutions to the problem.
Moore travels to Littleton, Colorado, the site of the Columbine High School massacre, to interview survivors and witnesses. He also visits gun shows, NRA conventions, and homes where gun violence has occurred.
Bowling for Columbine was a critical and commercial success. It was praised for its insightful and provocative look at gun violence in America. The film won numerous awards, including an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.
Capturing the Friedmans (2003)
Capturing the Friedmans (2003) is a disturbing and thought-provoking documentary film that explores the 1980s child sex abuse scandal involving the Friedman family of Great Neck, New York.
Directed by Andrew Jarecki, the film uses archival footage, interviews with family members and friends, and legal documents to create a complex and unsettling portrait of the case.
Capturing the Friedmans was a critical and commercial success. It was praised for its nuanced and unsettling portrayal of the case. The film won numerous awards, including the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival and the Documentary Feature Award at the Academy Awards.
Grizzly Man (2005)
Grizzly Man (2005) is a German-American documentary film directed by Werner Herzog that explores the life of Timothy Treadwell, an American bear enthusiast who spent thirteen summers living among grizzly bears in Katmai National Park, Alaska.
The film is composed entirely of Treadwell’s own video footage, which he shot throughout his time in the park. Herzog uses this footage to piece together a portrait of Treadwell’s life and his obsession with bears.
Treadwell’s footage is often intimate and revealing, giving viewers a glimpse into his daily life and his interactions with the bears. However, it is also disturbing at times, as it shows the sometimes dangerous nature of Treadwell’s encounters with the bears.
Herzog juxtaposes Treadwell’s footage with his own commentary, which provides a more critical perspective on Treadwell’s actions. Herzog questions Treadwell’s motivations and his belief that he could live in harmony with the bears. He also questions the ethics of Treadwell’s actions, as he put himself and others at risk by living among the bears.
The Zen Mind (2007)
The Zen Mind is a fascinating travel documentary through the Japan to explore Zen in its natural habitat. A travelogue to explore the practice of modern Zen. We will take you from the hustle and bustle of rush hour Tokyo to the peaceful mountains of Kyoto. From the Zen centers hidden among the city’s skyscrapers to the zendo in a remote monastery.
Tuning In (2008)
Tuning is a practice that refers to the moments when a person, normally in a trance state, establishes a psychic bond with a spiritual being. The channeler is then able to act as a dimensional intermediary in bringing various other humans to touch the entity, along with analyzing the entity’s messages.
For the first time ever, six of the most famous American channelers are featured in the same film to get the right understanding of the sensation, along with the information obtained. The entities that come through each with a strong and distinctive character were interviewed in detail by the director and the result is exceptional: through space and time we discover that the entities speak as one, conveying a clear and broad message of empowerment for humanity.
Home (2009)
Home is a 2009 French documentary by Yann Arthus-Bertrand. The film is almost completely composed of aerial shots of numerous places on Earth. It shows the variety of life in the world and also exactly how humanity is threatening the ecological balance of the earth.
The English version was read by Glenn Close. The Spanish version read by Salma Hayek. The Arabic version was read by Mahmood Said. The film had its world premiere at the Dawn Breakers International Film Festival in 2012. Prior to the premiere of the event, it was launched all at once on June 5, 2009, in cinemas around the world, on DVD, Blu-ray, TV, in 181 countries. The film was financed by the Kering group. The concept of the docudrama was influenced by the director’s book, Earth from Above.
The Yoga Gurus (2009)
In this documentary by Jon Braeley, American director, we meet the spirituality of some of the yoga masters in most enlightenedthe world and you will get answers to important questions about higher consciousness. Shot in India between the Northern Himalayas and Mysore, you will get to know the best yoga teachers from both the East and the West.
Kymatica (2009)
Kumatica is a documentary about when you start to think that there is a controlling elite, a hand behind the curtains leading the planet to destruction.
When you think the end is near, the apocalypse, the Armageddon, and when you think that as a species we are doomed, it’s not them, it’s you who caused this, and for a very good reason. Stop panicking about global tyranny and natural disaster and be careful, because the world is telling you something; tells you exactly what’s wrong with you and how to fix it.
I Am (2010)
I Am is a 2010 American documentary created, directed and also narrated by Tom Shadyac. The film raises the concern: “What’s wrong with the world, and what can we do about it?”, And uncovers Shadyac’s individual journey after a bicycle accident in 2007 that led him to the answers “the nature of ‘humanity’, ‘the world’s ever-increasing dependence on materialism’, as well as ‘human bonds’. Shot with a group of 4, the film stands in stark contrast to the director’s most prominent comic works, such as Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, Liar Liar and even Bruce Almighty, all of whom worked alongside Canadian comedian Jim Carrey.
Advice to God (2011)
A lonely man wanders in the evening on a beach full of garbage, intent on his hard work: to collect the remains of the shipwrecked immigrants on our coasts during desperate crossings trying to find a possibility for a better life. Docudrama sequences, meetings with the displaced people in the first reception centers, and then gradually inserted precisely in the Italian social context, produce a mosaic that tells, even in a grotesque way, a worrying emergency situation.
A raw, harsh and poetic film document, especially in the words of a cimiterian custodian who thinks he has actually “collected piece by piece” the remains of the illegal immigrants to bring them back to the coffins, while the son of a professor of psychiatry and political manager of Burkina Faso, deals with making the meaning of the travels of hope made by his compatriots recognize better: not only an impulse to survival but also a permanent yearning for freedom, the recovery of an identity.
Sicily of Sand (2011)
Sicily of sand is a documentary by Massimiliano Perrotta, shot in 2015. It is a journey in the footsteps of Pier Paolo Pasolini, a portrait of Sicily today between myth and transformation. The film reveals Pasolini’s journey for the 1959 journalistic report “The long sand road”. Perrotta describes, through details and characters, how modernity has changed Sicily, and what has remained of tradition.
Video On Paper (2011)
Video on paper is an experimental documentary by Antonello Matarazzo, a journey through the imagination of Perino & Vele, in search of the creative motive for the production of the two artists from Campania. Three authors, two visions in comparison, that of a painter-director, Antonello Matarazzo, and that of Perino & Vele, in which the peculiarities of audiovisual technology and that of papier-mâché meet, collide and harmonize in an incessant dialogue from which infinite possibilities arise.
Samsara (2012)
Completed over a period of 5 years in 25 different countries around the world, it was filmed in 70mm in electronic format. The film premiered at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival and had a limited release in August 2012.
The main website describes the film: “Expanding on the themes they covered in Baraka (1992) and Chronos (1985), Samsara discovers the wonders of our world from the mundane to the transcendent, considering the incomprehensible limits of the spirituality of humanity and also the human experience. a conventional documentary or a travelogue, Samsara feels more like a non-verbal guided meditation.
Talking With Buddha (2012)
What is Buddhism Tibetan? This film is a journey through Tibetan Buddhist monasteries to meet some of the great lamas of Buddhism, against the backdrop of the Himalayan mountains and the rhythmic chanting of prayers. A documentary to improve mental health and find lasting happiness. Buddhism is an inner science for the development of mind aware and can be used to transform negative energy into positive.
Inner Worlds, Outer Worlds (2012)
There is a field vibration that connects all things. Akasha, Logos, the primordial om, the music of the spheres, the field of Higgs, the dark energy and a thousand other names has been called Akasha. It is the common link between all religions, all the sciences, and the link between our inner worlds and our external worlds.
Hampi – Valley of the Kings (2012)
Documentary from 2012, shot in the small village of Hampi, a place that was once the capital of an empire that stretched across southern India. But with the ancient city fortifications in ruins, Hampi has few defenses against invading development forces. Over the past 15 years, tourism has grown by 75% and now threatens the lifestyle of the local community and the rich diversity of wildlife living nearby.
Pezzi (2012)
Pezzi (2012) is an Italian documentary film directed by Luca Ferrari. The film follows the life of Massimo, a man living in the outskirts of Rome. Massimo is a former convict who has suffered from drug addiction and alcoholism. He is a troubled and violent man who is desperately trying to find his place in the world.
The film is shot in a raw and realistic way. Ferrari does not try to sugarcoat Massimo’s life. He shows his falls and rises, his hopes and his disappointments.
Pezzi is a powerful and moving film that offers an unfiltered look at life on the margins of society. It is a film that makes us reflect on the nature of human suffering and the possibility of redemption.
Viramundo (2013)
The life and art of Gilberto Gil, musician and influential man in the most recent history of Brazil. From musician creator of the Tropicalism movement to first black man appointed Minister of Culture in Brazil. Gil was arrested in ’69 during a demonstration and sent into exile.
Gil and Veloso are not discouraged and take the revolutionary spirit of the Tropicalia musical movement around the world. Their music becomes popular worldwide. Music for Gil is a vehicle of emotions, ideas and life philosophies. Born to a mix of African, Amazonian and European ethnicities, Gil believes in a world where differences are a source of exchange and enrichment, rather than conflict. Documentary not to be missed.
Foudre 1 and 2 (2013)
Film in two parts: a legend – documentary in four seasons. Autumn follows a lightning hunter, associated with Baal, the Syrian god of lightning. Winter is committed to analyzing melancholy, the final stage of depression and the ways in which it can be overcome.
A Song for Paradise (2013)
Among the streets of the historic center of Genoa, such as visions, all the greats of the songwriter reappear: Luigi Tenco, Bruno Lauzi, Umberto Bindi and Fabrizio De André. The 4 songwriters arrive here by sea directly through via del Campo, where the sea actually never existed. A scene made possible by the master of the special effects Sergio Boots.
A song for Francescantonio’s Paradise is a journey through time when Gino Paoli, survivor of the historical group of songwriters, and Don Gallo, the revolutionary priest, accompany us in the places that have seen living and proliferation the Genoese songwriters who have left An indelible sign in the history of Italian music.
Ego Etiam Advenus (2013)
The documentary was born from the workshop activity proposed by the director and a researcher to a group of young people who arrived in Italy following the Civil War in Libya and were guests in a farmhouse in the Lecco countryside. Reweaving the thread of the workshop, the images and voices of the video intertwine to retrace the stages of a migratory path that is a path of life.
Dialogue with Silvano (2013)
Portrait of the great Italian independent director Silvano Agosti on Francy Bonzi, Alda Merini and other great themes of human life: sensuality, love, creativity, spirituality.
In the Footsteps of Buddha (2014)
In the footsteps of Buddha is a journey through India that retraces the same path that Buddha he did to get to enlightenment. Siddhartha Guatama lived 2500 years ago in an ancient land called Maghada, known today as Bihar, the poorest state in India. He was born in Lumbini (now Nepal) in a noble family. At the age of twenty-nine he gave up all wealth and, like a homeless wanderer, set out in search of the nature of our existence. To seek the truth.
The Last Resort (2014)
When Andrew Miners first arrived in the Indonesian island village of Babitim, he was struck by two things: the tropical paradise that surrounded it and the corpses of mutilated sharks scattered across the beach. Andrew decided to build an eco-diving resort on the island, which is surrounded by one of the richest and most bio-diverse ecosystems in the world.
Awake: The Life of Yogananda (2014)
Awake: The Life of Yogananda is an unconventional biography of the Hindu Swami who brought yoga and meditation to the West in the 1920s. By personalizing his pursuit of enlightenment and sharing his struggles along the path, Yogananda made the ancient Vedic teachings accessible to a modern audience, attracting many followers and inspiring millions of yoga practitioners today.
Shot over 3 years with the participation of 30 nations around the world, the documentary takes a look at the world of yoga, ancient and modern, Eastern and Western, and also checks why millions of people today have transformed their interest in the inner world, limiting the mundane world in search of self-realization.
Habitat (2014)
Documentary of Emiliano Dante, Habitat is the story of three former tent companions who remained in L’Aquila. After the earthquake Alessio first becomes a squatter, then a real estate agent; Paolo, who lived by renting his properties in the center, devotes himself body and soul to painting. Emiliano, who had already made a documentary in the tent city, analyzes the alienating reality of CASE projects from within, undergoing and facing their being “non-places”, that is, places without identity, as far from the urban fabric as from the historical and cultural one of the city.
Memories, Traveling to Auschwitz (2015)
Documentary not to be missed by independent director Danilo Monte, is an intimate and powerful on the journey made by the director together with his brother in search of a memory. Roberto spent the last years of his life in prison, drugs, community and history books and dialogue in the family was often lacking. Danilo then, for his brother’s thirtieth birthday, decides to give him a train ride to the Auschwitz concentration camp.
Heruka (2015)
Documentary by Isabel Russinova on the history of the Romanes people through the images of a meager and gloomy reportage, which shows the living conditions of the people today: the hardships, the expectations, the dramas of discrimination and persecution. However, the personality and uniqueness of a free, colorful, happy, musical people prevails. Ballads, legends, nursery rhymes and poems handed down from voice to voice for hundreds of years.
Planetary (2015)
Planetary asks us to rethink who we really are, to reconsider our relationship with ourselves, others and the world around us – to remember that.
In a stunning visual exploration, the film weaves images of NASA’s Apollo missions with visions of the Milky Way, Buddhist monasteries in the Himalayas and the cacophonous sounds of downtown Tokyo and Manhattan, with intimate interviews from renowned experts including astronauts Ron Garan and Mae Jemison (the first African American woman in space), celebrated environmentalist Bill McKibben, National Book Award winner Barry Lopez, anthropologist Wade Davis, National Geographic explorer Elizabeth Lindsey, and the head of the Kagyu Tibetan Buddhist school, the 17th Karmapa. They shed new light on the ways our worldview is profoundly affecting life on our planet.
Another World (2016)
Another must-see documentary by French filmmaker Manuela Morgaine. The serene and placid waters of the Seine and the tormented and deadly waters of the Mediterranean for migrants. The words of Erri De Luca’s poem “Mare Nostrum” accompany unedited found footage in the director’s experimental documentary.
Merci de ma repondre (2016)
The Enemy (2016)
Oleg And The Strange Arts (2016)
A documentary to watch, a touching and unconventional story: immersion in the creativity of the Russian composer Oleg Nikolaevich Karavaichuk, author of soundtracks for directors such as Sergej Paradžanov and Kira Murátova. Director Andrés Duque managed to film, shortly before his death, one of the most original figures on the Russian music scene, Oleg Nikolayevich Karavaichuk.
Rebel Surgeon (2016)
Extraordinary documentary that recounts the experience of the Swedish surgeon Erik Erichsen, after having served for thirty years in a hospital in his homeland, tired of the bureaucracy, he decided to move to a place where he can more easily do what he really loves: operating . In Ethiopia, where there are only three doctors for every 100,000 inhabitants, Dr. Erichsen and his wife Sennait work in a small field hospital in Aira.
Vita Nova (2016)
Vita nova is a film that tells the experience of assisted fertilization lived by Laura and Danilo, an artistic couple and in life, through invasive procedures, waiting times, anxieties, hopes, frustrations. At the dawn of this difficult test they decide to film themselves. An autobiographical film that tells of the aspiration to become parents, of the miracle of life as something to be conquered and of the couple’s journey in search of a child in today’s society.
Each Work of Confession (2016)
Interesting documentary of “pure” observation, worth seeing. A man has decided to buy a penthouse in a disputed area of the city. From the windows of this building you can see a huge disused area. It is an industrial complex with a glorious past, which is awaiting a complex redevelopment process. Meanwhile, a Roma family has been staying for some time in a camper, interacting with the spaces of these structures, while an elderly worker dreams of flying for the last time. They are sounds and gestures that bind the landscape to man and that represent a common dignity in dealing with the seasons that flow by in the meantime.
Apennines (2017)
Apennines, of Emiliano Dante, is a cinematographic diary that begins with the slow reconstruction of L’Aquila, the director’s city, and continues with the earthquakes in the central Apennines of 2016-17, up to the very long and exhausting asylum of the new earthquake victims in S. Benedetto del Tronto. An intimate and ironic, lyrical and geometric story, where the question of living in a seismic area becomes the tool to reflect on the very meaning of making cinema of reality. A flow of images, parallel stories, glimpses of reality, intersecting reflections: the director himself Emiliano Dante becomes the object and subject of the story.
France, Almost a Self-Portrait (2017)
Experimental documentary about an avid cinephile, filmmaker, film essayist, teacher. Who is really Francesco Ballo? Maybe it’s all these things together, and more: an Inter fan, a wine expert, a careful jazzophile … A truly independent filmmaker out of any commercial logic, Francesco talks about himself in this documentary, guiding the viewer through his world, his life full of passions and his creativity.
Looking for David (2017)
Part mystery, part romance, and part social commentary. Ten years ago, actor/writer/musician/producer/director David Fetzer was found dead while visiting his family home in Salt Lake City for the Christmas holidays. Here is that story. Looking for David is the documentary chronicling the events leading up to that morning. The director of the film is Betsy L. Ross, his mother.
The Honeymoon (2017)
The honeymoon is a film-diary that tells about material and interior places that are difficult to show: an Ayurvedic clinic, an ashram, headaches and the desire to have a child. The director Danilo together with his wife Laura, during an atypical honeymoon in India, try to face some important personal problems.
My Name Is … I Ask The Moon (2017)
Documentary of the French experimental director Manuela Morgaine. They come from Afghanistan, Mali, Nigeria, Sudan, Chad. They fled a dictatorship, a war or something unimaginable for us. Over a four-month period, they learn French at Thot school, a French graduate school for refugees and asylum seekers.
Vegetable Skin (2018)
An exciting documentary to watch on the mysterious relationship between art and nature. The peasant artist Bruno Petretto has created Molineddu, the place where he lives and which for years has hosted visual artists from all over Sardinia, in annual events, which often leave their works exposed to the nature of the park and the transformation it generates.
The Dream of Homer (2018)
Documentary, by Emiliano Aiello, from 2018. What makes those who live without seeing dream? What kind of images and figures populate your imagination and dreams? The Dream of Homer is a dream documentary about the dreams of Rosa, Domenico, Gabriel, Daniela and Fabio: blind from birth, united by their condition and the habit of narrating their dreams to a tape recorder, an oral diary that each of them records every morning after getting out of bed.
Moving Sound (2018)
Interesting travel documentary of 2018, a must see for fans of the genre. Teacher and musician Ed Wade-Martins embarks on an England-sponsored bike ride in West African Mali. In addition to raising money for the Fresh Start Foundation, which supports orphans and other vulnerable children in The Gambia, it is on a mission to connect cultures with the universal language of music.
Festa (2018)
Franco Piavoli, author of the masterpiece The blue planet, produced by Silvano Agosti, returns to directing to immortalize the “evening of the day of celebration”, between Leopardi and Pascoli. A journey between the poetic and the anthropological. What is a “party”? What does it represent, from a symbolic and material point of view? What burdens, or what reliefs, does it bring to people’s minds? And what value does it take on when it becomes a collective act? Festa does not need any tinsel, and reaches right into the spectator’s heart without stratifications, without any deviation from the path, without any additions.
Tides (2018)
A must see documentary by Alessandro Negrini, shot in Ireland. Can the story of a river reveal the meaning of a life imprisoned by history? Despite the end of the conflict, there is still a city in Northern Ireland with two different names: Derry, for Catholics, Londonderry for Protestants. In the middle of the city, a river flows: The Foyle, which separating them physically, has become their physical boundary in spite of itself. Tides – a story of lost and found lives and dreams, has won 6 international awards. It is a poetic and dreamy autobiography of a river. A fascinating flow of dream images on the themes of border, time and dreams.
Sheep Hero (2019)
From the 50th Visions du Réel festival, Sheep Hero is a moving 81-minute documentary about a traditional shepherd forced to innovate in a neoliberal world in conflict with his idealistic ideas. Will his struggle pay off or will he be forced to follow the flock?
Cracolice (2020)
Calabria, late 1980s and first half of the 1990s. Cracolice, a seaside village in the Tyrrhenian Sea, is sadly known in the news for an event that broke out in the early 90s, never denied or confirmed: following the landing of the famous “ships of poisons”, the young population suddenly stopped growing, creating of eternal adolescents.
Perhaps the fault of the landing of the famous ships? After initially becoming the protagonists on all the national TVs and newspapers due to the clamor of the event, no one was more worried about those young people by abandoning them to themselves.
The Eyes of the Earth (2020)
The biodiversity crisis is one of the most serious problems on the planet. To stop the processes of extinction of the species, urgent diagnoses are needed. One such endangered species is the Moorish tortoise in Morocco. A documentary to watch to which you can definitely dedicate an evening.
Start Watching Documentaries
Stekenjokk And The Guardians of The Eggs (2020)
Documentary selected at the 43th Goteborg film festival, 7th Torino Underground Cinefest, Tromso Film Festival. Each year in June, police officer Mimmi and forest ranger Håkan patrol the windiest place in Sweden, the Stekenjokk Valley. Egg thieves ravage the area where rare bird eggs are laid during the breeding season. Thousands of eggs have been stolen over the years and sold to collectors threatening the extinction of several species, a crime that has now been uncovered.
Stove (2020)
Documentary by Jad Andari, Lebanon.The director returns to his homeland and reconnects with the heart of Bzebdine, a rural part of Mount Lebanon. The documentary is an up-close and intimate look at the lives of his friends and family who still live there. A fascinating documentary that explores the atmospheres, faces and dreams of the people of this small mountain community.
The changing sunlight, the kids playing venturing into the night, the religious songs of the elderly, the work of the woodcutter, the pine cone pickers, the elderly woman who knows how to recognize the edible plants in the fields. We are near Franco Piavoli’s cinema, but in a remote place in Lebanon, where the most dangerous jobs and memories of war days appear as normal situations, and the only choice is to entrust oneself to God’s will.
Start Watching Documentaries
Vanda Pagani – A Small Story (2020)
“Vanda Pagani – A small story” is a documentary document on a 97 -year -old woman who tells us about her experience as a “little partisan” at just 16 years old, in 1939. Small partisan is the definition with which she refused to approve any group or organization.
Vanda chose to make her choices on the basis of the individual ideas that she had actually matured in the fascist Milan of those years. The director uses the language of documentary and fiction together: Giulia, a young journalist leaves Rome to talk to Vanda, who lives in Civitanova Marche. The fictitious and real character meet in a story for images that explores memory and topicality.
