The London Film Festival has always had a good line in biographical documentaries, particularly of artists. Previous years have given us For No Good Reason, Charlie Paul’s attentive film about Ralph Steadman, or last year’s Nicola…

There have been a quite a few essay/archive films released recently, and for the most part they can been fairly hit and miss affairs. Take, for instance, The Greatest Shows On Earth, which brought together amazing archive footage from the…

RENOWNED INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTARY FESTIVAL MADE IN SHEFFIELD OPENING NIGHT FROM SHEFFIELD’S CITY HALL ATTENDED BY MICHAEL MOORE TRANSMITTED TO 114 CINEMAS NATIONWIDE ACROSS THE UK REGGIE YATES, LOUIS THEROUX, KEN LOACH, STACEY…

I remember many years ago, when MTV’s Jackass was receiving a battering in the press and from various concerned morality groups, thinking to myself how times had changed – once it was a great American past-time, drinking beer with the…

One of the wonderful things about general international film festivals like the BFI London Film Festival is that, unlike themed festivals, here everything goes and consequently there are always a few hidden gems that would otherwise go…

With all of the great observational documentaries on show at this year’s BFI London Film Festival, it’s only fitting really that the master of the form himself, Frederick Wiseman, bring a film to our screens – and ordinarily it would be the…

When we think about music and Vietnam, the first thing that comes to mind usually are images of Hueys blaring Wagner as they bombard a village, or US soldiers trudging off into the distance clouded in smoke, Canned Heat or Jimmy Hendrix, or…

The short films on show at this year’s BFI London Film Festival are, as last year, attached to each of the strands and grouped together, broadly, by theme. There are significantly more short films this year, each strand having at least one…

The sea is often portrayed as a violent force, a thrashing maelstrom that draws on nature’s unstoppable energies to lay waste to men and their craft, destroying homes and livelihoods in a constant, churning blue vastness. It is also, they…

There is a Canadian television series which began in 2001 called How It’s Made, in each episode of which we follow the manufacturing process, step by detailed step, of hundreds of disparate every-day items. The processes involved are almost…