Varda by Agnès
Agnès Varda, who died in 2019, was a photographer, installation artist and pioneer of the widely influential French New Wave film movement of the 1950s and 1960s. This self-made film, produced just before her death, is filled with magic – and is a rare chance to see a major artist’s work from their own perspective.
Toni Morrison
Spanning the full length of Morrison’s life and prolific career, Pieces I Am examines her works and the powerful themes she has explored through her writing. With Morrison’s charisma and brilliance at its centre, the film explores her career as a novelist and editor as well as the history that has informed her writing.
The Kingmaker
The Kingmaker provides an extraordinary look at the political career of Imelda Marcos, the former Philippines first lady who, together with her husband, reigned over the country with an iron fist while pillaging its wealth, and who continues to exercise remarkable influence in the current Duterte administration and its rule of terror.
The Best and Worst of Us
Armand Hough is a photojournalist based in Cape Town who tracked daily events in the city during lockdown.
Madame
Madame is an emotionally powerful account of the relationship between Caroline, a flamboyant 90-year-old grandmother, and her gay filmmaker grandson Stéphane as they engage in an intimate conversation that takes place across time and space. Based on personal archive footage, this is a moving and highly engaging family saga that challenges the taboos of gender and sexuality.
Lindela Under Lockdown
Through leaked voice notes, photos and videos, we are introduced to David, a Congolese deportee who has been detained at Lindela Repatriation Centre for over 120 days. Lindela Repatriation Centre is South Africa’s largest facility for the holding of undocumented...
Lamentations of Judas
Blurring the edges of the documentary genre, Lamentations of Judas is a contemporary retelling of the gospel of Luke, with the cast consisting of members of a community of black Angolan soldiers who once fought white South Africa’s colonial wars and now live displaced lives in the ruins of a former asbestos-mining town on the edge of the Kalahari.
Kombinat
This is a languid and beautifully made account of the lives of three families who live in the polluted Russian city of Magnitogorsk, home to the state-run Kombinat, one of the largest iron and steel factories in the country. Kombinat falls midway between the stories of Chekhov and Kafka, rendered in the medium of social-realist cinema.
King of the Cruise
The subject of the film – an ageing baron named Ronald Busch Reisinger who claims to be Irish but is the very image of American excess – is vacuous and insecure. But that is very much the point in this beautifully rendered document of cruise-line luxury culture in which the facade of decadence is lifted to reveal its essential emptiness.