3 documentaries to see in 2015
Are you on the hunt for great documentaries to watch this weekend? We asked local filmmaker Simon Cunich for his recommendations of the three must see docos coming out in 2015.
Simon Cunich is a documentary filmmaker, television producer and Professional Associate with the Faculty of Arts and Design discipline of Media Arts and Visiting Fellow with UC DocLab.
Simon's latest film Maratus: A Documystery about a garbage collector who's life was changed when he took a photo of a tiny colourful spider will premier at the Stronger Than Fiction Documentary Film Festival in Canberra in August. Don't forget to watch the trailer and enjoy Simon's recommendations below.
The Look of Silence
No film in recent years has left a greater mark on the documentary landscape than Joshua Oppenheimer's The Act of Killing (2012).
The Look of Silence is the essential companion piece and a remarkable film in its own right. Where the first film took us inside the heads of death squad leaders responsible for Indonesia's 1965 anti-communist genocide, the follow-up centres on a survivor.
Adi is an optometrist whose brother was one of the million Indonesians killed in the purge. With the pretext of conducting eye tests, Adi visits his brother's killers and calmly demands answers.
This is a profoundly affecting film, rich in visual metaphors, that gives a complex picture of the legacy of violence. Both films pursue the idea that there are no monsters, just humans. The Look of Silence goes further to shine a light on the fraught path to reconciliation.
Sherpa
Ever since Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay Sherpa reached to the top of Everest in 1953, a tension has surrounded the mountain.
Sherpas carry much of the risk involved in reaching the summit yet receive an unfair share of the recognition and reward. This inequality was meant to be the backdrop to Australian filmmaker Jennifer Peedom's Sherpa following Sherpa Phurba Tashi record-breaking 22nd ascent. But not long into filming, an avalanche struck, killing 16 Sherpas. Peedom and her crew decided to keep filming and the tensions between Sherpas and foreigners necessarily became the focal point.
Sherpa is breathtaking, both for its cinematic beauty and its ugly insights into the 'Everest industry'. The story is sensitively woven, and has a deep sense of place with the ubiquitous colours of frayed prayer flags. It is a polemical film without ironing out the tangle of ethics. See it on the big screen (Sherpa will open the Stronger Than Fiction Documentary Film Festival in Canberra on 30 July 2015).
Democrats
The drafting of a constitution doesn't sound like the most thrilling material for a documentary. That's partly what made Democrats such an unexpected treasure at the Sydney Film Festival this year.
Elections in Zimbabwe in 2008 left President Robert Mugabe in a power-sharing government with the opposition MDC-T party, triggering the creation of a new constitution. The co-chairs of the committee responsible – one from Mugabe's ZANU-PF party and the other from the MDC-T – open their doors to filmmaker Camilla Nielsson to document the process over three years. It's a no-frills documentary with incredible access that unfolds with the drama and twists of House of Cards.
The heart of the film is an unlikely dynamic that develops between the two men. Neither purely hopeful nor entirely bleak, Democrats is a unique study of democracy in the cracks of a broken system.
Words by Simon Cunich