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The truth of the Cheonan's demise is hidden beneath the waves

Earlier this year a South Korean warship, the Cheonan, claimed 46 lives when it sank off the coast of North Korea. The events surrounding this tragedy were unclear, with noncommittal comments from both Korean countries.  Speculation and rumours appear frequently in press coverage. As more details emerge the initial suggestion that an explosives accident was to blame has been abandoned. This is a serious case of geopolitical intrigue. The eventual conclusion is that North Korea had in fact released a deadly torpedo attack on the Cheonan. The UN Security Council are now involved, which conveys the magnitude of the event for the international community.

This summer sees the 10th anniversary of another political minefield ignited by naval events. The Kursk disaster involved the sinking of the Russian fleet’s most advanced submarine following an undersea explosion. Following the loss of the Kursk the Russian government’s reaction was enigmatic, especially considering 118 sailors had been killed.  Despite question marks over the political motivations which could have prompted the disaster, the generally accepted scenario is that the Kursk’s fate was down to its “own torpedo mishap”; at least, this is the version of events according to the all-knowing Wikipedia.

A French documentary aims to uncover the truth behind the PR mask. Kursk: A Submarine in Troubled Waters is a persuasive piece of film-making providing an in-depth look at the consequences of the event, encompassing politics, media and personal tragedy. The film’s position certainly isn’t neutral, but the evidence is convincing and it is easy to believe that there is far more going on behind the scenes than the public gets to see.  The film is available for viewing on the jtd website here.

Kursk highlights the extent to which the former President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, controlled the event’s outfall.  One of the most disturbing moments in the film is the statement that had the situation worsened between Russia and the USA, the world could have been facing a conflict on the scale of a third World War, and this time it would be nuclear. To get a sense of the historical and political background from the Cold War to the present day, have a look at the jtd title The Putin System which charts his rise to power and puts things into perspective.

Russia looked to their President for decisive action and were left wanting

It is very interesting to acknowledge the parallels between the Kursk and the murky tragedy of the Cheonan. The more recent crisis again seems to be a dramatic turning point for geopolitical relations. North and South Korea are in fact technically still at war, having only signed an armistice (rather than an official peace treaty) back in 1953. A report by the BBC conveys the extent to which the relationship between the two countries continues to be strained, particularly in light of the Cheonan’s sinking, and can be viewed here. This film displays examples of military officials dodging responsibility and evading the truth, as Kursk does, and one wonders just how much is being hidden below the political surface.

South Africa has had a media makeover. The nation is currently riding high on its triumphant hosting of one of the biggest events in the sporting calendar, the football World Cup. Amongst the guaranteed reams of newspaper analysis and hours of in-depth television punditry, coverage was also dedicated to the social impact of hosting the event.

Given its generally negative perception as a violent and strife-ridden society, South Africa had been a controversial choice for World Cup host, but the competition came and went without major incident. The football community breathed a sigh of relief, and a positive lasing legacy now seems possible with tourism and industry getting a much need boost.

Sport and politics, a force to be reckoned with?

The arts provide a wide scope for exploring what it means to be a modern, progressive South Africa, and films in particular are an important medium for expressing both the darkness and light at the heart of a recovering nation. The country is proving itself to be a burgeoning player in the film market, with the 31st Durban International Film Festival (22nd July-1 August) screening nine world premieres of South African feature films and an extensive documentary programme proclaiming “a sharp insight into a spectrum of African realities”. One such insight is Connie Field’s Have You Heard From Johannesburg?: Fairplay, part of a series charting recent history, which illuminates how sporting boycotts during apartheid stimulated political change. It’s a topical reminder of the influence sport can have on a culture’s social fabric.

The festival has also secured the significant honour of being the focus of the World Cinema Fund’s Spotlight Series, an association set up by the Berlin International Film Festival to support countries in transition.

It’s another small but hugely positive step in gradually changing the world’s view of how South Africa is judged by the rest of the world.

Durban’s full line-up can be viewed here.

Ziman's South Africa is far from the hopes and dreams of World Cup 2010

This summer also sees the 12th Encounters South African International Documentary Festival come to Cape Town and Johannesburg. It showcases its own spotlight on South Africa, with documentaries from both international and home-grown directorial talents presenting their perspectives on the tangled, yet vibrant society.  Clifford Bestall’s The 16th Man is the real-life story that Clint Eastwood’s recent Invictus was inspired by. This time Nelson Mandela plays himself in his incredible mission to heal a divided nation surrounding the 1995 Rugby World Cup.

But should we exercise caution before celebrating South Africa’s political and social renaissance? This week’s feature release Gangster’s Paradise: Jerusalema is a timely reminder of the realities facing so many of the post-apartheid generation. Set in Johannesburg’s most dangerous neighbourhood, the all too believable tale underlines the extent to which organised crime has become the norm in the notorious district of Hillbrow.  An interview with director Ralph Ziman asks questions regarding the film’s effect on South Africa’s current optimism.  His diplomatic response seems reasonable amongst the glitz of the film festival circuit, as the research the film is based upon proves there is still a lot of work to be done.

And so the festival season has descended upon us, have you got your tickets? If not, enter into the spirit with these titles.

The hills are alive with the sound of Glastonbury...

Glastonbury is a music documentary or a ‘Rockumentary’ about ….you’ve guessed it, the Glastonbury music festival. Directed by Julien Temple, the film was released to mark the event’s 30th anniversary, and also to fill the void when the festival took a well deserved break back in 2006.

Although the film is conventional in presentation, it doesn’t feature a chronological structure. The result is more like a home video montage than a two hour feature-length film.Temple splices together grainy archival footage with crisp images from recent years. There’s a loose commentary by farmer and festival organiser-extraordinaire Michael Eavis, who discusses the festival’s beginnings of free love to its current status as a heavily sponsored multi-million pound music extravaganza. Eavis’ commentary doesn’t romanticise the festival - instead, he recalls riots, waste, robbery, fence dodgers and…  …lots of excrement. There’s also some fascinating footage of flower-girl Arabella Churchill, granddaughter of Winston, who was a key supporter and organiser of the festival.

Visuals are beautifully combined with the aural, and snippets of performances by Bjork, The Rolling Stones, Velvet Underground and Tangerine Dream create a patchwork quilt of music nostalgia.

The 2009 documentary Dust & Illusions presents a more intellectually rigorous look into the ceremonial festival tradition. 30 years on, the film explores the evolution of the Burning Man Festival, which takes place yearly in The Black Rock Desert, Nevada, USA.

Ritualistic happenings at Burning Man

The film encompasses Burning Man as a movement, culture, and a slice of zeitgeist. Director Olivier Bonin amalgamates footage that spans the past 20 years, offering access to the seminal figures and footage that have cultivated a movement.

Ultimately, both docs give a sense of place and insight into festivals which the mainstream media rarely labels anything more than places of spectacular or self-indulgence awe.

The recent BP drilling disaster has unleashed turbulent commentary about “Peak Oil”, as last week President Obama poignantly labelled the spill the “environment’s 9/11”. Coverage has spiralled even further as BP now admits that there are not the resources or tools to contain a deepwater oil leak. BP’s failure to disclose the truth now poses further questions about its approach to safety in general - ‘big buck’ corporations involved with BP or with similar critical production techniques are now being lined up for heavy scrutiny.

Obama takes an awkward stance on the Oil Crisis

It’s a relief to see that Obama has realised the severity of the spill. Following his attacks on BP’s continued failure to contain the oil blow-out, he has taken the unusual step of calling a special press conference to discuss the ongoing crisis. For those who didn’t manage to catch it, a session was broadcast live from the White House on YouTube, followed by a virtual Q&A session with White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs. For the full interactive experience the White House embedded a Google moderator form into the YouTube channel that enabled the public to vote for their favourite questions. See if  Gibb’s online answers satisfied the digital population here.

It’s fair to say that our over reliance on fossil fuels is driving companies to take unnecessary environmental risks as highlighted by the Gulf oil disaster. Our trust and dependency on the ‘Peak Oil’ industry is examined widely in JTD title PetroApocalypse Now?, a short but scary journalistic investigation into the industry. Filmmaker Andrew Evans highlights oil’s pivotal place in society, a resource more central to the planet’s development than many realise. Evan’s argument that is a drug we have all become regulated by and tolerant to is a hard to ignore. Catch it in full here.

Source offers a peak into how the oil industry has had direct effect upon developing communities. Director Martin Marecek sets out to investigate the site of the world’s first oil well in the Azerbaijan town of Baku – a place eagerly explored by foreign investors, all of whom are hoping to line their pockets with the country’s hidden source of wealth. With much of the population living under the poverty line, the country’s post-Soviet government is promising that oil will turn Azerbaijan into a “proper country”, and a prosperous one at that. But what does this mean for its people? And will “the black stuff” be more of a curse than a blessing for this struggling country? Watch it in full here.

Rabbits aren’t the only ones with 360 degree vision

Today, filmmaking tools are so accessible and easy to use that experimental approaches to storytelling have become hugely prevalent. In the hands of someone with little concern for traditional cinema techniques, even the most mundane of subjects can appear hypnotic. Using such tools to find beauty in the most seemingly bland, seedy or even dangerous parts of our cities is a growing theme.This approach is prevalent in the new multimedia, collaborative umbrella project Highrise, set up by the National Film Board of Canada. A project that aims to blow all traditional definitions of the documentary genre out of the window.

Highrise’s first project is led by filmmaker Katerina Cizek, who has been capturing her urban experiences on a 360° camera. Spending time in Toronto, Cizek has been shooting staff and patients in city hospitals, riding along with police, and working with a group of homeless women.

Fritz Lang’s Metropolis becomes reality?

Cizek’s film is soon to be released as a full feature-length web documentary, but it is only one of many personal views in the Highrise project which also represents web-based excerpts, still photography, video and texts. Keep up to date with the now and future city at the Highrise here.

Ideas of people colliding, living vertically, engulfed in metropolises, are also brought to life epically and experimentally in filmmaker and artist Timo Novotny’s audio visual film Life in Loops. The film pays homage to director Michael Glawogger, by remixing his cult and unique vision of urban sprawl Megacities.

A real treat for the eyes, Life in Loops uses unused footage from Megacities, and is remixed with original work to create a very different mood and tempo from Glawogger’s original. Loops captures the dark corners of city’s straining under the weight of too much humanity in too small a space: Mumbai, Mexico City, Tokyo and New York City. An electronic soundtrack acts as a companion to Novotny’s pulsating visuals, which flip between a sterile airport in Tokyo, an overcrowded train station in the sweltering heat of Mumbai and the harsh reality of homeless children in the Moscow snow.

Watch Life in Loops in full here.

Tribeca Film Festival in NYC is one of the most prestigious film festivals on North America’s circuit. The festival was founded by Jane Rosenthal, Robert De Niro and Craig Hatkoff  in 2002 in order to celebrate New York City as a major filmmaking centre and to contribute to the long-term recovery of lower Manhattan after the 9/11 attacks.

The 2010 Tribeca Film Festival has announced the winners of awards in its documentary categories;

Best Documentary Feature:

Monica & David, directed by Alexandra Codina

David & Monica tells the touching story of two Down Syndrome adults who fall in love and want to marry. In order to do so, they must negotiate social prejudices that make up their everyday lives.

Captivating stills from The Arbor & Budrus

Special Jury Mention:

Budrus, directed by Julia Bacha

Budrus follows a local Palestinian politician who leads his supporters in a protest against Israel’s building of a fence that will separate the villagers of Budrus from their land.

Best New Documentary Filmmaker:

The Arbor, directed by Clio Barnard

This is definitely one to watch out for. A fascinating bio-doc about British playwright Andrea Dunbar. Dunbar wrote unflinchingly about her upbringing on a notorious housing estate in the North West of England. When she died, tragically at the age of 29 in 1990, her daughter was just ten years old.

This is a powerful true story of  Dunbar’s life and  her troubled relationship with her daughter Lorraine, in which actors have been employed to mouth audio recordings of Dunbar’s relatives and colleagues.

2010 Heineken Audience Award:

Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage, directed by Scot McFadyen and Sam Dunn

The long awaited ‘rockumentary’ about a legendary Canadian band, tracing its development from the early days to headline concerts.

Hicks - The ultimate Auteur of Stand-up

After three years in the making American: The Bill Hicks Story is nearly here for viewable consumption. Joint producers Paul Thomas and Matt Harlock have incorporated unseen archival footage mixed with 70% animated photo collages to tell the story of the often controversial but legendary stand-up comic.  Hicks was listed as the 19th greatest stand-up comedian of all time by Comedy Central in 2004, and 6th greatest in 2007. Tragically, at only 32 years old, Hicks lost a battle against pancreatic cancer.

Ken Campbell even counts feathered animals amongst his die-hard fanatics

The film is narrated by Hicks’ friends, family and fellow comedians. Reviews have named the title as both a great introduction to anyone unfamiliar with him whilst catering to his cult fan base. American: The Bill Hicks Story is out at selected UK cinemas on May 14th.

Director, Ken Campbell, like Hicks, was utterly unique in performance and vision - coming to represent a whole generation of his comedy peers.

For another dose in comic genius I recommend catching jtd title Antic Visionary: The World of Ken Campbell. Sheridan Thayer’s film looks back over Campbell’s incredible career with interviews from companions, colleagues and fanatics.  Behind-the-scenes horseplay and recollections of  memorable meetings with Campbell are told by actors such as Jim Broadbent, Bill Nighy and Chris Langham, to name a few.

If you have an interest in stand-up comedy, acting, scriptwriting, theatre or just alternative ways of living then this is definitely the doc for you. Watch it in full here.

As we are all aware, Hollywood is currently suffering with a serious case of 3D. To stay or not - some think it a gimmick, others a revolutionary aid to narrative, but 3D mania appears to be catching on in the unlikeliest of places…

Will these 30,000 year old Lascaux cave paintings benefit from 3D?

Film critic and writer Robert Ebert has captured Filmmaker and doc maverick  Werner Herzog as he discusses his plans to film inside the Chauvet-Pont-d’Arc cave, a site in southern France that contains the earliest known cave paintings, dating back at least 30,000 years. And yes, you guessed it, Herzog wants to capture the ancient images in 3D.

Herzog is one of the few people that has been granted permission to visit the site. The paleolithic paintings were only discovered in 1994, and are even off limits to French tourists.

In Ebert’s videos Herzog has stated that embracing 3D will help bring what some see as “traditionally dry storytelling to life”.

Before Herzog made his plans to indulge in 3D public, In January of this year, Sundance made the announcement that “The cain toads were back”. Creatures from the celebrated 1988 documentary, Cane Toads: An Unnatural History were once again being unleashed, but this time into the glorious world 3D.

This also comes with other recent news that Broadband provider Sky has commissioned its first original 3D production. Flying Mosters is a documentary which will be fronted by Sir David Attenborough and will be shown later in the year following the launch of Sky 3D channel.

Herzog's other films such as ' Ecounters at the End of the World' have the fantastical shots for 3D

So, it appears that 3D is about to experience big push into our lilving rooms and docs are coming with it.
New technology and a juggernaught of film and TV investment is determined to make 3D stick around far longer than the technique’s previous flirtations with 50s and 80s audiences.

But unlike Avatar’s eight foot blue aliens or Alice in Wonderland’s White Rabbit, Herzog has one big issue to contend with for his cave painting film. And that’s the fact that paintings are, give or take a few stone irregularities, very 2D!

But, as many are aware, Herzog is a man who’s not afraid of a challenge.

I recently caught British director Sean McAllister’s impressive documentary Japan: A Story of Love and Hate. Spending two years in Japan, McAllister set out to unveil the often hidden social realities of Japanese culture. Wanting to breakaway from the highly glamourised cinematic depictions of Tokyo, McAllister’s investigation led him to a small rural town and the most unusual of love stories, one which highlights the financial crisis at the heart of the world’s second richest nation.

Love can't payYoshie's and Naoki's bills

Naoki, 56, had it all in Japan’s boom days; he ran a business, drove a desirable car and lived in an executive home. Then, in the early 1990s, Japan’s economy crashed, and Naoki lost everything, including his marriage.

Salvation of sorts came in the form of  new girlfriend Yoshie, who saved him from homelessness by letting him live with her in her tiny one-room apartment. The only jobs Naoki can find are part-time and poorly paid. Three simultaneous employers and 15 hour days are the norm.

For Yoshie, things aren’t a lot better. Every evening, she heads to a seedy chat bar to work as a hostess. Flirting with intoxicated married men was never Yoshie’s idea of career fufillment

Beneath the nation’s luxurious exterior, a new population can’t make ends meet; Yoshie and Naoki have become members of Japan’s new ‘working poor’ .

A Story of Love and Hate delivers a counter-intuitive  insight into contemporary Japan - it’s one of the biggest eye-openers on the country I’ve ever seen. It also doesn’t pretend that Japan has any more answers than the rest of the world in how to solve the complexities of the modern world.

jtd title Japan ; Searching for the Dream is an equally insightful dissection of modern Japanese society, documenting what the people think of themselves and their country in the 21st century. Like McAllister’s doc, the film explores the sacrifices Japan has made to reward the few while leaving many of its once happy population on the poverty line. Watch it in full here.

Last week Facebook hosted a ‘Social Screening’ of doc Earth Days, opening a new portal for documentary film lovers all over the world. Not that unusual you may think, but the streamed event took place more than a week before the film’s upcoming premiere on PBS’ American Experience strand on April 19th. Without any kind of fanfare, this is the first time a major broadcaster has premiered a full-length documentary on the web before its scheduled terrestrial debut.

Will Earth Days present a new future for film?

So will the success of Earth Days finally tip digital film distribution into the mainstream?

Both Facebook’s ‘Social Screening’ and PBS’ premiere are part of Earth Day’s 40th Anniversary on April 22, 2010. The film traces the origins of the modern environmental movement and the people who launched it -  from its beginnings in the 1950s, to its peak in 1970 with the first Earth Day.

The online screening was the brainchild of American social media company Brand Networks who cited it as “an experiment” that hopes to find viewers who don’t typically watch PBS. Facebook members were able to view the 102-minute movie for free by installing Facebook’s new ’social screening application’ which employs a video player.

Following the screening, Facebook also hosted a live chat about the doc in real time with viewers and with Oscar-winning director Robert Stone.

Figures of how many users actually turned up, logged in, installed the software and finally streamed the doc live have yet to be announced. The Earth Day’s Facebook fan page may only hold 19,000 members, and film distributors have their eyes set on a future with millions watching such events. .

But if the figures are successful, it seems likely that TV broadcasters may become less scared of going online, potentially marketing films they never would have considered for their traditional “offline” audiences because of limited budgets and even more limited commissioning mentalities. It’s already happened in the video game industry, reinvigorating a community which was being crushed by Hollywood-style genre expectations.

History, as they say,  has a way of repeating itself.