All That Breathes
Dir. Shaunak Sen
Winner of each Sundance’s world cinema grand jury prize for documentary and Cannes’ Golden Eye for greatest documentary, this lyrical second function from India-based filmmaker and scholar Sen centres on two Muslim brothers who rescue birds of prey affected by environmental toxicity in New Delhi. Acquired by HBO Documentary Movies after its Sundance premiere, the movie had a restricted US theatrical launch in late October.
All The Magnificence And The Bloodshed
Dir. Laura Poitras
This documentary concerning the artist Nan Goldin and her combat to extricate the Sackler title from world artwork establishments received the Golden Lion at Venice for Poitras (Citizenfour). With a push from US distributor Neon, the movie has potential to interrupt out of the documentary class and into greatest image. Goldin, all the time confrontational in her life and work, reveals extra of herself as an artist but additionally as a former addict and intercourse employee, as she hounds the museums that took cash from the Purdue Pharma-owning Sackler household — made on the ache of the devastating US opioid epidemic.
Descendant
Dir. Margaret Brown
Barack and Michelle Obama’s Larger Floor is the big-name presenter of The Nice Invisible director Brown’s take a look at how the invention of the final recognized slave ship to reach within the US impacts a neighborhood in Alabama at the moment. After a Sundance debut that received it the US documentary particular jury award for inventive imaginative and prescient, the Participant manufacturing was purchased by Internetflix, which gave the movie a restricted US theatrical launch earlier than it moved to the platform.
Fireplace Of Love
Dir. Sara Dosa
One other Sundance premiere and prize winner — taking the Jonathan Oppenheim modifying award: US documentary — Fireplace Of Love makes use of footage from its topics’ personal archive to comply with a French scientist couple’s profession chasing and documenting volcanic eruptions. Snapped up by Nationwide Geographic and Neon, the movie has taken greater than $1m since its restricted US theatrical launch in July, making it certainly one of this 12 months’s largest box-office documentaries.
Good Night time Oppy
Dir. Ryan White
Amazon Studios and Amblin Leisure teamed up for this chronicle — using interviews with scientists and engineers, NASA archive footage and CGI results — of the 2003 mission that despatched the Alternative rover to Mars and stored it ‘alive’ for 15 years. Steered by The Case In opposition to 8 director White, Good Night time Oppy premiered at Telluride and is about for a restricted US theatrical run in November.
The Janes
Dirs. Tia Lessin, Emma Pildes
Lessin (a documentary function Oscar nominee in 2009 for Hassle The Water) and Pildes recount the story of a gaggle of girls in early-Seventies Chicago who defied state regulation and constructed an underground service for girls in search of secure, reasonably priced abortions. The HBO Documentary Movies undertaking had its premiere at Sundance and started streaming on HBO/HBO Max in June, simply after its qualifying theatrical run in Los Angeles.
Final Flight Residence
Dir. Ondi Timoner
Two-time Sundance grand jury prize winner (for Dig! and We Dwell In Public) Timoner delivers an intimate take a look at her ailing 92-year-old father’s last days following his resolution to finish an eventful life surrounded by his household. Launched at this 12 months’s Sundance, the MTV Documentary Movies undertaking additionally screened on the Telluride and BFI London festivals and had an October theatrical run in Los Angeles.
Moonage Daydream
Dir. Brett Morgen
This fluorescent journey by means of the music of rock icon David Bowie debuted as a Midnight screening at Cannes this 12 months. US distributor Neon, which launched the movie on September 16, has pedigree for drawing each cinema crowds and navigating the awards run; whereas Common has launched the movie in worldwide territories, with a worldwide whole of $10.7m at time of writing. In addition to that includes in documentary classes, Moonage Daydream ought to garner consideration for its technical points, particularly in sound. Morgen’s earlier music documentary Cobain: Montage Of Heck was a seven-time Primetime Emmy nominee.
Navalny
Dir. Daniel Roher
Billed as a ‘documentary thriller’, CNN Movies and HBO Max’s co-production portrays anti-corruption Russian opposition chief Alexei Navalny after his survival of a 2020 assassination try by deadly nerve agent. Since successful each the US documentary viewers award and the competition favourite award at Sundance, the movie touched down at different festivals together with CPH:DOX, had a qualifying Los Angeles theatrical run in March and a streaming debut on HBO Max in Could.
Retrograde
Dir. Matthew Heineman
Six years after he tracked the drug commerce in his Oscar-nominated Cartel Land, Heineman appears to be like on the finish of America’s battle in Afghanistan on this Nationwide Geographic Documentary Movies manufacturing, giving the views of a US Special Forces unit, a younger Afghan basic and the civilians making an attempt to flee the nation. The undertaking’s Telluride premiere is about to be adopted by a US cinema launch later this 12 months.
Sr.
Dir. Chris Smith
The life, work and final days of maverick filmmaker Robert Downey Sr are the main focus of this Telluride premiere, with well-known son Robert Downey Jr producing and showing in a number of the footage. Smith — a 1999 Sundance documentary grand jury prize winner for American Film — directed the Netflix acquisition, set for launch on the service and in choose US cinemas later this 12 months.
The Territory
Dir. Alex Pritz
This Nationwide Geographic Documentary Movies undertaking, the function directing debut of cinematographer Pritz, centres on the combat of an Indigenous neighborhood within the Brazilian Amazon towards encroaching deforestation introduced on by farmers and unlawful settlers. Shot partly by the Indigenous folks themselves, the movie received Sundance’s viewers award and particular jury award for documentary craft after its competition premiere, and had a restricted US theatrical launch in August.
