The IDFA is starting soon and these are the ten documentaries you should not miss

All the Beauty and the Bloodshed

Laura Poitras, United States, 113 min.

A cathedral, that’s how you can All the Beauty and the Bloodshed feel free to call. Laura Poitras’ film was awarded the Golden Lion in Venice (only as the second documentary). It is made up of several layers: the troubled childhood of photographer Nan Goldin, her groundbreaking photography during the AIDS epidemic and Goldin’s opposition to the sponsor of well-known museums: Purdue Pharma, the company responsible for the opioid epidemic. Poitras, known for her docu-thriller Citizenfourwho won an Oscar, has with All the Beauty and the Bloodshed an exciting, intensely sad and yet optimistic documentary. It is possible with a handful of activists to overturn a concern that spreads death. (Bor Beekman)

Apolonia, Apolonia

Lea Glob, Denmark, 116 min.

When documentary makers take the time to follow a subject, it often results in something special. So is this beautiful portrait of a talented young artist, the Frenchwoman Apolonia, who was filmed for thirteen years on her way to – well, what will it be, fame or oblivion? Apolonia is a fascinating protagonist: her artist life is a rollercoaster of highs and lows, while she herself remains remarkably calm and focused. (Pauline Kleijer)

Cesaria Evora

Ana Sofia Fonseca, Portugal, 95 min.

Penetrating biographical portrait of the Queen of Cape Verde: Cesária Évora (1941-2011), singer of life songs. After years of performing in the harbor cafes of Mindelo on the island of São Vicente, she made her debut in 1988 with the album La Diva Aux Pieds Nus (“The Barefoot Diva”). She was already approaching fifty by then, and with her fourth album Miss Perfumado – sold more than 300 thousand copies – she achieved world fame in 1992. Lots of beautiful archive footage in this documentary, and ditto shots of life in Cape Verde. (Rob van Scheers)

Geographies of Solitude

Jacquelyn Mills, Canada, 104 min.

For forty years, Zoe Lucas has watched over the remote island of Sable, the sole inhabitant of the narrow strip of land off the coast of Nova Scotia. The birds, the population of wild horses and the plastic remains in the ocean that threaten the ecology: nothing escapes this record-keeping environmental activist. With her documentary filmed on 16 mm Geographies of Solitude Canadian filmmaker Jacquelyn Mills has created a poetic portrait of a woman who has isolated herself far from humanity to put her finger on what concerns us all. How you can deduce on the basis of washed up balloon remains whether Christmas or Halloween is being celebrated thousands of kilometers away. (Bor Beekman)

Gigi la legge

Allessandro Comodin, Italy, France and Belgium, 102 min.

Italian director Alessandro Comodin has already proven himself to be a master at fusing documentary and feature film, fiction and reality. Of Gigi la legge he once again bends a true story subtly and full of feeling for the poetry of the everyday. What a wonderful main character too, in the person of police officer Gigi, who patrols his apparently sleepy provincial town all day and has seen suspicious things everywhere since the suicide of a young woman. Meanwhile, he flirts with the colleague in the control room, in a sunny tragicomedy that sometimes almost becomes a thriller. (Kevin Toma)

Journey Through Our World

Petra Lataster-Czisch and Peter Lataster, Netherlands, 113 min.

A documentary about daily life in corona time, it doesn’t sound very attractive – that period of staying at home and video calling is still too fresh in the memory. Yet it is Petra and Peter Lataster (Not without you, Miss Kiet’s world) managed to make something beautiful out of it. A moving gem of a film that works as a time capsule, but also transcends the corona perils. From their little garden in Amsterdam-East, where neighbors get to know each other better and where there is plenty of nature, the Latasters show how their world became smaller and bigger at the same time. (Pauline Kleijer)

The Kiev Trial

Sergei Loznitsa, Ukraine, 107 min.

In January 1946, 15 Nazis were tried in a court in Kiyv for horrific war crimes. The trial was filmed and the footage disappeared into an archive, where Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa found them while researching his (previous) film about the Babi Jar massacre, where at least 33 thousand Jews were shot by the Nazis. Loznitsa forged the previously unseen archive footage without comment into a shocking and relevant court documentary. The Bloody History of Ukraine as a Cycle of Crime and Punishment. (Pauline Kleijer)

Manifesto

Angie Vinchito, Russia, 68 min.

This is not an appeal to disturb public order, according to the disclaimer with which Manifesto starts. Filmed from 2013 to 2021 and compiled by a documentary filmmaker, this series of YouTube and TikTok videos of Russian teenagers offers an unpolished look at the lives of young people behind the new Iron Curtain. We see violent teachers, a crying girl whose wrong political views have just been noted, bruised children with guns – and worse. Straight from the gut, but with a purpose: Manifesto shows how oppression begins by forcing the soul out of a new generation. (Berend Jan Bockting)

Mi pais imaginario

Patricio Guzman, Chile, 85 min.

A blueprint for social revolution worldwide, that is how this lively and thoughtful account of the mass protest against the Chilean government can be understood. In the run-up to the 2021 presidential election (won by the young left-wing candidate Gabriel Boric), 81-year-old Chilean documentary filmmaker Patricio Guzmán explores the art of resistance. In his eyes, women are the driving force, from the photographer and the member of a specialized first aid team to the poet collective that writes protest poetry that can be scanned perfectly. Meanwhile, Guzmán flexibly connects current events to Pinochet’s 1970s, which he himself experienced and filmed. (Berend Jan Bockting)

Paradise

Alexander Abaturov, France, Switzerland, 88 min.

‘The dragon’, the inhabitants of the taiga call spontaneous forest fires. Because of the increasing drought, those fires are advancing further than ever, as if the conflagration were a living monster. Filmed from oppressively close Paradise The Russian Alexander Abaturov portrays the local Siberian fire brigade, which fights with minimal resources against the raging fires. Villages are reduced to ashes, firefighters are almost enclosed. The orange glow, the crackling, the clouds of dust: it results in beautiful and extremely alarming cinema. (Bor Beekman)