Documentaries

A therapist helps traumatised refugees detained on a remote island where powerful natural and tribal rituals prevail, in this extraordinary mix of fact and fiction.

What would you do if a Nazi moved next door? This chilling documentary follows the white supremacist takeover of a tiny Dakotan town.

A suitably forthright profile of the evergreen socialist, trade unionist and Labour politician Dennis Skinner - also known as the Beast of Bolsover.

The gentrification of London’s Brixton is examined in this probing and stylistically ambitious debut feature.

Documenting the testimonies from those who dared to challenge the world and helped create the modern gay community.

Patty Schemel, one-time drummer of grunge band Hole, recounts her turbulent years on tour with the band, piecing together a compelling tale of rock and roll excess, and the personal story of one woman’s survival.

John Akomfrah mixes archive material, literary and musical quotations and newly shot silent footage in a wry, rapt meditation on memory and migration.

Jean Luc-Godard and Francois Truffaut: the story of a friendship, a break-up and the birth of a new cinematic movement that would sweep the world.

A short documentary featuring some of John Cassavetes' key collaborators, actor Peter Falk and producer Al Ruban.

Key participants discuss the making of influential cinéma vérite documentary Chronicle of a Summer. Includes unused footage from the film.

An unforgettable, compelling account of the production and subsequent restoration of a withheld film recording the liberation of Nazi concentration camps in 1945.

Six regions, six films appraised for cultural and historical meaning. Produced by Jean-Luc Godard.

Like all good magicians, the life and work of Kenneth Anger, the Magus of underground film, is crowded with mystery and myth.

Filmmaker Andrew Kötting and writer Iain Sinclair embark on a quest from Hastings to East London by pedalo.

23-year-old Eden is shown drawing and painting still lifes in her Pyrenean family home.

Ben Lewin’s 1976 film captures a moment in Britain's evergreen immigration debate, focusing on new arrivals at Heathrow as they wrestle with immigration law.

A profile of LGBT activist, academic and author Vito Russo, the man who changed the face of queer film theory and brought us all out of the ‘Celluloid Closet’.

French gay men and women in their 60s and 70s talk about their lives in Sébastien Lifshitz’s documentary.

We Were Here is the first documentary to take a deep and reflective look back at the arrival and impact of AIDS in 1980s San Francisco.

The story of London told through a century of popular music and film archive treasures.

A multi-layered melding of fiction and fact, about Nobel prize-winner Orhan Pamuk and his Istanbul Museum of Innocence.


This fascinating and moving film by award-winning director Penny Woolcock is a lyrical portrait of Britain's coastline which features a score by British Sea Power.

Molly Dineen’s wry, humorous and sometimes touching look at the trials faced by the staff and passengers of London’s dishearteningly dilapidated Angel tube station, before its modernisation.

A Palestinian farmer with a home video camera shoots a local protest against the building of an Israeli 'security fence' in his village, and finds himself the official documentarian of five years worth of footage of the struggle.

Russell Brand ponders his political awakening and messianic tendencies in Ondi Timoner’s perceptive and very funny documentary.

Mark Cousins’ dreamlike evocation of his home city discovers a capital of rich history and startling beauty.

Gideon Koppel’s charming documentary about a small farming community in mid-Wales, observing the unalterable rhythms of country life and the monthly visits of a mobile library.

The short documentary gives us a wonderful insight into the enchanting animated film world of Lotte Reiniger.

Tilda Swinton narrates the extraordinary journey of Gertrude Bell, a singular woman who played a significant – often unrecognised – role in British imperial policy making in Iraq.

Carol Salter's award-winning portrait of a young Chinese woman training to become a mortician is a tender and reflective elegy on death and the fragility of life.