Documentary

We live in a golden age of documentary. Worldwide, more docs are being made by more people about more subjects than ever before. The Internet has democratised distribution and marketing. Docs barely five years old—like Black Gold, The End of the Line, Burma VJ and The Age of Stupid—have become reference points for a new age of digitised, activist filmmakers who claim some form of secular prophesy.

Some, like the late Tim Hetherington’s Restrepo and Lucy Walker’s Waste Land, use this new-found portability of film equipment to make intimate, experiential expressions of humanism that aspire, on the large part, to objectivity.

This year BAFTA has added a new category, Best Documentary, to “recognise documentary feature films”. It's great news for all documentary filmmakers out there, especially giving a second chance to those overlooked by the Oscars® (think Steve James’s The Interrupters and Asif Kapadia’s Senna).

if you would like to find out more about the best in recent documentary films from Dogwoof, visit our films page.