Thessaloniki International Documentary Film Festival — A–Z of films

A fourth doctor, unsuccessful in his efforts to get to Gaza, helps in whatever ways he can. This enables the film to move between intense scenes within Gaza itself, and the US, where it’s easier to breathe.

The observational style means the film stops short of being truly illuminating.

Her experience could be Exhibit A for anyone trying to articulate the reasons survivors stay silent through fear of blowing up their own lives rather than their attackers’

What emerges over the course of O’Connor’s feature is not a saintly monument but a vibrant, difficult, funny, and unsentimental person.

Rosi expertly paints a picture of a community with all its widely varied facets.

Boorman has an extraordinary openness about him which would make him a compelling subject even if he’d never made a film in his life.

A film all about connections, what begins as a tale of bug and boy itself metamorphoses into a tender consideration of a father and son relationship.

Candidates Of Death becomes a quiet celebration of all the positive things that can come from creative endeavour besides the end product itself.

The Polish director understands that the work of searching is also the work of deciding what not to show.

Troyanovsky also communicates the mental toll that comes with being away from the frontline, not just for those who have been in active service, like Alaska, but also parents and family.

The strength of the film lies not just in the personalities of its leads, but in the rich detail observed throughout.

Some may find Decasia's approach nihilistic.

Even for those who were present on the day, there are likely to be revelations.

The full use of what film can do is eye-opening - the juxtapositions jolt awareness of what is important and remains necessary.

The documentary is attentive to contradiction without flattening its subjects into symbols.

She clicks with Philippe, and there’s a wonderful openness about the film as she finds joy in being able to talk about everything with no fear anymore.

Heartfelt and thorough

Despite the depressing nature of what’s happening at the school, Talankin’s affection for his students and his resilient sense of humour ensure that the film is always engaging.

Cinemtographer Noah Collier deserves a lot of credit for keeping himself largely invisible so that people reveal themselves, while working with editor Pablo Proenza, Herbert smoothly brings together these facets so that a bigger picture begins to be formed.

By viewing the situation, at least initially, mostly from the perspective of the bears, the directors ask us to consider who exactly is trespassing on whose turf.

The most volatile, morally complicated material is treated as turbulence to pass through rather than weather to be reported.

Offers food for thought in the realm of a slightly ungainly and sprawling all-you-can-eat buffet rather than a satisfying sit-down feast.

It doesn’t posture about whether primates are sentient. It treats that as the baseline fact, then asks what kind of civilisation keeps behaving as if it isn’t?

What the cumulative effect of masterfully restored newsreel may lack in action, it more than makes up for with the numbing, slow-burn sensation of being drawn under the spell of state-orchestrated mass mourning.

Has its moments in terms of the characters who are observed but suffers from a lack of cohesive editing and, most crucially, a map to help orient non-Italian viewers.

Rasmussen understands that what makes this quest cinematic is not merely its oddity, but its scale.