Cinepolitical: A Monthly Brief on Documentary
November's Essential Docs & Dialogues + New Magazine
November 2024 saw another busy festival month with Modern Times Review at Ji.hlava IDFF, Movies on War, Porto/Post/Doc and more. As we move into December, one more look back at the films, interviews, and news featured across the platform from the month that was. We also launch the latest edition of our magazine, with information below.
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News
Unlocking documentary knowledge with Docthinks
Balkan Documentary Center launches call for 2025 Balkan Watchers program
Winners announced at Verzió DocLab pitch event 2024
Verzió Film Festival 2024: The complete winners
DOK Leipzig 2024: The complete winners
Ji.hlava IDFF 2024: the complete winners
Interview
In our interview, Movies on War festival director Øystein Egge reflected on curating this year’s compelling focus on Gaza and the Middle East, the role of cinema in our polarised age, and the festival’s role in fostering critical conversations through it.
Films
All is Well
Director: Petra Lataster-Czisch, Peter Lataster
IDFA
Ukrainian refugees in the Netherlands confront war, loss, and uncertainty.
Bright Future
Director: Andra MacMasters
IDFA
The sensory and ideological layers of a forgotten Cold War festival, exploring fleeting solidarity, ideological discord, and the fragility of socialist dreams.
Dear Beautiful Beloved
Director: Juri Rechinsky
IDFA
War’s ceaseless, painful impact on society and family.
Documerica, Self Portrait of a Nation on the Brink
Director: Pierre-Francois Didek
Ji.hlava IDFF
Fifty years after capturing America’s consumerist landscape, photographers revisit their work, offering a reflective documentary on environmental crises and unfulfilled promises.
Far West
Director: Pierre-François Sauter
IDFA
The contrast between the poverty and resignation of Cape Verde's locals and the western big game marlin fishermen who are beginning to change a traditional way of life could not be greater.
Morichales
Director: Chris Gude
DOK Leipzig
Man’s relentless pursuit of gold unfolds amidst natural beauty and peril.
On the Border
Director: Gerald Igor Hauzenberger, Gabriela Schild
IDFA
At the entrance to the Sahara, Agadez, Niger, reveals the human cost of EU migration policy.
Sempre
Director: Luciana Fina
Porto/Post/Doc
Portugal's journey from dictatorship to freedom.
Songs of Slow Burning Earth
Director: Olha Zhurba
Movies on War
Olha Zhurba's meditative take on the war avoids frontline images to show how the conflict affects ordinary people.
The Black Garden
Director: Alexis Pazoumian
Porto/Post/Doc
Chronicling the lives of Armenians enduring Nagorno-Karabakh's conflict.
The Jacket
Director: Mathijs Poppe
IDFA
Like the Old Testament Joseph and his coat of many colours, a patch-covered jacket becomes a symbol for a greater truth in Mathijs Poppe's touching film of yearning for home, The Jacket.
The Last Expedition
Director: Eliza Kubarska
IDFA
The life and disappearance of Wanda Rutkiewicz, the mountaineer whose untimely end remains shrouded in myth.
Trains
Director: Maciej Drygas
IDFA
IDFA best film award winner Polish director Maciej Drygas's entrancing Trains is a mesmerising journey through much of the 20th century by rail, accompanied by a subtly intense soundtrack.
Traslados
Director: Nicolás Gil Lavedra
San Sebastian
Argentina’s Dirty War, the horrors of extrajudicial killings, and the dark secrets behind death flights and intergenerational trauma.
Valentina & the MUOSters
Director: Francesca Scalisi
DOK Leipzig
A nuclear family's high-tech dissolution.
War Game
Director: Jesse Moss, Tony Gerber
IDFA
A high-stakes, six-hour simulation where veterans navigate complex choices, aiming to prevent a fictional civil war amid insurgent threats.
Now Available
