Politics

In three parts, with multiple stories, Portuguese director Miguel Gomes’ epic Arabian Nights was easily the most original, ambitious – and most critically acclaimed – film at Cannes this year.

In three parts, with multiple stories, Portuguese director Miguel Gomes’ epic Arabian Nights was easily the most original, ambitious – and most critically acclaimed – film at Cannes this year.

In three parts, with multiple stories, Portuguese director Miguel Gomes’ epic Arabian Nights was easily the most original, ambitious – and most critically acclaimed – film at Cannes this year.

Anticipating the punch-counterpunch set-up of today’s TV punditry, but so much more incisive, the 1968 TV debates between liberal Gore Vidal and conservative William F. Buckley Jr resound again in this terrific documentary.

With remarkable access, Chinese documentary filmmaker Zhou Hao shadows the mayor of the most polluted city in China and his problematic plan to rehabilitate its image, relocating half a million people to create a historic heritage park.

“The quasi-Kafkaesque administration holding Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe’s corrupt dictatorship in place finally gets the first-hand scrutiny it merits in Camilla Nielsson’s riveting documentary.” — Guy Lodge, Variety

Archival footage and interviews are used to stirring effect in this doco that shows how Britain’s striking miners in 1984 were ill-equipped to face an overwhelming, lengthy and ‘carefully orchestrated state crackdown’.

Writer-director-editor-composer Yury Bykov’s electrically paced, flawlessly performed suspense drama is both a brutal metaphor for the corruption of post-Soviet Russia and a furiously entertaining thriller.

Scoring its points through clearly stated arguments and pithy humour, Merchants of Doubt examines the methods corporations use to stymie political actions that would be good for public health, but bad for their bottom lines.

Kim Webby’s background in investigative journalism is put to riveting use in this documentary about Tame Iti and the Urewera Four, taking a criminal case of national interest to explore a greater social issue.

“Gabe Polsky’s electrifying look at a once-unbeatable Soviet hockey team and the link between sports and politics… deserves a big boo-yah from audiences for being illuminating and hugely entertaining.” — Peter Travers, Rolling Stone

The Sundance Grand Jury prizewinner for World Cinema Documentary is a scarier-than-fiction investigation of the Chernobyl disaster, headed up by an eccentric young artist, and abetted by the fearless filmmakers.

All the anger, joy and turmoil of the 60s–70s feminist explosion comes alive in a vivid documentary, blending the recollections of key US campaigners with archival action likely to astound anyone who wasn’t there.