Mark Adams

The ancient archaeological site of Vinča on the outskirts of Serbia’s capital Belgrade may well be hailed in history books as the cradle of European neolithic culture, but in recent years it has become better known as one of the largest landfill sites in Europe. Nemanja Vojinović’s absorbing and visceral film follows the site’s oddball community of plastic bottle collectors, aka the Bottlemen.

After being diagnosed with an incurable brain tumour, filmmaker Kit Vincent sets about enlisting his family on an intimate and darkly humorous journey that he hopes will help them come to terms with his illness. Unsurprisingly, this cinematic journey is more complex, emotional and engagingly offbeat than he might have first intended, and his plan to point the camera anywhere but at himself proves temporary before realising that only he, himself, can be the centre of the film’s story.

As a visceral and immersive piece of front-line war coverage, Ukrainian filmmaker and journalist Mstyslav Chernov’s film 20 Days in Mariupol presents a savage and often desperately bleak portrait of a city under siege, and reflects on the bravery of those struggling to survive within it.

A thoughtful and evocative tribute to the life – and talent – of British photographer Tish Murtha, Sheffield DocFest’s opening night film Tish, directed by Paul Sng, traces the life of this innately skilled and driven artist, and details her commitment to fighting for the communities such as the one she grew up in. The film celebrates a woman whose work deserves to stand alongside considerably more acclaimed practitioners of the craft.

Polish artist Agata di Masternak channels her crippling illness into creativity as a way of understanding how other people have coped with their own physical traumas. Małgorzata Kozera’s intriguing film Faces of Agata astutely examines di Masternak’s masterful balancing of art and pain, with the artist herself an engaging narrator of her own challenging life story.

A disturbing and brutal delve into the dark and violent underbelly of military conscription in Belarus as seen from the perspective of the country’s much put-upon youth, Motherland offers a striking – and deeply prescient – analysis of a system of bullying and abuse borrowed from neighbouring Russia, and how it is reflected in the country itself.

In this fascinating behind-the-scenes examination, world-premiering in Krakow, members of the legendary Workcenter theatre collective founded by Jerzy Grotowski – acclaimed as one of the 20th Century’s most influential theatre practitioners - speak frankly for the first time about their experiences related to the work methods he devised, and which were developed by his apprentice and Artistic Director Thomas Richards.

How to keep mind and body intact when surrounded by intense emotional and psychological pressures is at the compassionate heart of On The Edge which follows liaison psychiatrist Dr Jamal Abdel Kader and his colleagues as they offer care and support to patients from the emergency room to the intensive care unit.

An astute and insightful delve into the relationships and rivalries within The Rolling Stones in those formative years, Nick Broomfield’s archive-heavy film, which premiered May 15 on the BBC, elegantly explores the freedom and exuberance of the 1960s - a time of intergenerational conflict and sexual turmoil – and how the story of Stones co-founder Brian Jones reflected those glorious but also troubled times.

Offering intriguing anthropological insight into the background and current circumstances of one of Europe’s remaining nomadic ethnic groups, Ruäch – A Journey into Yenish Europe (Ruäch – Eine Reise ins Jenische Europa) also provides an appropriately oblique and complex look into a community whose members often seem reluctant to discuss the secrets and complexities of their culture.