Mark Adams

An engaging, charmingly candid and ultimately warm-hearted film that depicts the complex lives within a neurodiverse working-class Australian family. We have seen verité-style documentaries that follow families before…but this family is unlike any other, and the film appropriately offers them a lovely (and loving) filmic platform.

Less about protestors on the streets and more about the personal and emotional impact of fighting against a brutal regime, Syrian filmmaker/journalist/campaigner Lina’s film is a moving and thoughtful look into how protests are planned, how friendships are challenged and how fear of violence is a terrible constant.

A brotherly bond on the sea is tested by tradition, family, global warming and changing ways in Sarvnik Kaur’s absorbing and beautifully shot documentary Against The Tide, which premiered in Sundance’s World Cinema Documentary Competition. Two good friends, a pair of indigenous Koli fishermen in Bombay, find themselves on different sides of the increasingly desperate debate as to how best to fish within a sea that no longer offers up catches in abundance.

A search for a video and DVD treasure trove lies at the heart of the thoroughly enjoyable Kim’s Video, as it veers from an archival exercise in re-telling the story of the now-legendary US video-rental chain through to a tale that blends possible Mafia activity and a film-themed heist before heading to a happy ending.

Submerged hints of suffering slowly surface in Faustine Cros’ absorbing and gently moving, and deftly insightful, A Life Like Any Other (Une vie comme une autre) as she uses archival material shot by her filmmaker father, as well as her own intimate interviews, to delve into her mother’s barely noticed depression that ultimately led to a suicide attempt that traumatised the entire family.

Thelma and Sahlina are just your typical teenage Swedish girls. Chatting, giggling, comparing photographs on their mobile phone…and practising their hunting and shooting skills and refining their ability to skin a wild boar. Charming, intimate and nicely non-judgemental, the film is at heart the simple story of two best friends as they come of age.

A beautiful portrait of aging and loneliness, Simon Chambers’ Much Ado About Dying dwells on an often-tragicomic but warm relationship as filmmaker Chambers returns to London to grudgingly look after his Shakespeare-loving uncle, a former actor who has grown old and infirm but who still yearns for a diet of attention and applause that clearly he feels his nephew can provide.

A remarkably immersive and at times terrifying examination of the impact of climate change as it has started to impact the remote region of Siberia, director Alexander Abuturov’s Paradise follows villagers as they battle devastating forest fires without any prospect of assistance from the authorities. It is striking, mermerising and visceral, all the time driven by strong visuals and a perfect soundtrack.

Anna Blom’s The Night My Brother Disappeared may well be conventional in structure, but the power of its emotional stories and encounters, combined with her protagonist’s own memories, sense of guilt and desire to find links to the terrifying incident in which his younger brother perished, help deliver a potent film.

Veteran filmmaker Ignacio Agüero takes an intriguing approach in this playful and provocative, and highly watchable, portrait based loosely on Belgian engineer Gustave Verniory’s memoirs on being hired in 1899 to construct a railroad across the unspoiled natural landscape of Araucanía, a region that had recently become part of Chile.