Nicole Santé

A real-life, distinctly non-glitz version of 'Fame', but with a lot more drama and a lot less sentimentality, Rookies gives you all you could ask for: bright, beautiful, young people with layered and complex personalities, a compelling story line, failure and success, meaningful relationships…and bucketloads of energetic hip hop.

Less is definitely more in Penny Andrea’s engaging and highly original documentary that chronicles her radically altered state after the diagnosis of a brain tumor. With nothing more than her drawings and her monotone voice-over, she creates a fascinating journey both through time and her magnificent mind within a filmic testimony to resilience, creativity and humour.

At some point, maybe a quarter way into the film, you may find yourself asking: what is this all about? But stick with it and you’ll realise this question is an irrelevance. Because you’re about to get sucked in deep into this irresistible, colourful, rough, loving, and sometimes scary world of Cabaret Travesía Travesti.

Passion starts off with a warning about the real blood and violence you’re about to see. But it should also warn that your views are to be turned upside down as you watch this brave, lyrical and aesthetic journey into the worlds of BDSM and Christianity, connected through rituals, mysticism and judgment.

Sometimes documentaries are made as a means of catharsis, either for the filmmaker or the protagonists. Our Memory Belongs To Us is a healing process for both parties, as well as an important document about the start of the Syrian uprising in 2011.

A film both heart-warming and heart-breaking in telling the story of the House of Migrants, a shelter for stranded African travelers in the Malian city of Gao. In this home for the homeless, lives touch each other in passing and dreams are crushed or revived.

Within an atmosphere of enchantment, the beauty of Broberg’s cinematography, the intelligent editing and the sensitive soundtrack all pay tribute to Gabi’s persona, her strength, vulnerability and authenticity.

A documentary portrait with much to enjoy, marvel at or be touched by, although at times the artistic adornments can detract from the story of a woman whom you just want to hear talk. Nevertheless the film is testament to Ateş’ unstoppable drive for equality through a progressive Islam.

A magical exploration of the mushroom in scientific, practical, gastronomic and philosophical contexts, viewed as foodstuff, medicine, hallucogen or metaphor. In Neumann’s beautiful film the mushroom might not actually speak, but it is telling us a lot.

A visually stunning, provocative and lyrical essay on modern warfare that raises philosophical and ethical questions about an inevitable future.