Delightful Docs

Prince of Muck The hilly island of Muck, just off the west coast of Scotland, has been owned by the MacEwen family for more than a century. After decades of devoting himself to caring for the island, Lawrence MacEwen has now passed it on to his son. Lawrence still takes a cold bath every day, and writes in his diary—though the pages are not as full as they once were.Days in the life of this formal but cheerful man unfold to the rhythm of the island in Dutch filmmaker Cindy Jansen’s calm, observational shots. Lawrence hugs the cows, drives cattle with his grandchildren, and reads out extracts from his diaries that span decades, applying the same methodical approach to his notations of wind directions and deaths.The younger generation is taking its own path, and Lawrence must accept that he is reaching the end of his own. In the growing awareness that the future belongs to others, he casts his gaze back in time, reciting the poetry and tide tables that he learned by heart as a child.Cindy Jansen CINDY JANSEN (Veghel, NL, 1976) Lives and works in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Jansen graduated from the Academy of Visual Arts in Arnhem (NL), Milan (I) and the International Script Development and Directors Program of the Binger Filmlab in Amsterdam (NL). Jansen showed her films at several national and international film festivals, among which Hamburg, Rotterdam and Edinburgh. Her videos and photo works were presented in multiple group- and solo-exhibitions, like Loop '05 Barcelona (ES), Noorderlicht Photo Festival Groningen (NL), and Gerhard Hofland Gallery, Amsterdam.After Jansen’s attendance of the Binger Filmlab (2007), she was selected for the Berlinale Talent Campus and started to build an international network that has resulted in a prize winning cooperation with Addie Reiss, the cinematographer on her short film Come Spring. In the years that followed, Jansen made controversial films such as Don’t hit me I love you and With Love. The documentary Auld Lang Syne premiered at the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) in 2015 and was nominated for a Golden Calf at the Netherlands Film Festival in the same year. In cooperation with production company De Productie and Faction North (UK). Jansen’s first full length feature documentary, Prince of Muck had a World Premiere at the Edinburgh International Film Festival in 2021 and an International Premiere at the International Documentary Filmfestival Amsterdam. The film will was released in Dutch cinemas in January 2022, shown on BBC Scotland and BBC4 and can be seen worldwide via Amazon Prime Video. Together with production company Witfilm, Jansen is now developing the feature fiction film Clockwork Universe.Jansen's films and videos vary from non-linear narrations to more fragmented artworks that find their platform in both the art scene and film festivals. She is known for her cinematic framing, contemplative style and slow-burn reveal editing.

The Hearing Four asylum seekers reenact their conversations with the authorities in a role-playing game that reverses the roles. What happens when your future depends on your ability to tell your own life story in a convincing way? In an ordinary and grey office like any other, four people are waiting to be called in for a hearing. The bureaucratic setting is closer to a theatre stage, however, for in ‘The Hearing’ the participants re-enact their own real-life conversations with the government officials who will assess their case. A Nigerian woman, a man from Cameroon, a transgender woman from Sri Lanka, and a young Afghan man – all four are in the same situation with everything at stake. What happens when your future depends on your ability to tell your own life story in a convincing and compelling way? The tension between reality and staging, between role-playing and reality, does not make their life stories any less moving or relevant. In a simple but brilliant move, however, debut director Lisa Gerig reverses both the roles and the balance of power. The result is a (thought)provoking film of great dignity that uses the performative interventions not as a conceptual gesture, but to give a form to four individuals’ subjective experience of a system that is alien to most.Lisa Gerig Lisa Gerig (*1990) studied film in Zurich and Geneva, majoring in editing. Her thesis film ZAUNGESPRÄCHE is a radically subjective look at the situation of people held in Zurich’s deportation detention center. Since graduating from the Zurich University of the Arts in 2015, she has been working as a freelance filmmaker.THE HEARING is her first feature-length documentary.

Red Herring In the midst of shocking family revelations, a young filmmaker is diagnosed with terminal cancer. What follows is an intimate and darkly humorous journey of a family’s attempt to make sense of their upended past and disrupted future.Kit Vincent Kit Vincent is an award winning filmmaker based in London and the South West. He is a Film Independent Fellow and JFI Fellow. His films have been supported by BFI Doc Society, Sundance Documentary Film Program, The Whickers, France TV, Jewish Story Partners and Jewish Film Institute. His debut feature Red Herring (2023) is a documentary that walks the line between humour and grief in an exploration of the nuances of living with a terminal illness. It premiered at True/False 2023, screened at Thessaloniki Film Festival where it won the 'Human Values' award.(https://www.cinephil.com/films-111/red-herring).Kit holds a first class degree in Anthropology and Visual Practice from Goldsmiths University of London and has spoken on many industry panels, most recently for Docsociety and FWD docs with James LeBrecht and Lyndsey Dryden about disability inclusive filmmaking.Previously, Kit worked making films and music videos and on Channel 4's flagship documentary series 24 Hours in A&E.

On The Line: The Richard Williams StoryIn this emotional reckoning featuring unaired interviews spanning the 1980s to now, Richard Williams — the father of tennis legends Venus and Serena and the son of a cotton picker — retraces his family’s journey from the poverty-stricken streets of Shreveport, Louisiana to the grass courts of Wimbledon, fighting back against systems of racial oppression and violence and breaking every rule of the lily-white tennis establishment to forever change the sport.Stuart McClaveStuart McClave is known for On the Line: The Richard Williams Story (2022), Chappaquiddick (2017) and Friday Night Tykes (2014).

Is There Anybody Out There?Born with no hip joints and short femurs, a condition so rare that there is little reliable information about it, Ella Glendining decides to go in search of people who can share their experience and feelings about having a body like hers. In doing so, she challenges lazy ableist assumptions, experiences a number of unexpected surprises and encounters people who look like her. With great warmth and an infectious joy for her body and life as it is, Glendining challenges us to question the way we see others, like and unlike ourselves. Is There Anybody Out There? is a revelatory film that gently tugs at the viewer's biases and looks to a day when inclusivity is no longer an ‘issue’.Ella GlendiningElla Glendining is a writer-director dedicated to telling authentic disabled stories. She has written and directed short films with backing from Film4, the BFI, Arts Council England, Screen South, and the National Paralympic Heritage Trust. Glendining was named one of Screen International’s Stars of Tomorrow 2020. Her latest work is IS THERE ANYBODY OUT THERE? (2023) which has been selected at Sundance FF.

Stephen Visual artist Melanie Manchot works with a recovery group in Liverpool, who take up roles in a semi-fictional film-within-a-film that explores addiction and mental health from multiple perspectives. It is centred around Stephen, a character recovering from gambling and alcohol addictions. References to the first police crime reconstruction, filmed in Liverpool in 1901, are a reminder that addiction has long existed within the fabric of our culture. It’s a tough process and emotionally charged scenes reveal inner truths, which gain additional power when the people playing the roles are, in some sense, playing themselves. Visually striking, STEPHEN is a startling record of this form of treatment and a reminder of how dextrous the documentary form can be.Melanie Manchot Melanie Manchot is a London-based visual artist who works with photography, film, video and installation as part of a performative and participatory practice. Her projects often explore specific sites and public spaces to locate notions of individual and collective identities. The work investigates particular gestures and forms of movement or activities that become the marker of a group or community.

Time Bomb Y2KAs the year 2000 approached, rumblings started to spread outside of the world of computer engineers and into the mainstream consciousness about a ubiquitous error in computer code that would cause computers to reset during the transition from “1999” to “2000,” causing the world’s computerized systems to grind to a halt. This fully archival feature (no interviews, verité, etc.) documents the countdown to Y2K against the backdrop of the mass hysteria that infiltrated everything from politics to pop culture. Doomsday prepper communities started to proliferate and businesses popped up with products, books, and any way to make a quick buck off the looming disaster. Time Bomb Y2K is a wild ride through the final days of the ’90s and a compelling portrait of a turning point in the digital revolution. By examining this hingepoint between millennia, the film interrogates our ever-changing relationship to technology and each other.Marley McDonaldCo-Director, Time Bomb Y2KMarley McDonald is a filmmaker, animator, and painter living in Queens, New York. In 2021, she was chosen as a Points North Fellow and worked as an additional editor on Penny Lane’s film Listening to Kenny G. Her associate editor work includes Spaceship Earth, and the Golden Lion-winning and Oscar-nominated documentary, All the Beauty and the Bloodshed. She most recently directed and edited her debut feature, Time Bomb Y2K (co-directed with Brian Becker) for HBO.Brian BeckerCo-Director, Time Bomb Y2KBrian Becker is a New York-based filmmaker who most recently directed and produced his debut feature Time Bomb Y2K (co-directed with Marley McDonald). The film premiered at True/False Film Festival in March 2023 and will air on HBO in December 2023. He served as an archival producer on Free Chol Soo Lee, MLK/FBI, and Spaceship Earth, and as a co-producer on Bobby Kennedy for President. Brian is a 2022 Doc NYC 40 Under 40 recipient, Impact Partners Producing Fellow, Points North Fellow, and a FOCAL Jane Mercer Researcher of the Year award nominee. Before turning to production, he worked as a mosquito ecologist

*This Episode contains references to suicide and mental health. Please keep this in mind before listening*In a hall in the North East of England seven men share their mental health struggles. With honesty and vulnerability, they start the process of healing. Suicide is the biggest cause of death of men under 50. The North East has the highest suicide rates in the UK. Grounding this crisis in a history of industrial decline, A Man’s Man focuses on seven working-class men who meet in a community hall to talk about their mental health – unearthing the common bonds that bring them together, the struggles that have been tearing them apart, and the processes that are leading to their healing.Myles DesenbergDIRECTOR / PRODUCER / EDITORMyles Desenberg's creative journey as a filmmaker began after completing a Fine Arts Degree in Sydney, Australia. Since then, Myles has been able to make a name for himself working across documentaries, commercials, and branded content. Collaborating with some of the world’s biggest brands including the likes of Nike, Adidas, and Toyota, his work has earned him a coveted Gold Lion at Cannes, with his first feature documentary, ‘Giving Up Your Day Job’ with dance music titans Above & Beyond, appearing in theatres globally.

My Father's PrisonThe son of a Venezuelan political prisoner tells the story of his father’s 15 year long imprisonment. Shot during house-arrest, father and son try to recover the stolen time through home-movies and challenging conversations. As both family and country fall apart, the father plots a risky escape.Iván Simonovis PertiñezIván Simonovis Pertiñez is a Venezuelan filmmaker exiled in Berlin. His work focuses on political persecution and exile. He has a degree in Communication Sciences from the University of Marburg and a Masters in Film from the Free University of Berlin. His documentary shorts for the web A LA DERIVA (2015), DESDE EL EXILIO (2017), and CARACAS 9 DE ENERO (2018) have appeared in international media outlets such as El País and Jungle World. His first feature documentary MY FATHER’S PRISON has been selected for the main competition at Visions du Réel 2023.