26-Best Documentary

In the marshlands of Southern Iraq, Ibrahim and his family live in solitude as strangers to the outside world, their lives tethered to the river, the reeds, and the buffalo they tend. Silent and withdrawn, Ibrahim finds comfort only in his buffalo, his sole companion. But as the rivers dry and the landscape withers, Ibrahim faces unrelenting forces threatening the only life he has ever known, and the only creature he has ever understood.

Sixteen-year-old Michele works as a “cowboy” on a wild plateau in the Apennines. Together with his colleague, 21-year-old Alexandra, he offers horseback rides across the vast fields to tourists who love riding. But nothing has been the same since the events of last winter.

In the 1990s, Tatu Hokkanen ringed a robin in Finland, later found shot in Brescia, Italy. Years on, conservationists Katia and Paolo battle birds poaching in Brescia. This cross-border story is about protecting birds.

The autobiography of Koki, an immortal parrot, loyal comrade of Marshal Tito, leader of Yugoslavia for 35 years. 
Made over 4 years with Koki responding to previously unseen archives, this biopic relives the caged memories of this 68 year speaking bird, who had the honour of meeting Hollywood stars, and bloodthirsty dictators.

5-year-old Tako, dressed in pink, spends her summers in the gray old mud healing center in Georgia and waits for her grandmother to make time for her, to share love and care.

Pedro Tomás, a man who can only speak in nouns, explains the world after three years of the Cumbre Vieja volcano eruption in his home island of La Palma.

The one thing I remember from my studies is how to row. Sometimes I miss it. So I go back to see Kevin, my old coach and current boatman of a rowing club at Cambridge.

Anxiety started consuming the muscles of my trapezius. I gradually stopped being able to swallow without thinking, because swallowing became forced. Amidst some exams to rule out bigger issues, or issues of a different, more tangible nature, one of the first hypotheses gained strength: finally, anxiety began to eat away at my body. Pássaro Azul is both a letter to my ancestors and a quest to understand what torments me and causes such acute anxiety – and how all these seemingly unrelated pieces can intertwine.

Ángeles Blanco is a lawyer who works for an organization assisting people with cerebral palsy. One day, she receives a text on her phone: SOS. Nothing else. Ángeles answers promptly, trying to gather more information, but there is no answer. After a few days of radio silence, another text arrives: again, SOS, followed by a crying emoji. Ángeles knows someone needs her on the other end. In order to help, she will have to find a way to get through to her.

“Bicycle Face” is a film essay that reflects on the relationship between women and bicycles from a contemporary perspective. Fragments of films, archival images, texts, fictional scenes, and bicycle sounds form this audiovisual collage, which aims to be a tribute to women's freedom, their capacity for struggle, and resistance. The starting point is a historical event that takes us back to the late 19th century when women began riding bicycles. It was then that a made-up disease was diagnosed with the goal of dissuading women from riding bicycles.

In 2021, the Cumbre Vieja volcano erupted on La Palma (Canary Islands), for 85 days destroying homes and lives along its path. Amid this chaos, Beatriz, a resilient islander, offers a remarkable perspective. Though the eruption destroyed her vineyard and home, she carries no bitterness. Instead, she shares a profound and poetic vision of the intricate bond between humans and earth. The film is an experimental documentary, guided by eclectic Beatriz and unique audio-visual world built through microscopic images and low-frequency sounds of the surrounding nature, making us rediscover and reflect upon the meaning of living in the shadows of such a powerful and unpredictable force, and the connection with it.

In a profound act of historical resurrection, modern-day adventurer Elise Wortley straps on her 19th-century hobnail boots and bonnet to celebrate history’s forgotten female explorers, whose absence from history continues to have knock on effects today. Armed only with the gear available to Henriette d’Angeville in 1838, Elise attempts to recreate the first female ascent of Mont Blanc — Europe’s most iconic peak to understand the lack of female representation in the the mountains. In doing so she also explores her own relationship with the outdoors and how its impacted a long battle with debilitating anxiety. This film was made by an entire female crew from the director, mountain guides through to all post-production.

In The Piston King, we step inside Marco’s world on a fateful night, not on the streets, but in the heart of his workshop. Surrounded by tools, grease, and memories, Marco's hands bring life to machines that are more than just bikes—they're a part of his soul. As he works late into the night, we follow the man behind the passion, where every wrench turn tells a story.

Sculptor Ratko Vulanović is trying to clear of the trinketry and return to art the power and greatness that he believes it deserves. Then the trinketry strikes back.

How do you find your place in the world? Through Daniele's extraordinary journey, we will share the difficulties and resources that over this 30-years-long journey have helped him cross invisible yet marked line that divides those experience disability and the rest of the world

On a remote Adriatic island, abandoned goats roamed freely for forty years, left behind after a failed agricultural project—until they were deemed a problem. Soon, a group of armed men appears, determined to restore the "natural balance." We bear witness to a chilling cull, revealing the unsettling ease with which we justify violence—and how quickly we convince ourselves it’s the only right thing to do.

The film was shot around the place of O Fieiro, a small village of no more than twelve houses and nine inhabitants, among them Rosa. A ninety-year-old woman who dedicates her last years to watching the rain through the window. Her father was a canteiro, a house builder, before the reservoir changed everything. Rosa remembers how her father lifted the stones and the people transported them from one place to another. It is shown as an abstract visual poem where the rain and the stones are the protagonists of the story Rosa tells us.

A Diaguita-Calchaquí man’s life reveals a deep bond between land, tradition, and identity.

A documentary exploring the literal and metaphorical empty spaces that are filled with meaning by artists - Georgi Stanishev, Hanna Schwartz & Yoann Bourgeois.