The Antenna Documentary Film Festival is back from 14-23 October, with a packed program celebrating the very best in contemporary non-fiction cinema. 50 of the most innovative and thought-provoking documentaries from around the globe will screen across the 10 days.
Explore the of the 2022 offering, and revisit these past festival favourites, all now streaming at SBS On Demand.
Cold Case Hammarskjöld
Belgium, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, 2019
Language: English
Director: Mads Brügger
Language: English
Director: Mads Brügger
Notorious director/Journalist Mads Brügger (The Red Chapel, The Ambassador) investigates the mysterious circumstances of the UN Secretary-General, Dag Hammarskjöld’s, death. In 1961, Secretary General of the UN, Dag Hammarskjöld, died in a plane crash in Northern Rhodesia. He was en route to ceasefire negotiations between non‐ combatant UN forces and troops from the breakaway state of Katanga. Hammarskjöld was both popular and controversial, taking a stance in the fight against colonialism in times of instability and the Cold War. What started as perhaps unlikely conspiracy theories involving conglomerates fighting for minerals and metal resources has evolved into a growing consensus that Hammarskjöld and 15 other people were shot down, inciting the UN to reopen the case on the suspicion of assassination.
This film was six years in the making, and Brügger's investigation leads to a discovery that goes far beyond the killing of the UN Secretary General.
Another Country
Australia, 2015
Language: English
Director: Molly Reynolds
This film is about you as much as me and my people. It is about place and about history. To know what is best for us, you have to know us. No one from any government has even known our language…how can they know us? ” David Gulpilil
We lost the mighty David Dhalatnghu Gulpilil AM in late 2021, but he lives on in his unforgettable performances that are a fundamental part of Australian cinema history (it was his wish that his image be used, after his passing). This 2015 documentary serves as a companion to Rolf de Heer's Another Country, a film for which the actor received the Best Actor award at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival. Director Molly Reynolds follows Dhalatnghu Gulpilil, as he tells the tale of ‘Another Country’, when his people’s thousands-of-years-old way of life was interrupted by a new culture. This documentary film speaks to the havoc caused by superimposing a new culture over an old culture and the consequent clashes with all manner of things, such as time, money, garbage and errant kangaroos.
Source: SBS Movies
The Gospel of Eureka
United States, 2018
Language: English
Language: English
Directors: Michael Palmieri and Donal Mosher
Love, faith and civil rights collide in a southern town as evangelical Christians and drag queens step into the spotlight to dismantle stereotypes. Taking a personal, and often comical look at negotiating differences between religion and belief through performance, political action, and partnership, gospel drag shows and passion plays set the stage for one hell of a show. Narrated by Mx Justin Vivian Bond.
Directors Michael Palmieri and Donal Mosher say of their film, "In an era where fundamentalism in both faith and politics rule the national stage we hope to present a drama that explores the complex nature of belief and the fluid nature of faith but also provides personal windows into the issues and problems facing America as a whole."
América
United States, 2018
Language: English, Spanish
Directors: Erick Stoll and Chase Whiteside
Language: English, Spanish
Directors: Erick Stoll and Chase Whiteside
This warm and sensitive exploration of family, revolves around brothers who confront the chasm between adolescent yearning and adult responsibilities when brought together to care for their charismatic and fiery 93-year-old year old grandmother. Diego, a young circus artist, must return home and reunite with his brothers after América falls from her bed, causing their father to be jailed under accusation of elder neglect. A dreamer, Diego sees a higher purpose at work and forms the view that América, despite her immobility and advanced dementia, intended to fall, in order to reunite the separated family. Directors Stoll and Whiteside document the realities as Diego’s dream of familial cohesion fades, and the brothers clash over the logistics of América 's long-term care.
Putin's Witnesses
Latvia, Switzerland, Czech Republic, 2018
Language: Russian
Director: Vitaly Mansky
Director Vitaly Mansky was compelled to bear witness to the decades-long machinations that led to the rise and rise of Vladimir Putin. In his own director's statement Manksy speaks of the need to diagnose the 'illness' that enabled Putin's unrelenting grip on Russian power: "To overcome a grave and far-advanced illness it is necessary to make a diagnosis and to study the history of this illness. That was my logic when I conceived a film about the events, which followed the unexpected resignation of Russia’s president Boris Yeltsin and the start of 'Operation Successor'. I was witness to and participant of this operation, which brought Vladimir Putin to the Moscow throne. My testimony is very important not only for the Russian society – to cure it from an advanced disease, but also for other countries – to prevent them from losing their freedom."
Let The Fire Burn
United States, 2013
Language: English
Director: Jason Osder
In the gripping Let the Fire Burn, director Jason Osder offers a found-footage film that packs all the punch of a great thriller. On May 13, 1985, a longtime feud between the city of Philadelphia and the black liberation group MOVE came to a deadly climax. By order of local authorities, police dropped military-grade explosives onto a MOVE-occupied premises. TV cameras captured the escalation, which resulted in the tragic deaths of 11 people (including five children) and the destruction of 61 homes. It was only later discovered that authorities decided to “...let the fire burn.” Using only archival news coverage and interviews, Osder rings to life one of the most tumultuous and largely forgotten clashes between government and citizens in modern American history.
The Age of Consequences
United States, 2016
Language: English
Director: Jared P. Scott
Billed as “The Hurt Locker meets An Inconvenient Truth,” The Age of Consequences is a call to action to rethink how we use and produce energy. Through unflinching case-study analysis, distinguished military admirals, generals and veterans take us beyond the headlines of the conflict in Syria, the social unrest of the Arab Spring, the rise of radicalised groups like ISIS and the European refugee crisis to lay bare how climate change stressors interact with societal tensions and spark conflict. The film delves into how water and food shortages, drought, extreme weather and sea-level rise function as ‘accelerants of instability’ and ‘catalysts for conflict’ in volatile regions of the world.
The Age of Consequences interviews Pentagon insiders who make the compelling case that if we go on with business as usual, the consequences of climate change—waves of refugees, failed states, terrorism—will continue to grow in scale and frequency and lead to grave implications for peace and security in the 21st century.
Into Eternity
Denmark, Finlandm Sweden, 2010
Language: english
Director: Michael Madsen
Equal parts engrossing and terrifying, the poetic and haunting Into Eternity takes you a philosophical journey about how we are storing radioactive waste for future generations. In Finland the world’s first permanent repository is being hewn out of solid rock – a huge system of underground tunnels - that must last 100,000 years. Once the waste has been deposited and the repository is full, the facility is to be sealed off and never opened again. Or so we hope, but can we ensure that? And how is it possible to warn our descendants of the deadly waste we left behind? How do we prevent them from thinking they have found the pyramids of our time, mystical burial grounds, hidden treasures? Which languages and signs will they understand? And if they understand, will they respect our instructions?
