Doc Edge Film Festival Selections 2024
The Govett-Brewster Art Gallery | Len Lye Centre is proud to partner with the Doc Edge Film Festival team to bring a curated selection of highlights from the 2024 festival season. Headed up by the wonderful I am the River, The River is Me and featuring a broad range of film titles from a celebration of the life and work of extraordinary artist Barry Brickell to the highs and lows of a celebrated ballet dancer, the changing landscape of journalism to the government turns its back on the people. 6 incredible feature documentaries, only on the big screen.
Films:
Ko au te Awa, ko te Awa ko au – I Am The River, The River Is Me
Thu 5 Dec | 7:00 pm | Exempt | Book your seats
Fri 6 Dec | 10:30 am | Exempt | Book your seats
A journey binding hearts and igniting change.
The Whanganui River is the first river in the world to be recognised as a legal person, as a living adult indivisible being.
Māori river guardian Ned Tapa invites a First Nations Elder from Australia and his daughter, who are activists to saving their own dying river back home, on a five-day canoe trip down this sacred river. Both mirror and inspiration, the river unites all the travellers organically, where everyone has a voice to share stories of humour and light, and a space to heal from the darkness of the past, of enduring historical injustice.
2024 | NE | Documentary | 86 min | Dir. Petr Lom
Spontaneous Combustion: Songs for Barry Brickell
Sat 7 Dec | 10:30 am | Exempt | Book your seats
When the natural environment and the human imagination combine.
A celebration of Barry Brickell's legacy and the realisation of his extraordinary dream, Driving Creek Railway, a productive pottery with numerous kilns, a railway, a native bird sanctuary, and a lively creative hub drawing artists from around the globe.
The film reflects the sensual attachment Brickell felt to the land and human form, as expressed in the ceramic sculptures that defined his creativity. It is a paean to all Barry held dear: the bush, the railway, the company of friends, conversation, and song. A cinematic montage of historical stills and film from present-day Driving Creek is woven with a spirited, poetic narration by Greg O'Brien, with a sumptuous soundtrack including compositions by Gillian Whitehead and Ross Harris.
2024 | NZ | Documentary | 70 min | Dir. Bruce Robert Foster
**Screening with the following short film**
Breaking The Mould
A visceral glimpse into the life and work of acclaimed New Zealand sculptor, Jaime Jenkins, whose unconventional upbringing combines with the elements to inform her ceramic explorations.
2024 | NZ | Documentary | 14 min | Dir. Phillida Perry
The Other Side
Sat 7 Dec | 3:00 pm | Exempt | Book your seats
Russia’s war on Ukraine – as rarely seen through Russian eyes.
Journalist Sean Langan travels into the Russian side of the war in Ukraine, offering a never-before-seen perspective on the conflict. He witnesses the lethal reality of this war, where drones loiter threateningly over WW1-style trenches. He meets Russian special forces who threaten to eat his liver and mercenaries who have seen action in Bucha. But this remarkable film also shows the human face of the other side of this war - civilians living under siege, young students and an old babushka who invites him for tea, coffee and pickles.
Dark, intimate, and at times bleakly funny, this film captures what life is like for those fighting, and for those civilians who’ve been caught up in Eastern Ukraine’s conflict for the past decade.
2024 | UK | Documentary | 99 min | Dir. Sean Langan
Rather be Ashes than Dust
** Winner - Doc Edge Category awards: Democracy of the Edge **
Sun 8 Dec | 10:30 am | Exempt | Book your seats
When fear dictates, objectivity retreats.
What are the challenges journalists face when covering increasingly challenging global crisis of war, civil disobedience, famine and hunger? Witnessing acts of government crackdown and injustice, should they remain objective? What are their choices when the government turns against them?
Although journalism is not listed as one of the most dangerous professions, journalists have been killed, kidnapped, imprisoned, attacked, and accused of spying while doing their job.
Using the Hong Kong protest movement in 2019 as a backdrop, this film follows a Hong Kong video-journalist who recounts his experience during the protest movement that leads to his decision to leave Hong Kong.
2024 | CA/HK/UK | Documentary | 114 min | Dir. Alan Lau / Subtitled
Resilient Man
Thu 12 Dec | 4:00 pm | Exempt | Book your seats
How does a dancer bounce back from a tragic event?
The film charts the physical and mental journey back from the brink. In the middle of a performance, Steven McRae, a famous principal dancer at the Royal Ballet of London, is catastrophically injured, breaking his Achilles tendon. At the height of his career, that career is dramatically put on hold.
Will Steven ever be able to dance again? For one year, director Carrel filmed the return of Steven to the stage and his training to recover alongside his engagement for mental health within the dance world. At 35 years old, he either recovers or his career is over. That's how it is in the world of ballet.
2024 | FR/UK | Documentary | 90 min | Dir. Stéphane Carrel
Mauri
Sat 14 Dec | 10:30 am | Exempt | Book your seats
A testament to the radiant beauty and unbreakable resilience of Māori culture.
The film is an intimate, visually stunning testament to a land and a people who have survived removal, exploitation and colonisation — and to the healing ways that are part of the Māori ancestral knowledge. It juxtaposes the enduring trauma of colonialism with the resilience offered through ancestral healing traditions.
Exploring intergenerational trauma and the loss of indigenous identity it also contrasts traditional healing practices, which provide a holistic approach to well-being, with Western therapeutic trauma-healing methods, disconnected from the indigenous worldviews and relationships.
2024 | US | Documentary | 71 min | Dir. Maurizio Benazzo, Zaya Benazzo
