WATCH DOCS 2013
FIRE IN THE BLOOD
Recommended. An eye-opener. It turns out most drug research and development is government funded and only 12% comes from pharmaceutical corporations which benefit from it financially. A clever depiction of inner workings of pharmaceutical companies under different jurisdictions.
GOD LOVES UGANDA
Watchable. That's how I found out about killings of homosexuals in a number of African countries but in a typically American documentary style it's full of talking heads with little data provided and shortlisting it for an Oscar is a bit over the top.
NOCES ROUGES
Watchable. Reveals little known aspects of the Khmer Rouge regime, unfortunately in a typical French documentary style where the camera follows the protagonists everywhere without editing.
LONDON - THE MODERN BABYLON
Recommended. A punk-style social history of London covering racial tensions, poverty, sexual revolution and the core of London lifestyle - partying throughout decades - with great music background. The funniest bits are racial though, e.g. a black guy saying: "London used to be a paradise, but then came Russians, Czechs, Poles, Somalis and other Africans."
HOW TO MAKE MONEY SELLING DRUGS
Recommended. I'm against liberalisation of drug laws but the film fantastically explains the economics of drug dealing and fighting this crime.
NO FIRE ZONE: THE KILLING FIELDS OF SRI LANKA
Walked out. It's more like a news broadcast than a documentary film.
BANAZ: A LOVE STORY
Recommended. I had heard of honour killings several times before but it was only this full-length account of one that made me realise the horror of being cornered, stalked and murdered by your own family. Just compare it to an American thriller in which the protagonist is stalked by just one character. Here, it's a real life, organised crime committed by people you normally trust.
MEA MAXIMA CULPA: SILENCE IN THE HOUSE OF GOD
Watchable. It starts off as innocently as church seems to be. Then you learn about paedophilia on a local scale and then about its wider and wider circles leading as high as the Pope's immediate environment. Unlike regular paedophiles, priests don't record and share child porn. They just perpetrate the crime as they please while their non-abusing colleagues sweep it all under the carpet. Everyone is implicated this way or another, including "our" pope John Paul II. In the film only the number of, typical for US docs, talking heads becomes annoying - everything has been said already and you still get more and more people commenting on the same to ensure no one's freedom of speech gets breached.
ONVERWACHT (UNEXPECTED)
Watchable. Nothing in this film convinces you of the woman's need to abort. It's just quite peculiar to see how many women are able to discuss the issue in quite a detached manner.
GOOGLE AND THE WORLD BRAIN
Watchable. Have you heard of Google stealing people's wifi passwords and search histories while shooting Street View images? While scary enough to be fascinating, this is as far as the film goes in its allegations against Google. The rest is just about copyright.
AFTER TILLER
Recommended. I used to see abortion as evil and conducting it in the third trimester as unspeakable. The film has turned my views upside down. Most of the women portrayed wanted to have a baby but hearing of inborn diseases the child would cope with all its life, they choose the lesser evil. And the moral dilemmas involved are just as hard for the few doctors determined to help them out in spite of violent attacks on their clinics and themselves.
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