A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion picture intended to "document reality, primarily for instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in terms of "a filmmaking practice, a cinematic tradition, and mode of audience reception [that remains] a practice without clear boundaries".
Robert Joseph Flaherty, was an American filmmaker who directed and produced the first commercially successful feature-length documentary film, Nanook of the North (1922). The film made his reputation and nothing in his later life fully equaled its success, although he continued the development of this new genre of narrative documentary with Moana (1926), set in the South Seas, and Man of Aran (1934), filmed in Ireland's Aran Islands. Flaherty is considered the father of both the documentary and the ethnographic film.
Robert Maurice Lipson Winston, Baron Winston, is a British professor, medical doctor, scientist, television presenter and Labour peer.
Deeyah Khan is a Norwegian documentary film director and human rights activist of Punjabi/Pashtun descent. Deeyah is a two-time Emmy Award winner, two time Peabody Award winner, a BAFTA winner and has received the Royal Television Society award for Best Factual Director. She has made seven documentaries to date, all have been shown on ITV in the UK as part of its Exposure series.
Mina Shum is an independent Canadian filmmaker. She is a writer and director of award-winning feature films, numerous shorts and has created site specific installations and theatre. Her features, Double Happiness and Long Life, Happiness & Prosperity both premiered in the US at the Sundance Film Festival and Double Happiness won the Wolfgang Staudte Prize for Best First Feature at the Berlin Film Festival and the Audience Award at Torino. She was director resident at the Canadian Film Centre in Toronto. She was also a member of an alternative rock band called Playdoh Republic.
Ainslie Thomas Henderson is a Scottish animator and singer-songwriter. He gained fame via his participation in the BBC's television programme, Fame Academy, in 2002. He signed a recording contract with Mercury Records after leaving the show, having been placed fourth. His subsequent single, "Keep Me a Secret", written alongside fellow contestants in Fame Academy, reached the fifth position on the UK Singles Chart.
The BAFTA TV Awards, or British Academy Television Awards, are presented in an annual award show hosted by the BAFTA. They have been awarded annually since 1955.
Andrea Arnold, OBE is an English filmmaker and former actor. She won an Academy Award for her short film Wasp in 2005. Her feature films include Red Road (2006), Fish Tank (2009), and American Honey (2016), all of which have won the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival. Arnold has also directed four episodes of the Amazon Prime Video series Transparent, as well as all seven episodes of the second season of the HBO series Big Little Lies. Her documentary Cow premiered at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival and played at the 2021 Telluride Film Festival.
Bruce Parry is an English documentarian, indigenous rights advocate, author, explorer, trek leader and former Royal Marines commando officer. He employs an ethnographic style and a form of participant observation for his documentaries.
Peter Kosminsky is a British writer, director and producer. He has directed Hollywood movies such as White Oleander and television films like Warriors, The Government Inspector, The Promise, Wolf Hall and The State.
Asif Kapadia is a British filmmaker.
Maverick Television is a television and media production company.
Media Archive for Central England(MACE) is the public sector regional film archive that collects, preserves and provides access to film, television and other moving image materials that relate to the governmental regions of the East Midlands and West Midlands (region).
Bead Game is a 1977 animated short film by Ishu Patel, created by arranging beads into the shapes of real and mythical creatures, who absorb and devour one another, thus, evolving into scenes of modern human warfare. Jnan Prakash Ghosh provides music for the 5 min 35 second film, which was produced at the National Film Board of Canada.
Hell and Back Again is a 2011 American-British-Afghan documentary film produced, shot, and directed by Danfung Dennis, about a sergeant in the United States Marine Corps who returns from the Afghanistan conflict with a badly broken leg and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Searching for Sugar Man is a 2012 documentary film about a South African cultural phenomenon, written and directed by Malik Bendjelloul, which details the efforts in the late 1990s of two Cape Town fans, Stephen "Sugar" Segerman and Craig Bartholomew Strydom, to find out whether the rumoured death of American musician Sixto Rodriguez was true and, if not, to discover what had become of him. Rodriguez's music, which had never achieved success in his home country of the United States, had become very popular in South Africa, although little was known about him there.
FOCAL International is the trade association representing stock footage companies, post-production facilities and individuals involved in the use of footage, still images and audio in all forms of media production. It represents more than 300 companies and individuals involved in media production, asset management, preservation of historical archives, film restoration and post-production.
Simon Pummell is a British filmmaker currently based in Amsterdam in The Netherlands, best known for directing Bodysong (2003) a documentary feature film that portrays the human life-cycle through archive footage from across a century of moving image creation.
The Aesthetica Short Film Festival (ASFF) is an international film festival which takes place annually in York, England, at the beginning of November. Founded in 2011, it is a celebration of independent film from around the world, and an outlet for supporting and championing filmmaking.
Janine Marmot is a British film producer and founder of Hot Property Films. She is best known for the BAFTA-winning documentary Bodysong and the relationship drama Kelly + Victor, which won the Outstanding British Debut BAFTA award in 2014.
