One of my guest speakers pointed out the other day that we average 23 minutes a day searching for something to watch. That adds up to seven years of our lives. Gulp. To make it easier on you, assuming you’re reading this cause you love documentaries, here are some films well worth your time:

Real Stories

I recently interviewed Adam Gee about his original commissioning for the Real Stories channel on Youtube. Here are some of my favourite films that the channel has acquired:

One Killer Punch

I found this programme riveting – not surprising perhaps as it comes from the always outstanding Raw TV.

You can also see the below BMX storyline, which was left out of the original programme, but has gone on to gain many viewers, both through Headway and the Guardian:

Battleship Antarctica

This is an outstanding and overlooked little gem by the very talented Morgan Matthews, and a great example of how observational documentary can lead you to unexpected places.

Mum and Me

As evidenced by her multiple appearances in this blog, I’m a big Sue Bourne fan. Here’s a very personal film she made about her mum:

Meet the Mormons

I found this fascinating – great access, great story, ’nuff said.

Other Real Stories films I recommend are The Drug Trial, My Sister the Geisha (which, admittedly, I worked on back in my development days at Stampede), My Fake Baby, and Fighting the Taliban.

BBC IPlayer

There are a couple Docs on Screens-featured films currently on I-Player: Sean McAllister’s A Syrian Love Story, is available for another twelve days and, for another three weeks Mark Craig’s The Last Man on the Moon.

And I highly recommend Jamie Roberts’ Manchester: The Night of the Bomb (exec produced by Dan Reed), as a gripping, moving and insightful account of the tragedy.

In the last few years I’ve guest lectured for the Grierson Trust’s DocLab, where participants as part of the mentoring programme develop doc ideas. One of the best ideas last year was from Ryan Gregory, who went on to win a new Sheffield Doc/Fest pitch. The film is now up on BBC Three. Below is a short version, with the full film available on the IPlayer:

 

Lots of good docs on All 4 and Netflix as well, but those will have to wait for another post.

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If you live in London and want to dip more into great docs, please sign up for the course I will be teaching at the Crouch End Picturehouse. We’ll be talking about British docs for six Wednesday evenings from mid June.