Welcome to the 18th edition of Document, and to our first online festival – running Monday 25 to Sunday 31 January!

Whilst we’re still very much in the eye of the storm, both globally and at home, we hope that this edition offers an engaging and social space for us to come together to affirm our shared relationship to human rights and love for innovative, thought-provoking films.

Through screenings and events addressing historic and real-time erasure of lives and experiences, this edition takes a deep dive into the ‘politics of viewing’ and the role of cinema in a world of perpetual emergency.

Films in the programme offer a counterpoint to the dominant flows of images and media that saturate our daily lives – generating complex and personal responses that prompt new ways to look at the world, and hope of claiming agency and solidarity from crisis.

The Programme:

We open the festival with a live, desktop-documentary performance by filmmaker and media artist, Kevin B Lee, exploring Bottled Songs, a cross media project depicting strategies for making sense of terrorist propaganda and its viral circulation in the contemporary mediascape.

Highlights of the screening programme include the coming together of 2000’s L.A. and 1970’s Belfast in Mariah Garnett’s intimate and playful odyssey of family and sectarianism, Trouble; Truong Minh Quý’s lyrical, quasi-sci-fi, The Tree House; Jonathan Rescigno’s explosive portrait of a French former-mining town, Strike or Die; a new work by experimental pioneers the Otolith Group, INFINITY Minus Infinity, exploring the entanglements of climate and racism in the creation of The Commonwealth; and two films that have prompted sister investigations by multidisciplinary research group, Forensic Architecture – Amel Alzakout & Khaled Abdulwahed’s profoundly personal, first-hand reflection on a fatal migrant crossing, Purple Sea; and Palestinian artist Emily Jacir’s, Letter to a Friend.

Two workshop events with writer and film curator, So Mayer, invite you to an ‘anarchival’ reimagining of lost queer histories via their new short book, A Nazi Word for a Nazi Thing – and a rare screening of Barbara Hammer’s 1990 classic of queer experimental cinema, Nitrate Kisses.

We collaborate with LUX Scotland and filmmaker and researcher, Ed Webb Ingall, for a screening and discussion event with Glasgow-based housing activists. And Ukrainian filmmaker Iryna Tsilyk leads a director masterclass around her astonishing debut feature, The Earth is Blue as an Orange.

Our annual Critical Forum discussion returns with a focus on how the global pandemic has impacted the work of human rights film festivals, with guest speakers from festivals in Bologna and São Paulo. And we’ve teamed up with Glasgow-based art writing organisation MAP Magazine to commission series of new essays exploring some of the works and themes threaded throughout the programme.

The Document team x

This is the daily round-up of live events, individual films are also available to watch separately from 25-31 Jan

Monday, 25 January

Tuesday, 26 January

Wednesday, 27 January

Thursday, 28 January

Friday, 29 January

Saturday, 30 January

Sunday, 31 January

Thank you for joining us for the first online edition of Document Film Festival! Tune in from your home screens to watch a carefully curated programme of 12 documentaries exploring the politics of viewing and the role of cinema in a world of perpetual emergency. Join us for the live events as well and be part of the conversation!

Ticket prices & Passes

The film programme is available for individual rental (£5 full price / £3 concessions), or as a Festival Pass bundle containing all the films included in the programme (£15 full price / £10 concessions). 

You can choose what you pay based on your circumstances* – you won’t be asked for any proof, we just ask that you are honest!

If you would like to pay the concessions price, add the promo code ‘PAY3’ at checkout for individual tickets, and ‘PAY10‘ for the Festival Pass. 

We have a limited number of community tickets (which provide free access to watch the films). Again, no proof is required, just get in touch at info@documentfilmfestival.org and we will facilitate that. 

Our live and pre-recorded events are free to access from anywhere in the world. Keep an eye on our website and social media channels for the exact date & time of the live events. 

*We suggest purchasing a concession priced passes and tickets if you are: student, under 16, senior citizen over 65 and anyone in receipt of Universal Credit, Job Seeker’s Allowance, Employment and Support Allowance or Carer’s Allowance.

How to watch films

All our films are available online, from anywhere in the UK via our streaming platform, Indy on Demand in partnership with Shift72. 

All films are available throughout the festival week, from 25 to 31 January, with the exception of Infinity Minus Infinity (available from 26 Jan for 48 hours) and No Data Plan (available from 27 Jan for 48 hours).

In order to watch films, you need to create an account on the platform here. It’s free and easy to join, you only need your email address. You will receive confirmation of your account and any film purchases on the same email address, so keep your log in details handy. 

Once you pay for the films you want to watch, they will appear in My Library. 

You can also browse and add the films you want to watch to My List. 

Rental & Watch Window

Once you rent a film, it will be available to watch anytime within the rental window specified at checkout. 

By pressing play, you can start watching the film and have 48 hours to complete it. Within this time frame, you can pause, re-watch or control your viewing as desired.

Please make sure to watch the film before the Rental Window expires.

If you purchase a ticket or a pass in advance, the Rental Window will start once the films are released on the platform.

How to join live events

We will host a variety of live events – including Q&As with filmmakers, a director Masterclass, a live performance, an illustrated talk, panel discussion and many others. 

You can join us in the Zoom (free, registration required – we’ll send you a link to join the meeting closer to the date) and watch on Facebook Live.

To access Zoom events, you need to download the app for FREE from zoom.us or from your device’s app store.

System requirements & devices

Read more here about the requirements to use the platform and watch content.  

You can watch the films from multiple devices (including iPhone/iPad and android devices, via the SHIFT72 app. 

You can use Chromecast to connect to your TV to watch the films available on the platform. 

Access

Films listed with the CC icon, will have full closed captions / SDH available. All other films in our programme will have English subtitles. 

Events listed with the icon above will have live captioning available. 

Live Q&As and discussion events will be recorded and posted later on our website and platform with English subtitles. 

Read the text-only version of the programme here. 

Contact us (info@documentfilmfestival.org) if you need further assistance.

Festival Producer: Alexandra-Maria Colta

Programme Producer: Sam Kenyon

Press and Marketing Coordinator: Ane Lopez

Technical Coordinator: Lewis den Hertog

Web Development: Ralph Mackenzie

Trailer and graphics design: Christopher Dickson

Programme advisors: Poppy Kohner, Oisin Kealy

Official Media Partner: The List

Captioning: Emilia Beatriz, Nicole O’Reilly, A. B. Silvera

Thank you: Paula Larkin, Mona Rai, Document Board, Centre for Contemporary Arts, INDY Cinema Group, all live captioners and volunteers.

The Document 2020 team would like to thank our funders and partners for making this year’s festival possible. We very much appreciate their generous support.