Not all are there, as many of the best documentaries of the year have not yet reached digital platforms, but some of them can already be found in the Filmin, Disney+, HBO Max, Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Movistar Plus+ catalogues. We select seven outstanding titles that have hit Spanish screens in the last 12 months.
‘Professor Bachmann and his class’ (Filmin)
Classroom filming is a subgenre that has achieved very good results in the recent history of documentary film. To be and to have (2002) by Nicolas Philibert and The Class (2008), in which Laurent Cantent has fused truth and fiction, prove this. Maria Speth’s film is one of those illuminating stories that make your heart shrink. Shot in a school in Stadtallendorf, an industrial German town, it follows the teachings of the quirky professor Dieter Bachmann to a diverse group of teenagers from nearly a dozen different countries. An everyday hero for a crucial task of humanity.
“Fire of Love” (Disney+)
It would be logical to think that a documentary about volcanoes is a documentary about science, but this Sara Dosa film has many emotions. The beauty of nature accompanies and serves as a metaphor for the love story of Katia and Maurice Krafft, a married couple of French volcanologists who died in the 1990s doing what they wanted most: capturing the most shocking images of eruptions around the world … the world. The director forms a trio with her protagonists, from which she rescues the archival images they took to combine them with others shot today, often in an aesthetic typical of independent cinema.
Katia and Maurice Krafft in “Fire of Love”.
“The Janes” (HBO Max)
Tia Lessin and Emma Pildes work side by side to collect the memories of this pre-Roe v. Wade served dozens of years in Chicago prison when abortion was illegal nationwide. According to her own calculations, she helped carry out more than 11,000 abortions in less than a decade. Unfortunately, their testimonials have gained even more value in 2022.
Trailer for “The Janes”.
‘Escape’ (Movistar Plus+)
Animation and documentary film is another successful combination. It was with Chris the Swiss (2018) and with Waltz with Bashir (2008). In this Danish film directed by Jonas Poher Rasmussen, an Afghan refugee living in Europe decides to tell his personal story, a traumatic journey in search of a home and an identity. He does so on the condition that the identity he found in Denmark remains anonymous. Last year, Flee achieved a historic triple at the Oscars, earning nominations for Best International Film, Best Animated Feature Film and Best Documentary.
Trailer for “Escape”.
“Descendants” (Netflix)
The descendants of the survivors of the Clotilda, the last ship to transport enslaved Africans to the United States in 1860, justify their family history in Margaret Brown’s 2022 Sundance Award-winning film. what these relatives don’t find in textbooks – and a look at the current miserable conditions in Africatown, the area of Alabama where these illegal slaves ended up. Its protagonists claim a past to claim a future.
“Oswald. The Forger’ (Filmin)
Kike Maíllo explores the unclassifiable personality of Oswald Aulestia, considered one of history’s greatest art forgers. Spanish, Italian and American authorities have persecuted him at some point in his almost 70-year life, but he currently resides in central Barcelona creating paintings with his own signature. At the pace of a thriller, the filmmaker pushes the boundaries of the genre through a protagonist who tells his story as a master of deception.
Oswald Aulestia in his home workshop in the Gràcia district of Barcelona along with his original work. Photo: Gianluca Battista. On video, trailer of ‘Oswald. The Fassifier’.
“Lucy and Desi” (Amazon Prime Video)
Amazon Prime Video complemented one of its key fictional releases of the season, Being the Ricardos, about the love story of comics pioneer Lucille Ball and her husband Desi Arnaz, with the premiere of this documentary dedicated to the couple. Actress and director Amy Poehler (Parks & Recreation) decides to pay a definite homage to her protagonists with agile rhythm and empathetic tone.
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