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BRITDOC announces competition films

This year's programme ranges from the best British Features, to the Best of the Fests, aided and abetted by two wonders to highlight this year's themes of Comedy and Music. The Yes Men will be screening a work in progress of what promises to be a hilarious but hard hitting film and Robert Flaherty's seminal Nanook of the North will screen with a live soundtrack from The Shine Synchro System.

The line up is as follows:

British Feature Competition

Blood Trail - dir. Richard Parry
In 1992, 24-year-old rooky, Robert King, threw everything he owned into a bag and headed to war-torn Sarajevo to make a name for himself as a war photographer.  The film reflects one man's need to achieve recognition against the odds and illustrates how war zones can create burnout in the most hardened journalists, who sometimes pay the ultimate price trying to open the eyes of the world to global crisis.

Chosen - dir. Brian Woods
Chosen is testament to the power of a compelling story, simply told. The film deals with a subject often whispered but rarely spoken about - the sexual abuse of boys by teachers in Britain's private schools. Three middle class men who were abused at the same school, Tom, Mark and Alistair, tell their stories straight to camera 30 years on.

Day After Peace - dir. Jeremy Gilley
Jeremy Gilley's inspirational film picks up where his earlier work Peace One Day left off. After succeeding in the Herculean task of creating Peace Day - a day that the UN sanctified as a global ceasefire though never acted on - Gilley now takes it upon himself to try and silence the cynics and prove that Peace Day can save lives. This film follows that journey.

Heavy Load - dir. Jerry Rothwell
Heavy Load follows director Jerry Rothwell in his own pursuit of happiness through the filming of an unlikely punk band. Michael, Simon and Jim are three adults with learning disabilities who, with their support workers Mick and Paul, make up Heavy Load. The film is an honest and revealing portrait of the bands journey and the affect that filmmaking has on both them and the director.

Life After the Fall - dir. Kasim Abid
Abid returned to Iraq and his family shortly after the fall of Saddam in 2003, some 30 years after his exile. This film is the story of his family and offers a unique insight into modern-day Iraq. Having survived dictatorship, war and sanctions, Abid's family were ready to embrace change, not knowing what that change would bring.

Man on Wire - dir. James Marsh
In 1974 New York's Twin Towers were nearing completion, and for some years previous it was one man's dream to walk a tightrope between them. Man on Wire is the hugely entertaining tale of the irrepressible Philippe Petit, the man who astonished the world by walking a tightrope across the Twin Towers, completely illegally and without a safety net.

Starstruck aka Son of Eurovision - dir. Jamie J Johnson
This feature pop-umentary follows the fortunes of the 2007 Junior Eurovision contestants, delivering a quirky and moving insight into what it is to be a young euro with burgeoning dreams. With the EU constantly stretching its boundaries, the film is a reminder of our history and our future, through the eyes of four wonderfully different characters from European nations old and new. Johnson builds portraits using fantastically individual musical interludes and an idiosyncratic take on European history.

The End - dir. Nicola Collins
Collins explores the fascinating lives of her father Les Falco and his friends, infamous gangsters born in the war-torn East End who went on to trhive in the underworld. Despite their lack of remorse in their retellings of how they built reputations through violence, one cannot help but warm to these men and their respect for a unified code.

Thriller in Manilla - dir. John Dower
In 1975 Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier fought their third and final contest in the Philippines. What unfolded in the searing heat of Manila is now considered the greatest boxing match in history. With unprecedented access, Dower's film tells the story from the perspective of 'the other man in the ring': Joe Frazier

Young@Heart - dir. Stephen Walker
Young@Heart is the heartbreaking, joyous story of a choir of senior citizens (average age 80!) and their musical director, Bob Cilman, as they prepare for their Alive and Well tour. Coldplay never sounded so good.

Best of Fests

In addition to the British selection the festival has re-jigged its International selection this year to try and give an overview on what's happening on the International Festival circuit. Five of the biggest festivals around - SUNDANCE, IDFA, BERLIN, TORONTO and SXSW will screen some of their favourite films from the last 12 months.

Sundance presents:

Trouble the Water - dir. Tia Lessin & Carl Deal
This powerful and troubling film is a first hand experience of Hurricane Katrina as lived through by some of the cities poorest residents, aspiring rap artist Kim and her streetwise husband Scott. Despite the mayors calls to evacuate the city before the disaster hit, no public transport was provided and for Kim and Scott the only option was to stay and brave it out, which they did, filming as the situation worsened.

IDFA presents:

Up the Yangtze - dir. Yung Chang
This spectacularly beautiful film gives us a disquieting insight of a changing China through a luxury cruise on the Yangtze river towards the Three Gorges Dam. It's a story of sacrifices for modernisation as the river rises and more and more farming families are displaced, their way of life destroyed.

Berlin presents:

Heavy Metal in Baghdad - Dir. Eddy Moretti & Suroosh Alvi
Heavy Metal in Baghdad follows the dreams of the only heavy metal band in Iraq – young people under constant threat whose main desire is for peace, a better life and the freedom to be able to play their music.

Toronto presents:

Obscene - Dirs. Daniel O’Connor and Neil Orgenberg
Obscene is a story of American censorship through the life of Barney Rosset – one of the great unsung heroes in post-war America’s battle for freedom of expression.

SXSW presents:

At the Death House Door - dir's. Steve James and Peter Gilbert
Steve James (Hoop Dreams) and Peter Gilbert's latest film follows the remarkable journey of Carroll Pickett, the former death house chaplain at Huntsville Prison, Texas. From 1982 until 1995, Pickett ministered to 95 men who were executed, aiming to calm them before they went to the gurney.

FOURDOCS British Short Doc Competition

The Solitary Life Of Cranes - Dir: Eva Weber
Part city symphony part visual poem, ‘The Solitary Life of Cranes’ is a mesmerising and fascinating insight into a world unnoticed by most of us. It explores the invisible life of a city, its patterns and hidden secrets, seen through the eyes of crane drivers working high above its street.

My Name Is Karl - Dir: Moritz Siebert
Karl appeared in summer of 2006 at a police office at the Mannheim, southern Germany, unable to remember anything about his life apart from his name. The film follows Karl as the director tries to unravel the truth of his story.

Made in Queens - Dir: Nicolas Randall
In a rented garage on the outskirts of Queens NY, something incredible is happening. A group of imaginative tinkerers from Trinidad work late into the night creating something nobody had ever seen before: enormous sound systems rigged onto bmx bikes.

Valley of the Goats - Dir: Leon Dean
The residents of the town of Lynton and Lynmouth in Exmoor National Park are at war over a breed of wild mountain goats that have lived in the nearby Valley of the Rocks for hundreds of years. Can a group dedicated to the protection of this rare breed, The Friends of the Goats, save the animals from extinction?

Sanctuary – Dir. Lovejit K. Dhaliwal
Sanctuary is the true story of one woman, Marjorie, who tries to seek asylum in the UK. Speaking of her experiences in her own words, this film illustrates the journey she goes through - her inward journey as she confronts the affects of her torture and her outward journey as she struggles for asylum.

BRITDOC runs from July 23rd-25th in Keble College, Oxford.

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