The Saturday Paper is a quality weekly newspaper, dedicated to narrative journalism. It offers the biggest names and best writing in news, culture and analysis with a particular focus on Australia.
The question of how the past affects the present is at the heart of this month’s moving and informative documentary selection.
The Look Of Silence
Joshua Oppenheimer’s Academy Award-nominated film examines the lives of Indonesians whose family members were killed by neighbours, relatives and friends during the Communist executions of the late 1960s. Made in collaboration with an anonymous Indonesian filmmaker, Oppenheimer’s film asks whether peace, or even an apology, is possible after so much tragedy.
Mavis!
At 78, soul singer Mavis Staples – one-time member of the family group The Staple Singers and a collaborator with Bob Dylan, Prince, Bonnie Raitt and Jeff Tweedy – is enjoying a career resurgence. Combining live footage, rare archival material and conversations with friends and contemporaries, documentary-maker Jessica Edwards unveils a fascinating and dynamic talent.
The Man Who Stole My Mother's Face
Ten years after her mother was brutally raped in her Johannesburg home, Australian-based documentarian Cathy Henkel returns to South Africa to push for justice. As well as focusing on the crime and unpicking how her mother’s known attacker went unpunished, Henkel examines sexual violence in South Africa generally, where one in every two women is raped.
Zero Days
Alex Gibney’s investigation into the Stuxnet computer virus plays like an espionage thriller crossed with a science fiction story. First planted in an Iranian nuclear reactor by US and Israeli security agencies, the Stuxnet virus quickly spread out of control and ignited a still-simmering cyberwar that has the potential to unleash a Pandora’s box of destruction.
Where to Invade Next
Michael Moore travels from Italy to Iceland in search of solutions to America’s biggest problems. In discussing with lawmakers, government officials and industry leaders such things as free school lunches in France, universal health care in Portugal and Norway’s humane prison system, Moore finds that many of the answers already exist.
