The Antenna Documentary Film Festival returns to Sydney this month, for 11 days of proof that reality can be far stranger than fiction. This is the festival’s ninth year of collecting the best in Australian and international documentary cinema: from the story of an Israeli human rights lawyer defending her husband, to a Puerto Rican salsa singer whose career peaked with a Grammy at the age of nine, and a teenager’s life in a rough Naples neighbourhood captured entirely through an iPhone. Recurrent themes throughout the festival include police violence, life after fame, and the personal cost of political activism.
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Running from 17-27 October, Antenna have doubled the length of the 2019 festival after sessions repeatedly sold out in the past. To help you choose which tickets to snap up, we listed our picks here.FOR SAMA
For Sama traces five years in the life of a young Syrian mother, Waad al-Kateab, as she falls in love, marries, and gives birth—all in the middle of catastrophic civil war. Waad must choose between fleeing Aleppo to protect her daughter’s life, and staying to continue the political struggle for freedom. The film is shot using Waad’s own camera, and is framed as a love letter to her daughter. For Sama won the L'Œil d'or award for Best Documentary at Cannes and the Grand Jury prize for Best Documentary at SXSW.17 BLOCKS
In 1999, nine-year-old Emmanuel Sanford-Durant began to film his family’s daily lives in America’s most dangerous neighbourhood—just 17 blocks behind the US Capitol building. Twenty years of home footage forms the basis of an intimate odyssey as Emmanuel matures into a promising student alongside his drug-dealer brother Smurf and aspiring-cop sister Denice. Emmanuel’s perspective shows a household filled with love, located on streets that have more to offer than guns, drugs, and violence.BELLINGCAT – TRUTH IN A POST TRUTH WORLD
Bellingcat, a group of “citizen investigative journalists”, can identify the exact location of an Islamic State murder by dissecting a Youtube video, analysing its audio, and hunting for answers on social media. Truth in a Post Truth World gives exclusive access to their tight-knit world, documenting how a collective led by a former blogger manages to break global news stories—from political assassinations to war crimes—faster than major newspapers.
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STRANGE TENANTS: SKA’D FOR LIFE
The Strange Tenants musical group emerged from working class Melbourne in the 80s to be dubbed “The Godfathers of Australia ska”. Ska’d For Life chronicles the stories behind the band’s politically driven songs, which were rallying cries against poverty, war, and fascism. Three decades later, Strange Tenants is back and releasing music with the same commitment to social justice. Antenna will screen the film in an open-air session accompanied by a rare performance from the band itself.HOMELAND STORY
Footage captured over a period of nearly 50 years from Donydji, a remote Indigenous community in East Arnhem Land, allows the viewer to observe the group transitioning from nomadic life to the digital age in just three generations. A fight with government and mining corporations to remain on ancestral land raises the stakes even higher, as the community searches for a balance between embracing the modern world and retaining a culture that has been built up over millennia.The Antenna Film Festival runs in Sydney from 17-27 October
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