2015 has been another terrific year for documentaries and a whole host of films have already been whipping up a storm on the festival circuit.
The Look of Silence
The 2016 Oscars are creeping ever closer and the Best Documentary category is already one of the most exciting. Earlier this year we saw Citizenfour triumph over Finding Vivian Maier, Last Days in Vietnam, The Salt of the Earth, and Virunga.
We take a look at some of the early runners and riders that are already being tipped as possible Oscar contenders - there are already some terrific films that are in the mix.
- The Look of Silence
It was back in 2013 when Joshua Oppenheimer's critically acclaimed The Act of Killing was in the Oscar race - eventually losing out to 20 Feet from Stardom - and now he could see his companion movie also in the Oscar mix.
The Look of Silence is one of the most critically acclaimed documentaries of the year so far and sees Oppenheimer explore the Indonesian killings of 1965-66 once again... but this time from a different angle.
The movie follows a family that survives the genocide in Indonesia and confronts the men who killed one of the brothers. This movie explores the survivors and the victims that now live side by side and how the survivors are coping with what happened to them and their families.
The Act of Killing and The Look of Silence are two revolutionary documentaries that have been crafted with care by director Joshua Oppenheimer. He has spent years dedicated to bringing these stories to light, researching, and gaining people's trust. All this has resulted in not one but two stunning movies that finally puts this harrowing topic of Indonesian genocide in the spotlight and gives those that lived through it a voice.
Like The Act of Killing, The Look of Silence was met with critical acclaim on the festival circuit and upon release - it really is one of the most hard-hitting documentaries of the year so far and deserves to be in the Oscar spotlight.
The Act of Killing may have missed out on the Oscar but The Look of Silence has to be in the mix when the nominations are announced early next year.
- Best of Enemies
Morgan Neville won the Best Documentary feature at the 2014 Oscars for 20 Feet from Stardom and now he has teamed up with Robert Gordon of new film Best of Enemies.
Neville has brought us documentaries such as 20 Feet from Stardom, Johnny Cash, and The Cool School during his career. This is the first feature for Gordon since Johnny Cash back in 2008 and Best of Enemies sees him reunite with Neville.
Best of Enemies is based on the televised debates between Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley in 1968 and premiered at the Sundance Film Festival at the beginning of the year.
Best of Enemies is a behind-the-scenes account of the explosive televised debates between the liberal Gore Vidal and the conservative William F. Buckley Jr., during the 1968 Democratic and Republican national conventions. Live and unscripted, they kept viewers riveted with their rancorous disagreements about politics, God, and sex. Ratings for ABC News sky-rocketed; and a new era in public discourse was born.
Neville and Gordon deftly chronicle the series of TV clashes between Vidal and Buckley that would set the benchmark for future political reporting and ushered in the dawn of the TV political pundit. In addition to footage from the televised debates and interviews with friends and colleagues, the bitterness and animosity between the two political rivals is illustrated with readings from their memoirs and letters, with John Lithgow voicing Gore Vidal and Kesley Grammer taking on William F. Buckley Jr.
Best of Enemies is already being tipped as one of the best documentaries of this year and is already being tipped as a major Oscar contender.
- The Hunting Ground
The Hunting Ground is another movie that premiered at Sundance Film Festival earlier this year and is another hard-hitting watch. Could the film be in the Oscar mix come the beginning of next year? I guess we are going to have to wait and see.
The Hunting Ground marks the return of Kirby Dick to the director's chair in what is his first film since The Invisible War - which was one of the best documentaries of last year.
Once again, Dick explores the theme of sexual assault with The Hunting Ground - this time around is on college campuses in the America.
The Hunting Ground is exposé of rape crimes on U.S. college campuses, their institutional cover-ups, and the devastating toll they take on students and their families. We hear harrowing stories from students who have been assaulted whilst on their college campus and the institutional cover-ups that have followed as the colleges seem more interested in keeping their rape statistics low.
The Hunting Ground was met with acclaim at Sundance and is already one of the frontrunners when it comes to next year's Oscar nominations.
- Iris
Iris is one of the documentaries not to miss this summer and will be hitting the big screen in the UK at the end of July.
Iris sees documentary filmmaker Albert Maysles back in the director's chair for what will be the final film of his career. This time around, he will focus on Iris Apfel, who has been a huge presence on the New York fashion scene for decades.
More than a fashion film, the documentary is a story about creativity and how, even in Iris' dotage, a soaring free spirit continues to inspire. Iris portrays a singular woman whose enthusiasm for fashion, art and people are life's sustenance and reminds us that dressing, and indeed life, is nothing but an experiment.
Despite the abundance of glamour in her current life, she continues to embrace the values and work ethic established during a middle-class Queens upbringing during the Great Depression.
Iris is one of the documentaries that has gone under the radar a little bit so far this year but it could be one of the dark horses when it comes to the Oscar race next year.
- Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck
Another documentary that focuses on the life of a famous figure is Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck - which takes a look at the Nirvana frontman.
The movie marks the return of Brett Morgen to the director's chair for what was his first documentary since Crossfire Hurricane. During his career, Morgen has already brought us documentaries such as Chicago 10, On The Ropes, and The Kids Stay in the Picture.
Morgen has already been nominated for a Best Documentary Feature Oscar for On the Ropes and the director could find himself in the mix once again when the nominations are announced next year.
Morgen expertly blends Cobain's personal archive of art, music, never seen before movies, animation, and revelatory interviews from his family and closest friends. Wildly creative and highly acclaimed, follow Kurt from his earliest years in this visceral and detailed cinematic insight of an artist at odds with his surroundings. Fans and those of the Nirvana generation will learn things about Cobain they never knew while those who have recently discovered the man and his music will know what makes him the lasting icon that he still is today.
Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck was met with acclaim when it hit the big screen earlier this year and really was an intimate portrait of a fascinating and talented man. This is a movie that peels away the celebrity and gives audiences to see the real man underneath. A terrific watch and a must see for all Nirvana and music fans.
- Cartel Land
Matthew Heineman has returned to the director's chair for his third documentary feature Cartel Land, which is his first film Escape Fire: The Fight to Rescue American Healthcare.
Heineman won the Best Director Award and Special Jury Award for Cinematography in the U.S. Documentary Competition at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year.
With unprecedented access, Cartel Land is a riveting, on-the-ground look at the journeys of two modern-day vigilante groups and their shared enemy - the murderous Mexican drug cartels. In the Mexican state of Michoacán, Dr. Jose Mireles, a small-town physician known as "El Doctor," leads the Autodefensas, a citizen uprising against the violent Knights Templar drug cartel that has wreaked havoc on the region for years.
Meanwhile, in Arizona's Altar Valley - a narrow, 52-mile-long desert corridor known as Cocaine Alley - Tim "Nailer" Foley, an American veteran, heads a small paramilitary group called Arizona Border Recon, whose goal is to stop Mexico's drug wars from seeping across our border.
Cartel Land is a great look at the drugs war the view from two very different sides - it is interesting to see these two opposing points of view.
Other possible contenders include Amy, All Things Must Pass, Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief, and Listen to Me Marlon.