2023 has been one of the most professionally exhilarating years of my life but also one of the hardest. I have been affected deeply by losing Tom Butchart suddenly in June, the childhood friend “the keeper of sacred knowledge and provider of affordable dreams” that I made SOUND IT OUT (my 2011 film) about. We also lost my mother-in-law Pat and documentary titan Jess Search. The impact of these deaths have intertwined with hugely positive experiences that I could never have predicted, leaving me a little discombobulated, determined to live with boldness, albeit with a twinge of melancholy.
In February I received the Chicken & Egg Award, which is given to eight established filmmakers from marginalised genders a year. The recipients form a cohort, are given mentorship (mine is the brilliant Elaine McMillion Sheldon, director of King Coal), and an unrestricted prize. I spent some of my award going out to New Mexico to experiment with the arts lab at the University of New Mexico and to get weird in the desert. I also started working with a trainer to learn how to powerlift. Very useful if you’re a filmmaker with a disability who holds a camera in their hands for long periods of time.
Four of my films were released as a Criterion Collection in June – People Person: The Documentaries of Jeanie Finlay and getting to visit the fabled closet and pick my favourite films was a nerd’s dream come true. Yes, you get to keep your selections.
My latest film Your Fat Friend was launched into the world in June, premiering at Tribeca. I started this film, my ninth feature, from a personal place, wanting to explore what this potent three letter word meant to me. I found in Aubrey Gordon an articulate charisma-bomb who allowed me and my camera into her and her family’s life for six years. I figured I would scratch the itch – made with my whole heart – and quietly get the film out of my system. What I did not anticipate was the ardent audience reaction. Our screenings sold out in minutes and as the credits rolled in New York the audience stood up. I rushed Aubrey down to the front of the cinema – “We need to tell them there is a Q&A and not to leave”. It then dawned on it was a standing ovation. At the risk of sounding all Gee Shucks, I was, and continue to be completely blown away by audience reactions to Your Fat Friend. I warned Aubrey ahead of our Sheffield DocFest premiere that UK audiences can be quieter, more reserved and to set her expectations. We sold out the legendary Crucible Theatre and took home the audience award. In 2024, we are taking the film out to cinemas across the UK, US and further afield. I can’t wait for more people to see the film, connecting with audiences and making an impact is still a feeling I won’t ever get over.
I served on a number of film juries and committees this year, including the London Film Festival and The Griersons, which have afforded me uninterrupted time in the cinema watching new films. My top three choices are all titles I saw as part of my jury time.
Hosting Q&As of documentaries playing at Broadway gave me the opportunity to talk to filmmakers about how and why they make their films, including – the provocative Subject, Dunstan Bruce and Sophie Robinson’s I Get Knocked Down, the great Carol Morley’s Typist Artist Pirate King and Paul Sng’s rousing Tish. It’s always enlightening to find out more about filmmakers and their craft.
A failed trip to London to see Thelma Schoonmaker on stage at the BFI (I was exactly 24 hours early) led to my favourite rewatch of the year – the beautiful remaster of Powell and Pressburger’s I Know Where I’m Going!
I undertook a Hayao Miyazaki deep dive in the summer, rewatching some Ghibli classics as well as the excellent 2013 doc The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness (Yume to kyôki no ôkoku) and spoke to Alex Steed and Sarah Marshall at You Are Good about My Neighbor Totoro. After NY jetlag rendered my attempt to watch The Boy and The Heron absolutely pitiful, I can’t wait to watch again, this time while fully awake.
As I’ve travelled, I’ve made even more effort to see art in each city – A very moving Bruce Nauman installation in Santa Fe, Chris Killip at Baltic, Nan Goldin’s powerful slide shows in Amsterdam, enormous video installations in the galleries of Seoul and the bunkers of the Demilitarised Zone. Images that are seared on my retinas.
The documentary/film industry may be in somewhat of a freefall with the fabled “golden age of documentary” ushered in by the streamers proving to be anything but. For me, the areas of hope seem to be from new people and new approaches to audience connection coming through, including Ella Bee Glendining’s Is There Anybody Out There, Dylan Howitt’s The Nettle Dress and Queendom. I’ll be sharing more about my recent adventures with audiences in 2024.
Lastly, I’m hopeful for the new film I’m making with Charlie Phillips, back in the north east England of my childhood. I thought there may be a point where I’d want to stop making things but my passion for filmmaking is still unabated. Onwards!
Honourable mentions: A longer than normal pre-amble before my actual top 11 (sorry MarBelle) but it’s been a year of endings, shaking things up and being open to possibilities. The world is on fire and I’m attempting to peer between the flames.
11. THE HOLDOVERS | Alexander Payne
Curious that this claustrophobic, darkly funny and beautiful film is getting its UK release in January. I watched on Christmas Eve and completely fell for its seasonal, bittersweet charms.
10. BARBIE | Greta Gerwig
In 2023 there had to be mention of Barbie – if only for the absolute chaos of seeing my home base Broadway Cinema deal with every single screening being sold out for what felt like weeks. I finally got a ticket the second week of opening and whooped it up with a dressed-up full house. Could the film be more revolutionary? Sure! But the jokes are thick and fast (the vertical brick wall joke, the hobby horse cavalry, the Ken ballet), I appreciated the mother-daughter story while watching with my daughter, and the live experience was everything.
9. RYE LANE | Raine Allen-Miller
The widescreen tracking shots of south London, the Terence Trent D’arby banger and an irresistible meet-cute. A bonafide joy.
8. WOMEN TALKING | Sarah Polley
The best needle drop of the year – namely the song that haunted my childhood; Daydream Believer – and the film spun forward by decades. Such smart and moving filmmaking.
7. BOTTOMS | Emma Seligman
My most laugh out loud visit to the cinema this year. Bottoms is the tops. That’s the review.
6. THE ZONE OF INTEREST | Jonathan Glazer
Johnnie Burn deserves all the sound plaudits for the audio storytelling in this film alone. I can’t stop thinking about how it sat like a dark fog over terrifyingly everyday domestic scenes.
5. IN THE REAR VIEW | Maciek Hamela
The journey of people fleeing Ukraine, seen solely through the rear view mirror of a people carrier careering towards the border. An elegant device for a devastating, human story of the impact of war.
4. FALLEN LEAVES | Aki Kaurismäki
I could watch this film forever. A darkly dry, romantic comedy full of hidden emotion and melancholic crockery. Look out for a cameo from Evi Salmelin the karaoke hostess at the heart of my 2022 pick Karaoke Paradise and a wonderfully glum pub band.
3. DANCING ON THE EDGE OF A VOLCANO | Cyril Aris
Someone in the film describes what they are trying to do – continuing to make a feature film in the dusty aftermath of an enormous explosion in the port of Lebanon – as “Lost in La Mancha meets Apocalypse Now”. They are not wrong. The film is a moving, gallows humour fuelled, devastating exploration of what art is ultimately for.
2. BYE BYE TIBERIAS | Lina Soualem
We awarded Soualem’s film the grand jury prize for best documentary at the London Film Festival. It tells the deeply moving story of four generations of women of a Palestinian family, attempting to return to Tiberias, also known as the Sea of Galilee, where Jesus is said to have walked on water. Soualem’s mother is Hiam Abbass who left aged 23 to pursue an acting career, most recently seen in Succession. The ongoing war and destruction in Gaza only heighten the poignancy of this deeply personal film.
1. ALL THAT BREATHES | Shaunak Sen
In the unrest of New Delhi birds are falling out of the sky due to pollution. We follow two brothers’ Sisyphean attempt to save the bird of prey, the black kite. The film is stunning, light of touch and rammed full of ‘how the fuck did they do that’ shots that say more about civil unrest and climate change than thousands of films before them. A total triumph and the effortless winner of the Grierson Best Cinematic Documentary 2023.
You can check out the rest of team DN’s Top Ten picks here.
