All these documentaries have something in common: they put the mood of the reverse. They force you to walk after sitting in front of their stories to recompose the colors that, whether you like it or not, will lose your conception of reality. Platforms like Netflix or Youtube collect some of these essential stories that are better than the movies and will make you change the worldview you had before meeting their protagonists. Take a breath, take a seat and let these documentariesbegin to bother you. Believe us, it will be worth it.
1. Tickled
It all starts with the videos of an innocent tickling championship organized by the company Jane O’Brien Media, featuring men perfectly equipped with their Adidas clothes as if they were to participate in the Olympics. It was just one more frikada than the New Zealand journalist – and director of the documentary – David Farrier talks on his television show. However, although the tip of the iceberg is a peculiar laugh, under the water there are tons of garbage formed on the basis of homophobia, coercion, extortion and youth from poor neighborhoods who a father’s boy decides to cheat and ruin life with threats and videos Not allowed. Tickled stops tickling at the moment whenyou are aware that money can protect and fund any affiliate, no matter who you drag along the way.
2. Born into the brothels
Avijit, Manik, Puja, Shanti, Gour, Tapasi, Suchitra and Kochi are the names of the protagonists of Born into Brothels (“Los Niños del Barrio Rojo”), a 2004 documentary that won, among other awards, the Oscar for Best Documentary or the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival. This documentary, directed by the photographer Zana Briski and Ross Kauffman, travels to the Red Light District of Calcutta to portray the lives of prostitutes (many of them minors), who use their bodies to survive in misery. During the recording of what was to be the main story, the director knows the children of these women and creates a special bond. Briski will teach them photography, putting in the hands of these children the possibility of giving testimony of their reality through cameras that immortalise what they want. A documentary that helps to focus the gaze and awaken sensibilities before a drama that separates us many kilometers.
3. I am Jane Doe
Disgust. It is undoubtedly the word that will be repeated in your brain during and after watching this documentary. Jane Doe is the name that applies to women who during legal actions or discussions want to preserve their anonymity. In this documentary, there are hundreds of them. The protagonists want to keep their identity – not their faces – after an acronym that does not detract from the story of how they were sex slaves in a word ads website. Year 2009. Begin the narration of some girls of 13-15 years who are kidnapped, drugged, raped and sold so that those who want to buy a few hours of sex with them . The platform where the mothers located the images of their missing daughters is the American giant Backpage . With .
When the news broke with the complaint of the first girl, a series of lawsuits and lawsuits were initiated in which those responsible for the platform alleged that they were not responsible for the content that third parties will upload, even if it involved child sex trafficking. And a small point of the law, protects them. In 2017, the legal battle of these young women and their families continues, despite demonstrating the sexual abuse committed against them, they must fight because their rights prevail over freedom of expression on the Internet.
4. The Cove and Blackfish
Among the documentaries that revolve around animals, two of the hardest are The Cove and Blackfish . The first describes through a group of activists led by Rick O’Barry the appalling way in which the annual dolphin hunting is held in Taiji National Park in Japan. The dolphins that are making the migration are cornered in a hidden cove, where they are trapped with nets and killed in a primitive and cruel way. The human being is a machine of destruction, beginning with the beings of other species. This example raises the guts.
The second causes you to despise any show with animals for the unnecessary of their closure and the humiliating and unnatural conditions in which the different species are kept for the sole purpose of making money. The documentary is part of the story of Tilikum, an orca that killed three people. The reasons for such violent behavior in this and other killer whales are, according to experts consulted in the documentary, the stress and suffering suffered by such intelligent animals forced to separate from their family groups and live without freedom.
5. The Keepers
“You see what happens when you say bad things about people?” . Father Maskell introduced Jean to the inert body of his teacher, Sister Cathy Cesnik, to threaten her and to keep her lips sealed. And he got it, for 20 years. The Keepers is a documentary composed of seven chapters that is born of the investigation of the kidnapping and murder of a young nun in 1969.Decades later, that unresolved crime was shaken by the investigative work of two former students at the Keough Institute, where the death of her former teacher was only one piece in a game where the Baltimore archdiocese, the body police and a network of child abuse are the most chilling strands of those who will shoot. Although in some chapters the story is made heavy by the repetition of arguments, Ryan White directs a visual document where the Catholic Church returns to become a nest of perversion and silences.
6. The Island of Flowers
It takes 13 minutes to get slapped with this 1989 short film. In ” The Island of Flowers ” the first thing that forces you to tighten up is the opening speech: “This is not fiction. It is a place called The Island of Flowers. God does not exist . ” And then we go to a tomato plantation to meet Mr. Suzuki. This documentary directed by the Brazilian Jorge Frutado consists of a series of images ‘vomited’ without apparent cohesion, with an ironic and poignant discourse that begins to link them and leads us to a forceful and original criticism of capitalism.
7. The Act of Killing
In 1965 the Indonesian government massacred more than half a million alleged communists, ethnic Chinese, government opponents and intellectuals. Joshua Oppenheimer, director of The Act of Killing wanted to make a documentary about these executions and their executioners, who lived quietly among the population. The method used to ensure the safety and viability of the project was focused from the eyes of the killers, without the participation of human rights groups or survivors. Anwar Congo and his henchmen speak in the documentary of their murders, the techniques they used to kill and they do without a hint of remorse . The way in which the executioners narrate their crimes smash the cinema freak, you think you’re watching a comedy rather than re-enact a chapter of Asian blood-soaked history. Laughter and stupor through the same documentary, an audiovisual piece worth knowing.
8. The Wolfpack
This documentary reduces the tragedy of the aforementioned. This documentary is here because it generates controversy. There are those who see drama and who see a lawful way to protect your family. The Wolfpack is a reflection of the damage caused by the extreme overprotection of children. It is the example that taking children away from life in society – however corrupt it may be – is not the solution. The Angulo brothers live 14 years with little contact with the outside in a Manhattan apartment where the life outside the walls comes to them through the films they recreate like game and evasion.
The director Crystal Moselle met these young people by chance and during 4 years worked in its history. The Wolfpack generates sadness for a child stolen purposely for fear of the outside. The confinement of these brothers was a decision faced by parents who left their own children without freedom. But it also has a huge burden of hope for the intellectual survival of young people who found in the film culture a window to the world that they could not touch.
The protagonists of these documentaries are just an example of essential stories. They have already shouted and shared their dramas, now it is waiting for the mobilization of consciences, noise is generated and the silence that usually stoned these lives is banished.
