समाचार

Bobby Fischer was not only one of the greatest chess players of all time, he was possibly also one of the most enigmatic figures of the 20th century.

After his 1972 World Championship victory in Iceland against the Ussr's Boris Spassky (pictured right), Fischer - who was born in Chicago and raised in New York - vanished off the radar but resurfaced for a 1992 rematch held in Yugoslavia.

However, Yugoslavia was under a Un embargo at the time, so Fischer's American passport was revoked. When he travelled to Japan on the invalid documentation, he was detained there for nine months (see picture below), before being granted citizenship by Iceland where he lived until his death in 2008, aged 64.

Now his story is being brought to life by the award-winning, Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker Liz Garbus.

Released in UK cinemas by distributors Dogwoof on July 15, Bobby Fischer Against the World traces the Grandmaster from...

While I've yet to see the doc myself (I reference Claire Denis' White Material when I think of what the film might hold narratively), when the Cinema Eye Honor Noms were released I was surprised to see that, despite the positive buzz, Lucy Bailey and Andrew Thompson's Mugabe and the White African only manage to grab one nomination. Clearly the film is a favorite for the 2009 edition of the Ida Awards - it picked up three nominations in the Feature Documentary, ABCNews VideoSource Award an the Pare Lorentz Award categories. - While I've yet to see the doc myself (I reference Claire Denis' White Material when I think of what the film might hold narratively), when the Cinema Eye Honor Noms were released I was surprised to see that, despite the positive buzz, Lucy Bailey and Andrew Thompson's Mugabe and the White African only manage to grab one nomination.

Shouting Fire: Stories from the Edge of Free Speech explores free speech in America by addressing contemporary cases in which the First Amendment has played a very significant role. The documentary not only looks at how free speech has been challenged in our country, but also how willing or unwilling Americans are to give up civil liberties in exchange for national security in a post-9/11 era. Filmmaker Liz Garbus speaks with her father, First Amendment attorney Martin Garbus as part of the narrative for the film. Garbus takes us through the era of McCarthyism as well as other pivotal times in our nation's history when the First Amendment was put to the test, using his own personal experiences as well as other historical references to lay out the story. The film also cites various cases from recent years, including Ward Churchill being fired from his job as a professor at...