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The Battle For Laikipia Photo: Courtesy of Sundance Institute

The Battle for Laikipia , BBC iPlayer streaming now

As this year’s Sheffield DocFest draws closer, treat yourself to one of the best of the films that screened there last year. Daphne Matziaraki and Peter Murimi’s thoughtful and thorough documentary considers the complex situation at play in Kenya’s Rift Valley region, where frictions over land are growing between the indigenous semi-nomadic pastoralists and white land-owning descendants of the colonial era. The documentarians step inside both communities and follow the developments over several years, while also offering plenty of historical context. A thoughtful film that advocates for dialogue over conflict. “It was basically like walking on a tightrope, you get the right balance,” Murimi told us when he and Matziaraki talked to us about the challenges of the film.

Batman, 11.10pm , Talking Pictures TV (Freeview Channel 81), Monday, June 9

Long before...

French filmmaker Jonathan Millet’s thriller Ghost Trail won El Gouna Film Festival’s $50,000 Golden Star award for best narrative film. The festival ran October 24-November 1.

Lead Adam Bessa also won best actor for his performance as a young man on a mission to track Syrian regime leaders in France, where he must confront his former torturer. The film world premiered at Cannes’ Critics’ Week sidebar.

The $25,000 Silver Star award went to Julien Colonna’s war drama The Kingdom, while Indian romantic drama Girls Will be Girls by Shuchi Talati won the $15,000 Bronze Star and the Fipresci award.

The latter...

Gints Zilbalodis’ animated feature Flow, Latvia’s submission for the Oscars, won the €2,000 Golden Athena award for best film at the Athens International Film Festival (October 2-14).

The film, which also collected the audience award, premiered in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard section earlier this year and has since won prizes at Annecy, Melbourne, and Guadalajara, and has been shortlisted for the upcoming European film awards.

It centres on a cat who teams up with a capybara, a lemur, a bird, and a dog after a flood destroys his home. Local theatrical distributor and platform Cinobo picked up Greek rights.

The...

From dodging bullets to sleeping on goat skins, film-makers Peter Murimi and Daphne Matziaraki faced unique challenges when documenting the conflict between white farmers and Indigenous herders

The Laikipia plateau in Kenya is a wildlife conservation haven, and a popular safari destination featuring all the big five animals of Africa. As yet, a simmering local conflict between the Indigenous pastoralist communities and long-established white farmers has remained largely unnoticed by the international community. But The Battle for Laikipia, shot by two seasoned film-makers – award-winning Kenyan documentary-maker Peter Murimi and Daphne Matziaraki, a Greek director with a short film Oscar nomination – walks a tightrope to show the delicate balance in a conflict that has become increasingly violent in recent years due to the climate crisis.

“While making the film, we were surprised by the fact that the people who share that same landscape barely knew each other and did not truly understand one another,...

Daphne Matziaraki and Peter Murimi take time to assess and follow the situation in Laikipia County in Kenya’s Rift Valley region as frictions over land rise between the indigenous semi-nomadic pastoralists and white land-owning descendants of the colonial era. The documentarians invested several years in the project and it pays off in this impressively balanced assessment of a conflict over land that has been exacerbated by climate change and drought.

The pair gain intimate access to both communities as tensions mount after 2017, not only following events as they unfold but setting them within historical context with judicious use of archive footage. On the one hand are ranchers and wildlife conservancy owners like Maria, who is the third generation of her family to live on the ranch, with her children, including son George, marking the fourth. On the other, are Samburu herders like Simeon, whose universe revolves around their cow herds.

Peter Murimi on filming the semi-nomadic pastoralists: 'It takes patience but also understanding this is the way of life' With The Battle For Laikipia, documentarians Daphne Matziaraki and Peter Murimi carefully navigate the frictions between the indigenous, semi-nomadic pastoralists, who use the area of Kenya for grazing, and white owners of ranches and wildlife conservancies. The latter are a product of the colonial era, which brings its own tensions that have been exacerbated by climate change and drought. The Greek director and her Kenyan counterpart followed the story for several years from 2017, observing the conflict in the present while setting it within the context of the past. The film, which premiered at Sundance, will be released in UK cinemas by metfilm this Friday and we caught up with them to chat about the difficulties and importance of maintaining balance and shooting on the hoof and the advantages of working together.

Illuminating documentary examines the tensions between indigenous pastoralists and commercial ranchers as resources become more scarce during a drought

At the turn of the 20th century, Laikipia in Kenya saw an influx of British settlers who were allowed to claim ownership of uninhabited and uncultivated territory. Much of the local population were stripped of their own land and forced to work as hired hands; many were killed. While more than 60 years have passed since the end of British rule, the stark racial inequality in Kenya remains. Shot during a period of severe drought, which heightens the tension between indigenous pastoralists and commercial ranchers, Peter Murimi and Daphne Matziaraki’s illuminating documentary illustrates the symbiotic relationship between land rights and climate justice.

As the lack of rainfall wreaks havoc on plant life, the film focuses on the Samburu people – a nomadic tribe – and their struggle to find grazing pasture for their cattle.

Canada’s Hot Docs documentary festival has wrapped its 31st edition in Toronto (May 5) and named Yintah the winner of its Rogers Audience Award for Best Canadian Documentary.

The award, whose winner is determined by an audience poll, comes with a cash prize of Cad 50,000.

Directed by Jennifer Wickham, Brenda Michell and Michael Toledano, Yintah is about the efforts of the Canadian First Nation Wet’suwet’en people to resist the construction of pipelines across their territory.

On Friday evening (May 3) Hot Docs announced the prize winners from its official competition line-up (full list below).

The festival’s Best Canadian Feature Documentary Award,...

Nishta Jain’s “Farming the Revolution” has won Hot Docs’ Best International Feature Documentary Award, it was announced Friday at the festival’s awards ceremony, held in Toronto at the Centre for Social Innovation–Annex.

Produced by Jain (Raintree Films) and Valérie Montmartin (Little Big Story) and co-directed by cinematographer Akash Basumatari, the film follows the massive year-long gathering of Indian farmers protesting unjust new farm laws that they felt would impact their markets.

The jury said, “‘Farming the Revolution’ spotlights the power of ordinary people with an enduring cinematic sophistication and an indomitable lyrical presence.” The award comes with a Cnd. $10,000 cash prize.

The film, a co-production between India and Norway, now automatically qualifies for consideration in the Academy’s Best Documentary Feature category without the standard theatrical run, providing it complies with Academy rules. It is distributed by Cinephil.

Pablo Álvarez-Mesa’s “The Soldier’s Lagoon”—which traces...

“The Battle for Laikipia” offers a prescient perspective by focusing on the communities that are living with the consequences of climate change right now: the ranchers and pastoralists of Laikipia, located on the equator in Kenya. These people, their cattle, their farms — their means of life — have been dealing with drought. Over a period of approximately two years, the documentary’s directors Daphne Matziaraki and Peter Murimi show how climate change can directly resurface tensions that have been kept at bay for generations. When resources dwindle, battles arise.

The framework for the feature is how colonialism still manages to impact indigenous people many years after their nations were granted independence. Many Brits migrated to Kenya during the time of the empire; their descendants still live there and own much of the land in Laikipia. The region is also home to many indigenous, semi-nomadic people who raise cattle. “The Battle for...

Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival (Cph:Dox) has unveiled the line-ups for its five competitive sections for its 2024 edition. All films in the main Dox:Award competition are world premieres for the second successive year.

Scroll down for the full list of competition titles

Titles in that section include Alessandra Celesia’s The Flats, a France-uk-Ireland-Belgium co-production about Belfast youngsters accessing their memories of the Troubles. Belfast-based Italian filmmaker Celesia has previously made documentaries including 2017’s Anatomy Of A Miracle, which played at Locarno.

The 12-strong Dox:Award competition also includes Manon Ouimet and Jacob Perlmutter’s UK title Two Strangers Trying Not To Kill Each Other,...

When film composer and multi-instrumentalist William Ryan Fritch got the call to work on the new Sundance documentary, “The Battle for Laikipia,” he remembers his first reaction. 20 to 24 cues in two and a half weeks. Wow. But after watching the film, it was a no-brainer. “I’ll figure out the how,” he said.

Co-directed by Daphne Matziaraki and Peter Murimi, “The Battle for Laikipia” follows the story of Indigenous pastoralists — farmers who breed and care for animals in the wildlife conservation haven of Laikipia, Kenya — as they struggle to overcome conflicts with landowners and the impact of colonialism.

“It’s just take-your-breath away, raw, arresting humanity, done so exquisitely well,” says Fritch.

Fritch says his admiration for the film’s crew made it an easy decision to join the sprint to finish the production in time for the 2024 Sundance Film Festival.

“I knew they were extraordinarily thoughtful, ethical documentarians,” says Fritch.

Exclusive: The Ford Foundation is coming through for documentary filmmakers in a big way.

Today, the nonprofit philanthropic institution announced its latest round of grants under the foundation’s JustFilms division — $4.2 million that will go to support “59 innovative film projects centered on social justice globally and in the United States.”

Among the recipients are Union, the film directed by Stephen Maing and Brett Story that just held its world premiere at Sundance, and fellow Sundance premiere The Battle for Laikipia, directed by Daphne Matziaraki and Peter Murimi. Union, about the battle to unionize an Amazon facility on Staten Island, New York, is in U.S. Documentary Competition at Sundance. The Battle for Laikipia, in World Cinema Documentary Competition at the festival, examines “a generations-old conflict between Indigenous pastoralists and white landowners in Laikipia, Kenya, a wildlife conservation haven.” Roger Ross Williams and Toni Kamau are among the producers of Laikipia.

As the tradition calls, Sarah Shahat from IndieWire has published the camera survey regarding the Sundance 2024 Film Festival, focusing on documentaries. As usual, we ingested the data into a chart (cameras and manufacturers) to conclude that Sony’s cameras were the most popular among indie-documentaries filmmakers, even more than Canon’s. However, the most dominant camera is the Canon’s Super 35 beast, which is the acclaimed C300 Mark II.

Sundance 2024’s documentaries: Camera Manufacturers Chart Sundance 2024’s documentaries: Cameras and lenses

The 2024 Sundance Film Festival is taking place from January 18 to 28, 2024. The first lineup of competition films was announced on December 6, 2023. Sundance 2024 presents a few high-potential films, crafted by top-tier independent filmmakers. This time, we focus on the selected documentaries (as opposed to narratives). Every year, IndieWire reaches out to the cinematographers behind the films premiering at the festival and asks which cameras, lenses, and formats they used — and...

This year’s World Cinema Docu Competition sees The Painter and the Thief (2020) filmmaker Benjamin Ree among the pack of ten. Here is the line-up:

Agent of Happiness / Bhutan, Hungary — Amber is one of the many agents working for the Bhutanese government to measure people’s happiness levels among the remote Himalayan mountains. But will he find his own along the way? World Premiere. Available online for Public.

The Battle for Laikipia / Kenya, U.S.A. — Unresolved historical injustices and climate change raise the stakes in a generations-old conflict between Indigenous pastoralists and white landowners in Laikipia, Kenya, a wildlife conservation haven.…...

Special jury prize awarded to Daphne Matziaraki for documentary 4.1 Miles.

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) has announced the winners of the 2017 Student Film Awards.

In a gala ceremony in Los Angeles there was a tie in the first ever BAFTA Student Film Award for Animation presented by Laika between Alicja Jasina for Once Upon A Line (USC) and Kal Athannassov, John McDonald and Echo Wu for The Wishgranter (Ringling College of Art & Design).

The BAFTA Student Film Award for Documentary was awarded to Daphne Matziaraki for 4.1 Miles (USC), which also won the special jury prize.

The BAFTA Student Film Award for Live Action was awarded to Jimmy Keyrouz for Nocturne In Black (Columbia University).

This year, the BAFTA Student Film Awards underwent an international expansion, resulting in more than 400 submissions from 15 countries.

The BAFTA La Access For All campaign has benefited from the expansion and will drive funds towards the organisation’s scholarship...

In a series first, Pov opens its 30th season with three feature films and two shorts on a single topic: the Syrian war and global refugee crisis. Join Pov at events across the country in commemoration of World Refugee Day on June 20, in advance of Pov’s 30th season premiere.

In New York, Pov is partnering with The New York Times Op-Docs and Manhattan Center Productions for a discussion with Julia Meltzer, director of “Dalya’s Other Country”; Jennifer Patterson, deputy executive director of USA for Unhcr, the Un Refugee Agency; and Alaa Hassan, producer and writer of “The War Show”. Michael Slackman, international editor for The New York Times will moderate the panel at the Manhattan Center’s TV-1 studio. Register to attend here.

4.1 Miles (Pov 2017). Credit: Daphne Matziaraki

In Los Angeles, Pov is partnering with the Skirball Cultural Center and the International Documentary Association (Ida), for an evening...

Finalists were chosen from the previously announced 45 shortlisted films.

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) has announced the nine finalists for the 2017 BAFTA Student Film Awards.

This year, select film schools worldwide were invited to submit up to nine films for consideration for four top prizes: the BAFTA Student Film Award for Animation presented by Laika, the Student Film Award for Documentary, the Student Film Award for Live Action Film, and the Special Jury Prize, selected by the event’s panel members.

The finalists are (listed alphabetically by film title):

Animation

Adam directed by Evelyn Jane Ross, Rhode Island School of Design

Once Upon A Line directed by Alicja Jasina, USC

The Wishgranter directed by Kal Athannassov, John McDonald and Echo Wu, Ringling College

Documentary

4.1 Miles directed by Daphne Matziaraki, Uc Berkeley

The Female Voice directed by Julia dos Santos of Goldsmiths, University of London

Living Behind Numbers directed by Martin Read, University...

Conquered all the 2017 Academy Awards Best Picture nominees with just a day to spare? That means there’s plenty of time to screen this year’s feature and short documentary nominees.

From war-torn Syria, to inside The Lion King, the Best Documentary Feature and Best Documentary Short films vary in topic and genre. Luckily, many of the films require only a Netflix subscription to view. Here’s how to watch them, now.

How to Watch the Best Documentary Feature Nominees:

Fire at Sea

From Italian director Gianfranco Rosi, Fire at Sea tackles the current refugee crisis in Europe, centered around the island of Lampedusa,...

From Left: Host Rory Kennedy with Documentary (Feature) nominees Gianfranco Rosi and Donatella Palermo, “Fire at Sea”, Hébert Peck, Raoul Peck and Rémi Grellety , “I Am Not Your Negro”, Roger Ross Williams and Julie Goldman, “Life, Animated”, Ezra Edelman and Caroline Waterlow, “O.J.: Made in America” and Spencer Averick and Howard Barish, “13th”.

On Wednesday February 22, the Samuel Goldwyn Theater hosted a celebration for ten powerful stories with this year’s nominees in the Documentary Feature and Documentary Short Subject categories. Introducing the five Documentary Short Subject contenders, Academy Documentary Branch Governor Kate Amend pointed to the heroism that united their subjects: people who saved drowning refugees or victims of airstrikes, faced end-of-life decisions and created new lives in a foreign country.

After screening clips of each film, Amend brought up “Extremis” director Dan Krauss, “4.1 Miles” director Daphne Matziaraki, “Joe’s Violin”’s Cooperman and producer Raphaela Neihausen, “Watani: My Homeland...

Oscar-nominated documentary short film director Daphne Matziaraki knows how prescient her film about Syrian refugees is — now that President Donald Trump has signed a travel ban. “These people do not want to leave their homes,” she said of her time filming “4.1 Miles.” “They do not want to go to Europe. They do not want to go to America. They have no other option because they are on this fine line between life and death, and these are the people who are not allowed to come into this country,” she told TheWrap’s Steve Pond at our Screening Series event in which the filmmakers.

Ahead of the Academy Awards, we’re reviewing each short category. See the Documentary section below and the other shorts sections here.

4.1 Miles – USA/Greece – 26 minutes

While Trump’s administration unconstitutionally discriminates against Muslims from countries he doesn’t do business with, heroes are risking their lives to protect those who need protecting. One of these is Kyriakos Papadopoulos, a Greek Coast Guard captain from the island of Lebos who goes out into the choppy waters of the Aegean Sea to rescue refugees braving the four-mile distance from Turkey. He says that they go out every hour to pull in about two hundred innocent survivors of war, the numbers adding up to around 600,000 between 2015 and 2016 alone. Smugglers take their money, put them on boats they know won’t protect against the waves, and send them away. If not for Kyriakos and the others, these 600,000 would all be dead.

As a...

When the nominees for best short films are read during the Oscars ceremony, most viewers at home have little to no associations with any of the films. That’s something that ShortsHD is hoping to fix when they partner with Magnolia Pictures to show the nominated films in all three short form categories — live action, animated, and documentary — in 500 screens across North America this Friday. This year’s short documentaries are not lighthearted, but tell vital human stories about resistance in the face of suffering.

Read More: 2017 Oscar Nominated Live-Action Shorts Review: Current Events Are the Stars of This All-Foreign Group

Three of the films show different groups affected by the war in Syria: The civilians risking their lives for their homeland, the bystanders thrust into the fray, and the children caught in the crosshairs, while the other two offerings also highlight personal sacrifice in the face of struggle. Each...

MaryAnn’s quick take… I would give the Oscar in a three-way tie to the Syrian-themed nominees, which offer stunningly intimate observations on the ongoing humanitarian crisis. [pictured above: “4.1 Miles”] I’m “biast” (pro): nothing

I’m “biast” (con): nothing

(what is this about? see my critic’s minifesto)

Three of the five short documentaries nominated for an Oscar this year are chapters in the same larger ongoing story: the Syrian refugee exodus. Together they offer stunningly intimate observations on the worst humanitarian crisis since World War II, putting faces to the horrors and bringing the tragedy of it home in ways we simply have not seen before.

“4.1 Miles” is an absolutely shattering verité look at raw human desperation…

I would give the Oscar in a three-way tie to all of them, but that would be unprecedented. So my pick for the very best of them is “4.1 Miles” [IMDb|official site], the first film from Greek journalist Daphne Matziaraki.

Of the five films Oscar-nominated for Documentary Short Subject, three address the Syrian civil war and refugee crisis: “4.1 Miles,” a New York Times Op-Doc about a Greek Coast Guard Captain and the boatloads of refugees he rescues daily; “Watani: My Homeland,” about one family’s migration from front-line Aleppo to a small town in Germany; and “The White Helmets,” Netflix’s portrait of the volunteer first responders in Aleppo, from the director/producer team behind the 2015 Oscar-nominated feature documentary, “Virunga.”

Read More: Oscars 2017 Live-Action Shorts: Jane Birkin vs. Six-Time Nominee Kim Magnusson

The other two films also skew serious, but tell more intimate stories. “Joe’s Violin” is the touching story of the unlikely friendship between a 92-year-old Holocaust survivor and the 12-year-old girl from the Bronx who receives his beloved violin after he donates it. “Extremis” follows a palliative care doctor as she walks her patients and their loved...

The nominations for the 89th Academy Awards are in and La La Land leads the pack with 14 nominations! I knew La La Land was going to explode at this event, and it's probably going to end up taking home many of the awards is was nominated for. The 14 nominations ties the record with 1997's Titanic and 1950's All About Eve.

Arrival ended up with eight nominations as did Moonlight, while Hacksaw Ridge, Lion, and Manchester by the Sea all got six. Deadpool ended up with zero nominations. I was hoping to see it somewhere on the list, but it looks like all that hype didn't work.

Every film and actor who was nominated for their work deserves to be on this list, so congratulations to them all! There are so many great films and actors to root for, but there can be only one winner in each category.

Jimmy Kimmel...

The New York Times is already one of the most recognizable brands in the world but the company is currently making an impact in the film industry with a presence at Sundance and high hopes for an Oscar nomination. Times’ Op-Doc “4.1 Miles” is a candidate to be nominated for Best Documentary Short on Tuesday, which would give the paper a chance to win it’s first ever Academy Award. “If the film gets an Oscar nomination, it will, of course, be the greatest honor,” “4.1 Miles” director Daphne Matziaraki told TheWrap. “But most importantly it will mean that the Academy recognizes that the refugee.