Nick Broomfield - Kurt & Courtney (1998)
Nick Broomfield is one of the most famous documentary film-maker. He is known for his investigational documentaries and also for the fact that he actually participates in the story by interacting with the characters. He is using a minimal filming crew of 1 or 2 cameras and himself holding a recorder and a boom mic.
In "Kurt and Courtney", Nick Broomfield is investigating the conspiracy of Kurt Cobain's death. He's interviewing most of Cobain's relatives and friends in order to understand if either if he was suicidal or someone actually murdered him. The film is shot mostly on hand held and steadycam. The budget of this film was very short and by the end of the shooting was almost zero because of Courtney Love's attempts to cut Broomfield's progress in his investigation. Soundwise, he is using a simple recorder and a boom microphone and none of the original Nirvana songs is used due to the copyright issues, however in the interview with Cobain's aunt, she is revealing some of th early recordings of Kurt singing.
In the website justiceforkurt.com, Nick Broomfield is criticised as not being focused on Cobain's death, but more looking in the murder theory. However the film's theme seems to be Kurt Cobain's death despite the rumours.
Dave Markey - 1991 - The year punk broke
A rockumentary, following the band Sonic Youth in their Europe tour in 1991 with Nirvana, Dinosaur Jr and other artists. The film contains 99 minutes of footage taken during the band's concerts and also backstage and different locations improptuu interviews. Beeing a low-budget film it's shot entirely on a single camera, and also the sound is very poor sometimes. The camera work is very abstract, most of the shots beeing hand held joined by many editing effects.
Cameron Crowe - Pearl Jam Twenty
Recently Pearl Jam released their first official documentary which was directed by Cameron Crowe. This film celebrates 20 years of existence and musical career of their band.
Pearl Jam is one of the most famous rock band from Seattle, that survived the grunge movement, being well known for their first album "Ten" ,which was one of the most influencial albums of the 90's. Along with Nirvana, Soundgarden and Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam marked the success of the rock music in Seattle.
This documentary was being possible thanks to Crowe's 12.000 hours of footage with the band. The story reveals not only the funny moments of their career, but also the death of other musicians and their famous "fight" with Ticketmaster.
The film is defined by it's performative mode and also the main themes - the pressure of being famous and music mainstream.
Alexandru Solomon - Kapitalism - our improved formula
Kapitalism - our improved formula, is a romanian documentary focusing on the romanian citizens perception about Capitalism and how some of them manage to become rich at the end of the Comunist era. Hypothetically, the film shows Ceausescu, a romanian dictator which was killed in the winter of 1989, as he comes back alive analysing what has been changed since he died.
