The Five Best Things to See at the Antenna Documentary Film Festival 2014

Fact is more powerful than fiction, as the Antenna Documentary Film Festival knows. Where most film festivals simply include a selection of documentaries amongst their programs, Antenna is solely devoted to truthful tales, highlighting the best of the factual medium.

Since 2011, the festival has showcased documentary filmmaking in all its guises, and the fourth annual event proves no different. Continuing Antenna's trend of fantastic programming, 35 feature-length documentaries from over 20 countries comprise the lineup, including five Australian efforts. Shorts, guest speakers and one-of-a-kind experiences round out a program that is both diverse and interesting.

So, what should you see at the 2014 Antenna Documentary Film Festival when it takes over Sydney's Chauvel and Verona cinemas from Tuesday, October 14, to Sunday, October 19? We've sampled the full program to provide our picks.

The 50 Year Argument

Taking the page to the screen has become a frequent part of Martin Scorsese's filmmaking career; indeed, his last three features — an eclectic lineup of Shutter Island, Hugo and The Wolf of Wall Street — all started out in print. That goes some way to explaining why the iconic auteur has turned his focus to the literary world's premier publication, the New York Review of Books, for his latest documentary, as co-helmed with his three-time factual editor David Tedeschi. The 50 Year Argument combines archival and interview footage to chronicle the history and influence of the legendary periodical. Noam Chomsky, Susan Sontag and Gore Vidal are among the lauded figures canvassed in an insightful look at a magazine that became an unparalleled cultural institution.

October 18 at the Chauvel.

Gimme Shelter

Thanks to recent Oscar winners Searching for Sugar Man and 20 Feet from Stardom, the music documentary is back and doing big business. Yet, every new effort endeavouring to tell the tales of the industry owes a debt to Gimme Shelter, a landmark example of showing the reality of rock and roll on film if ever there was one. In 1969, filmmakers Albert and David Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin tracked the last weeks of the Rolling Stones' US tour, which ended in anarchy when 300,000 members of the Love Generation clashed with a few dozen Hells Angels at San Francisco's Altamont Speedway. If getting a rare chance to see the documentary on the big screen isn't enough of an incentive, Sam Cutler, former tour manager of the Rolling Stones, will also be in attendance.

October 16 at Palace Verona.

Choose Your Own Documentary

Remember the Choose Your Own Adventure books? Of course you do! Flipping back and forth through dog-eared pages to chart every possible outcome has provided many a childhood with literary fun, and Nathan Penlington and his team of filmmakers — Nick Watson, Sam Smail and Fernando Guttierez De Jesus — want to recreate the experience. It all starts when a forgotten diary falls out of an old book, sparking a raft of decisions. The twist is that you, the audience, determines what happens next. In a unique live experience performed in the cinema, attendees choose their own documentary via remote controls as they guide Penlington through over 1,500 paths and towards multiple endings.

October 15 and 18 at Giant Dwarf.

Regarding Susan Sontag

Writer, filmmaker, teacher, critic, activist: for multiple generations, Susan Sontag was a force for change, the voice of reason, and much more. Never shying away from controversy in her output and actions, she became a cultural, political, feminist and gay icon. Though Sontag passed away ten years ago, her inimitable imprint remains. Her diaries, letters, essays and novels linger as her legacy, as Regarding Susan Sontag makes plain. Actress Patricia Clarkson enlivens Sontag's story, reading excerpts from her work to furnish the film's account of her life and times. Hearing Sontag's views come to life once more on topics such as photography, war, illness, and terrorism is a treat; however, it is the intimate investigation of a figure unafraid of the public scrutiny of her personal stance that promises to resonate.

October 17 at the Chauvel.

Point and Shoot

A soul-searching overseas jaunt can change lives in more ways than one, as Matthew VanDyke discovered. When the 28-year-old Baltimore resident set out on a solo 35,000km trip through North Africa and the Middle East, inspired by Australia's own Alby Mangels and aiming to learn a few lessons along the way, filming his adventure through a vast and largely unseen continent was his only thought — but his journey thrust him into the thick of conflict. Working as a journalist in Iraq, VanDyke befriended a Libyan hippie who convinced him not only to visit his country in the midst of civil war but to join the rebels in the fight against Gaddafi. His camera kept on rolling, informing Marshall Curry's account of VanDyke's experience, and winning best documentary at the 2014 TriBeCa Film Festival.

October 15 at the Chauvel.

The Antenna Documentary Film Festival is on from October 14-19. For the full program, see the festival website.