Documentary films – War Watch

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‘I only had this father, and he’s gone’: Wafa Mustafa’s fight for truth and justice for Syria’s missing
ByAlexander Durie June 12, 2026

With more than 177,000 people forcibly disappeared since 2011, short doc Maybe Tomorrow captures ‘the violence of waiting’ experienced by familyWhen Wafa Mustafa was a child, she remembers her father playing the music of Umm Kulthum non-stop at home in…

Read More ‘I only had this father, and he’s gone’: Wafa Mustafa’s fight for truth and justice for Syria’s missing
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My Memory Is Full of Ghosts review – deeply moving visual hymn for the bombed-out Syrian city of Homs
ByPhuong Le June 8, 2026

Anas Zawahri’s documentary lays heart-wrenching testimony over languorous shots of bullet-ridden ruins and deserted streetsThe western Syrian city of Homs is only a husk of its former self. Previously a major industrial centre, the region became a key …

Read More My Memory Is Full of Ghosts review – deeply moving visual hymn for the bombed-out Syrian city of Homs
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Planet Israel review – valuable personal documentary about Israel/Palestine conflict
ByPeter Bradshaw June 2, 2026

Gillian Mosely’s film argues that Israelis are asked to accept a ‘forever war’ in part motivated by Netanyahu’s desire to defer investigation into corruption allegationsGillian Mosely has produced a follow-up film to her earlier documentary The Tinderb…

Read More Planet Israel review – valuable personal documentary about Israel/Palestine conflict
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The Guest review – the risks of protecting refugees in the Poland-Belarus danger zone
ByPhuong Le June 1, 2026

Zvika Gregory Portnoy and Zuzanna Solakiewicz’s documentary lays bare the problems faced by refugees and the compassion of good samaritansIt all begins with a knock. In a small Polish town on the border with Belarus, Maciek and his family have taken in…

Read More The Guest review – the risks of protecting refugees in the Poland-Belarus danger zone
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‘We wasted a lot of lives’: CIA spymaster’s caution over past Iran intervention resurfaces from beyond the grave
ByPhilip Oltermann European culture editor April 20, 2026

A documentary about Peter Sichel – the ‘Jewish James Bond’ who died in 2025 – includes striking mea culpas about the cost and efficacy of US involvement in the Middle EastIn New York social circles, he was known as the “Jewish James Bond”: a refugee fr…

Read More ‘We wasted a lot of lives’: CIA spymaster’s caution over past Iran intervention resurfaces from beyond the grave
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Palestine Comedy Club review – roving performance collective finds light in darkness
ByPeter Bradshaw February 25, 2026

This portrait of a multi-ethnic comic troupe could do with more unpicking, but its reflections on the grind of war, life on the road and the reactive nature of comedy are insightfulIt must surely, sometimes, seem to everyone involved that the name shou…

Read More Palestine Comedy Club review – roving performance collective finds light in darkness
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‘It’s a protest movement behind windows’: tribute to the Iranians risking their lives to film dissent
ByDeborah Cole February 17, 2026

Inspired by the Woman, Life, Freedom uprising that gripped Iran in 2022, two film students created a documentary, Memories of a Window, about onlookers who anonymously record footage as proof of state violenceFootage that went viral from Iran in late 2…

Read More ‘It’s a protest movement behind windows’: tribute to the Iranians risking their lives to film dissent
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Hold on to Her review – horrific death of a two-year-old puts immigration crackdown in spotlight
ByPhil Hoad February 2, 2026

Robin Vanbiesen’s documentary uses the killing of Mawda Shawri in Belgium as the starting point to explore the dehumanising machinery of border policyHere is an insightful but perhaps over oblique Belgian documentary that sets itself an ambitious goal:…

Read More Hold on to Her review – horrific death of a two-year-old puts immigration crackdown in spotlight
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Do You Love Me review – exhilarating documentary is ode to the collective courage of Lebanese people
ByPhuong Le February 2, 2026

In this freewheeling film Lana Daher draws from more than 20,000 hours of archival footage to channel the resilient spirit of BeirutAs freewheeling as a travelogue, Lana Daher’s mercurial documentary eschews talking heads and voiceover, drawing instead…

Read More Do You Love Me review – exhilarating documentary is ode to the collective courage of Lebanese people
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Cover-Up review – atrocity exposer Seymour Hersh, journalist legend, gets a moment in the spotlight
ByPeter Bradshaw December 3, 2025

Hersh’s record on uncovering the big stories, from My Lai to Abu Ghraib, speaks for itself. This documentary watches him at work: dogged, nonconformist and combativeRenowned investigative journalist Seymour Hersh was never played in a film by Robert Re…

Read More Cover-Up review – atrocity exposer Seymour Hersh, journalist legend, gets a moment in the spotlight