u/stammerton

The Doctor Who Hears Voices follows clinical psychologist Rufus May and a young doctor known as Ruth, who is experiencing disturbing and persistent voices.

May’s interest in the subject is deeply personal. As a young man he was himself diagnosed with schizophrenia and admitted to a psychiatric hospital. He later trained as a clinical psychologist and became associated with approaches that question whether hearing voices should automatically be understood purely as a symptom of illness.

The film follows May as he works with Ruth outside the conventional medical model, encouraging her to engage with the voices rather than simply suppress them. Their relationship raises difficult questions about diagnosis, medication, professional responsibility and how psychiatry distinguishes between unusual experiences and mental illness.

Directed by Leo Regan and first broadcast by Channel 4 in 2008, the documentary combines observational footage with reconstructed scenes, with Ruth Wilson portraying the real Ruth to protect her identity. It remains an unusual and provocative examination of how people experiencing psychosis are treated, and whether recovery always has to mean eliminating the experience itself.

Israeli filmmaker Avi Mograbi examines two stories deeply embedded in Israeli national culture: the defenders of Masada, who chose death rather than submission to Rome, and Samson, who destroys himself along with his enemies after being captured and blinded by the Philistines.

Mograbi then places those stories alongside contemporary life in the occupied Palestinian territories during the Second Intifada. Israeli school groups and tourists celebrate ancient resistance to foreign domination while, elsewhere, Palestinians wait at checkpoints, confront soldiers and experience the restrictions imposed by a military occupation.

The documentary does not rely heavily on narration or conventional argument. Instead, Mograbi repeatedly places these images and ideas beside one another and allows the contradictions to emerge through the people being filmed.

Released in 2005, the film screened at Cannes and was directed by one of Israel’s best-known political documentary filmmakers. It is uncomfortable precisely because much of its argument is built from Israeli history, Israeli mythology and conversations with Israelis themselves.

On 4 October 1992, El Al Flight 1862, a Boeing 747 cargo aircraft travelling from New York to Tel Aviv via Amsterdam, crashed into two apartment blocks in Amsterdam's Bijlmermeer district. Forty-three people were officially recorded as killed. Although the mechanical sequence that brought the aircraft down was established, questions about its cargo and events surrounding the disaster continued for years afterwards.

Broadcast by the Dutch investigative programme Zembla in 1998, Raadsels rond de Bijlmerramp examines some of those unresolved questions. The programme looks at reports that the aircraft was carrying military material, the special status enjoyed by El Al's security operation at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport, and discrepancies surrounding what authorities initially said about the cargo.

The documentary also explores more controversial allegations that emerged after the crash, including claims concerning Israeli intelligence and Mossad involvement, reports of unidentified men at the crash site, and concerns surrounding depleted uranium associated with the aircraft. Some of these claims remain disputed, and the programme approaches them as questions to be investigated rather than presenting every allegation as established fact.

This is a Dutch-language documentary. YouTube's automatic subtitles can be translated into English: enable captions, select Settings > Subtitles/CC > Auto-translate > English.

Edit: typo

Israelism is a 2023 documentary directed by Erin Axelman and Sam Eilertsen examining how American Jewish attitudes towards Israel are formed, taught and, for some younger Jews, increasingly questioned.

The film follows Simone Zimmerman and Eitan, who both grew up in strongly pro-Israel Jewish communities in the United States. Eitan goes on to serve in the Israeli military, while Zimmerman becomes involved in pro-Israel advocacy on American university campuses. Experiences in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories eventually force both to reconsider aspects of what they had been taught growing up.

Through their stories, alongside interviews with Palestinians, Jewish activists, academics and political figures, the documentary explores Jewish education, Zionism, military occupation and the growing generational divide within American Jewish communities over Israel and Palestine.

Contributors include Peter Beinart, Noura Erakat, Noam Chomsky, Cornel West and former Anti-Defamation League director Abraham Foxman. Importantly, the film was conceived and premiered before 7 October 2023, documenting debates that were already taking place well before the current war.

Directors: Erin Axelman & Sam Eilertsen
Year: 2023
Country: United States
Runtime: 84 minutes

IMDb: Israelism (2023)

In March 2002, as the Second Intifada entered one of its most violent periods, American filmmaker Oliver Stone travelled to Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories to document a conflict that had intensified following the collapse of the Camp David peace negotiations.

Armed with a camera crew and an ambition to speak directly to those involved, Stone sought interviews with political leaders on both sides. The resulting documentary features conversations with former Israeli prime ministers Ehud Barak and Benjamin Netanyahu, former prime minister Shimon Peres, and Palestinian political figures, including Yasser Arafat.

The film also ventures beyond official politics, incorporating encounters with members of Hamas and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, alongside footage of military checkpoints, Palestinian communities and the everyday consequences of the conflict. Stone’s presence is an important part of the documentary: rather than presenting himself as an invisible observer, he frequently appears on camera, pursuing interviews and asking questions.

Originally broadcast as part of HBO’s America Undercover series, Persona Non Grata is an interesting historical record of the Second Intifada as it was unfolding. More than two decades later, it offers an opportunity to revisit the arguments, personalities and competing accounts that shaped international discussion of the conflict at the time.

IMDb: Persona Non Grata (2003)

In this BBC documentary, Louis Theroux travels to the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem to investigate a small but committed movement of ultranationalist Israeli settlers who believe they have a religious and political obligation to establish Jewish communities throughout the territory.

Travelling between Hebron, East Jerusalem and isolated hilltop settlements near Nablus, Theroux meets individuals whose understanding of history, religion and territorial ownership places them at the centre of one of the world’s longest-running political disputes. His encounters reveal the beliefs motivating settlement activity and the tensions between settlers and the Palestinian communities living alongside them.

Among those interviewed are Daniel Luria, an Australian-born activist working with the organisation Ateret Cohanim, and young settlers establishing outposts in the West Bank. Through extended conversations and observations of everyday life, Theroux explores the relationship between religious conviction, nationalist ideology and competing claims to the land.

Employing his characteristic combination of curiosity, humour and understated questioning, Theroux allows his subjects to explain their positions in their own words. The resulting documentary offers an examination of the Israeli settler movement as it existed in 2011, providing historical context for understanding subsequent developments in the region.

Director: Andy Wells
Presenter: Louis Theroux
Production: BBC, United Kingdom
Year: 2011

IMDb: Louis Theroux: The Ultra Zionists (2011)

What does Palestinian history look like when the starting point is a society rather than a conflict?

Directed by Ashraf Mashharawi, this Al Jazeera World documentary turns towards the Palestine that existed before 1948, exploring its commercial activity, developing infrastructure and cultural life during the late Ottoman period.

Drawing on historians, witness accounts and archival documents, Palestine 1920 challenges the idea of an empty land awaiting settlement. Its subject is a changing society with its own inhabitants, connections and ambitions, rather than simply the backdrop to somebody else’s national story.

The documentary also examines the political decisions that reshaped that society: the Balfour Declaration, the San Remo Conference and the British Mandate. These provide the framework for understanding the upheavals that followed and the road towards the Nakba.

What happens inside a military campaign when the soldiers involved begin speaking publicly about it? Directed by Ben Zand and produced by Matan Cohen, Breaking Ranks: Inside Israel’s War brings together testimony from serving and former Israeli soldiers about their experiences in Gaza.

The interviewees describe alleged killings of civilians, the use of Palestinians as human shields and the destruction of buildings without clear military justification. Several speak with their faces and names shown. Their accounts raise questions about rules of engagement, the decisions of individual commanders and responsibility further up the chain of command.

First broadcast on ITV in November 2025, the documentary examines the war through the accounts of people who participated in it. The IDF said in its response that it remains committed to the rule of law and that allegations of misconduct are investigated.

Zandland subsequently released the film on YouTube, making it accessible beyond its original television broadcast. It has since been nominated for an International Emmy in the current
affairs category.

Content note: Images and accounts of injury, violence and death.

IMDb: Breaking Ranks: Inside Israel’s War (2025)

A new Palestinian documentary is receiving a free virtual pre-release screening today through Palestine Museum US.

Directed by Palestinian journalist and visual storyteller Basim Hasiba, The Last Front - Palestinian Culture examines the relationship between Palestinian cultural institutions and international funding, particularly what happens when financial support arrives with political and security-related conditions attached.

Through testimony from people working within Palestinian cultural organisations, the film asks how those conditions can affect programming, staff, participation and ultimately the independence of cultural work itself: who can be included, what can be funded and what can be said.

Hasiba developed the film through his work as an independent journalist interested in documentary filmmaking and Palestinian cultural and social life. The project was produced through the Palestine Journalism Hub’s independent journalism initiative.

The free online screening begins today, Saturday 26 September, at 17:00 UK / 12:00 EDT / 19:00 Palestine. The film is listed as 1 hour 36 minutes and subtitled in English.

Watch/register: Palestine Museum US

An independent feature documentary following five Palestinians living in Ireland as they reflect on home, displacement, identity and what it means to carry Palestine with them while living abroad.

Through the stories of Izzeddeen, Habib, Leen, Nidal and Rola, the film brings together experiences connected to Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon and Palestinian communities inside Israel. Their individual accounts offer different perspectives on separation, memory, family and belonging.

Filmed partly around Cork, the documentary also follows community life and public demonstrations in Ireland, exploring the relationships that have developed between Palestinian and Irish activists and communities.

Directed by Ed Fitzgerald, Keys: A Palestine Film premiered in Cork in June 2025 and later screened as part of IndieCork 2025. It has subsequently been selected for the 2026 FICNOVA International Film Festival of Nonviolence.

A BBC documentary filmed on location in Tunisia while Monty Python were making Life of Brian.

Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin are caught between filming and rehearsals, talking about the origins of Python, their work together and the strange position they found themselves in ten years after Monty Python’s Flying Circus began.

Rather than a retrospective assembled decades later, this was filmed while Life of Brian was actually being made.

Flying Paper follows a group of Palestinian children in Gaza as they pursue an apparently simple ambition: building and flying enough kites to help break the Guinness World Record for the most kites flown simultaneously.

At the centre of the film are Musa, a teenage kite-maker from the northern Gaza village of Seifa, his wonderfully competitive sister Widad, and Abeer, a young aspiring journalist from Jabalia refugee camp. Around them, thousands of children prepare handmade kites for a mass flight on Gaza's Mediterranean coast. The result is funny, intimate and frequently beautiful, allowing ordinary childhood rivalries, ambitions and friendships to take centre stage.

What makes Flying Paper particularly interesting is how it was made. Directors Nitin Sawhney and Roger Hill worked with young Palestinians in Gaza through the Voices Beyond Walls youth media programme, training participants who then became part of the film's production. Rather than simply pointing a camera at Palestinian children, the documentary incorporates young Palestinians into the process of telling their own stories.

The occupation and blockade are never far from the film's world, particularly for families living close to Gaza's border areas, but Flying Paper refuses to make Palestinian childhood
synonymous only with suffering. Its kites become something much simpler and perhaps more powerful: competition, creativity, freedom, pride and the sheer pleasure of seeing how high something handmade can fly.

IMDb: Flying Paper

Trailer: Flying Paper Trailer

Filmed during the Second Intifada, Dahna Abourahme's Until When... follows four Palestinian families living in Dheisheh Refugee Camp near Bethlehem. Rather than approaching the conflict through politicians, military briefings or outside commentary, Abourahme keeps the camera firmly inside everyday Palestinian life. The full documentary can be watched free on Vimeo through Philistine Films.

Among those we meet are thirteen-year-old Fadi, who helps care for his four younger brothers; the multi-generational Hammash family; Sana, whose work at a community centre requires exhausting journeys through movement restrictions; and Emad and Hanan, a young couple trying to protect their daughter from the violence surrounding them. Their conversations move between family, work, resistance, displacement and memories of the villages their families were forced to leave.

Abourahme lived in Dheisheh between 2002 and 2004 while making the film alongside cinematographers Annemarie Jacir and Suzy Salamy. There is no conventional narration telling the audience what to think. Instead, the families speak for themselves, sometimes with anger or sadness, but just as often with humour, affection and the ordinary arguments and conversations of family life. The result is less a political explainer than an unusually intimate record of what occupation looks like when it becomes part of the routines of daily life.

A contemporary Video Librarian review described the documentary as putting a human face on the Palestinian experience and rated it
Recommended. Twenty-two years later, that may be the film's greatest value. News footage preserves events; films like this preserve people, voices and the texture of ordinary life behind those events.