Tuesday Wonders: Reel Life

“My intentions were to tell a story, to tell it well, and to have other people recognize the complexity, brilliance, usefulness and beauty of this world.” - Jennie Livingston, director of Paris is Burning (1990)

Documentary filmmaking has exponentially grown in stature and popularity over the latter part of the 20th Century and continues to intrigue, inform, surprise and sometimes shock audiences. This is why we’ve decided to repurpose our popular Tuesday Wonders strand to exclusively screen documentary features.

That’s not to say we won’t be slotting in documentaries elsewhere in our programme, but we wanted to make sure we have a regular part of our programme where we can champion and celebrate these films and filmmakers.

There are so many great docs being released at the moment which means the majority of the strand will feature these fantastic new releases. However, we will be screening some documentary classics from time to time too.

“Filmmaking is my way of telling stories that challenge the status quo and amplify marginalized voices." - Ava DuVernay, director of 13th (2016) 

We’ll be launching our Tuesday Wonders strand with a Northern Premiere of an endearing Dutch documentary, Shabu (2021) on Tuesday 4th July. At this special launch, we will be joined by the director, Shamira Raphaëla, and the star of the film, Shabu, for a Q&A.

The following Tuesday we're showing a very special brand new feature documentary as part of the first Leeds International African Arts Festival and in partnership with Durban International Film Festival. Money, Freedom, A Story of CFA Franc (2022) is based on a rich trove of archive material, and helps to explain the significance of the CFA Franc by taking us on a journey uncovering the history of the African continent, from the end of the 19th century to the present day.

The film will premiere at this year’s DocFest and we’ll be the second cinema in the UK to screen it. It has also been picked up by New York Asian Film Festival in July.

The film asks questions that are both specific to the subject and universal: “Who do you want to control your future?”, “How can you contest historically or politically acquired knowledge”, “How can you find a place to champion your own ideas?”.

These questions are very much the essence and purpose of Tuesday Wonders.

But before we get too serious, we also know that real life can be real fun too! We’ll also be screening fun and entertaining docs including the hugely popular local doc A Bunch of Amateurs (2022). We’ll be joined by some of the Amateurs themselves for an intro and Q&A, and we’ll screen some of their own short films alongside the feature.

“Facts do not convey truth. That's a mistake. Facts create norms, but truth creates illumination.” – Werner Herzog, director of Little Dieter Needs to Fly (1997)