A Design Film Festival

Dir: Juliano Ribeiro Salgado, Wim Wenders. 2014. France/Brazil/Italy. 110 mins.

The award-winning and Oscar-nominated film chronicles Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado’s decades-long journey to over a hundred countries, where he documented achingly breathtaking images of Earth and humanity.

The visually stunning biography, co-directed by the shutterbug’s son, gives us a peek into Salgado’s life and the events he’s witnessed – from the magnificent and magical to the tragic and poignant, all painted in a stark palette of black and white.

Starting from the first photograph he ever took (a portrait of his wife Lélia), the documentary moves swiftly to focus on the less photogenic subjects. Like the famine
in Ethiopia, refugees in Rwanda and hunted elephants in Zambia. Powerful stuff.

This sort-of serious documentary opens the door for us to meet the eclectic team behind the New Yorker’s cartoon department, headed by cartoon editor Bob Mankoff, whose wild tangle of curls, lanky build and offbeat quirks
make him as fascinating as any caricature.

With veterans like George Booth alongside newer artists, the revolving roster of names featured in the film gives us an entertaining – and insightful – look into the process of publishing a cartoon, from ideas to sketch to final layout. And, of course, you’ll get a chance to chuckle at a good number of them. 

Dir: Alexander Dunn. 2015. UK/USA/Japan/Finland/Belgium. 107 mins.

Rock ’n’ roll has the electric guitar, and electronic music has the Roland TR-808. The device, launched in 1980, has established itself as a staple for DJs and producers – and it now takes centre-stage in this documentary.

The 808’s genre-defying sound can be heard in drum ’n’ bass, hip hop, house and other forms of modern EDM – never mind that Roland ceased production of the machine after three years. With three decades of music history chronicled and a remarkable range of musicians brought in to enthuse about the device, this film is nothing if not detailed.