The official combat painter died in 1942 when his plane went down. Now his inspiring life story is the subject of a major documentary

The letter was dated 30 August 1942 and posted from Iceland. Eric Ravilious, one of the official war artists, wrote to his wife, Tirzah (“Tush”), of “an unbelievable lunch of caviar, paté and cheese”. He then described the island’s lunar-like craters before ending: “Would you like a pair of gloves, sealskin with fur on the back? Draw around your hand on writing paper so I can get the size. Goodbye darling. Hope you feel well again.”

The letter is read out by his one surviving child, Anne Ullmann, in Eric Ravilious: Drawn To War, which goes on general release – a rarity for an art film – on 1 July. His “Goodbye darling” was tragically apposite as, three days later, Ravilious’s plane went down over the sea. The letter reached his wife after his death.

Coming to theatres today, Friday, June 17 and to Netflix this Sunday, June 19:CIVIL

Director:Nadia Hallgren

World Premiere:Tribeca 2022

Select Festivals:American Black

About:An intimate yet expansive profile of Ben Crump, the lawyer dubbed “Black America’s attorney general.”

Coming to NYC’s Rooftop Films tomorrow, Saturday, June 18:BEBA

Director:Rebeca Huntt

World Premiere:Toronto 2021

Select Festivals:Berlin, CPH:DOX, Docaviv, Miami, Tribeca, Provincetown, Minneapolis-St Paul

About:A raw, poetic self-portrait in which a young, NYC-born Afro-Latina filmmaker stares down historical, societal, and generational trauma.

Coming to Film Movement Plus today, Friday, June 17:SELFIE

Director:Agostino Ferrente

World Premiere:Berlin 2019

Select Festivals:Sheffield, Cinéma du Réel, BAFICI, Thessaloniki Doc, Reykjavik, Goteborg, Taiwan Doc

About:Two 16-year-olds film themselves with a cell phone to tell the story of their friendship, the tragedy of Davide, and their lives in the rough Traiano district of Naples.

Coming to theatres tomorrow, Friday, June 17:BITTERBRUSH

Director:Emelie Mahdavian

World Premiere:Telluride 2021

Select Festivals:Visions du Réel, San Francisco, Sydney

About:Two women set up camp at a tiny cabin and begin their season of work, to feed their dreams: to own their own livestock, to have true independence, and to start a family. 

Coming to theatres tomorrow, Friday, June 17:STAY PRAYED UP

Director:DL Anderson, Matt Durning

World Premiere:Telluride 2021

Select Festivals:DOC NYC, Virginia

About:The gospel trio The Branchettes prepare to record their live album in the modest congregation of their youth, in this passionate yet humble portrait of an artist. 

Coming to theatres and virtual cinemas this Friday, June 17:THE BOOK KEEPERS

Director:Phil Wall

World Premiere:Austin 2020

Select Festivals:Napa Valley, Savannah, Chagrin Doc, DocUtah

About:A father and son crisscross the country to fulfill a dying wish, ensure a legacy, and find solace after tragic personal loss.

Coming to ESPN and ESPN+’s 30 for 30 series today, Wednesday, June 15:DREAM ON

Director:Kristen Lappas

World Premiere:ESPN (June 2022)

About:A look back at the 1996 USA Women’s Basketball Dream Team and the 14-month odyssey that would forever change the landscape of women’s athletics.

In Leave No Trace, survivors speak about what they endured under the Boy Scouts of America, leading to the biggest sexual abuse settlement in history

For John Humphrey, childhood used to mean having fun in the backyard of his home in New Jersey. “We had a rule that we couldn’t go any farther than the bell or the sound of my mother’s whistle,” he recalls. “I was always digging and playing.”

Then Humphrey went to a school that offered a Boy Scout programme. “I just loved the outdoors and this particular troop camped 12 months a year. It didn’t matter – winter, snow, ice, hot – I loved that part of it.”

Coming to NYC’s Rooftop Films tomorrow, Wednesday, June 15:FIRE OF LOVE

Director:Sara Dosa

World Premiere:Sundance 2022

Select Festivals:CPH:DOX, Hot Docs, True/False, SXSW, New Directors/New Films, Docaviv, Visions du Reel, Docville, Sydney, Seattle, San Francisco, Cleveland, Ashland, RiverRun, Sun Valley, Provincetown

About:This story of the doomed love triangle between intrepid scientists and lovers Katia and Maurice Krafft and the volcanoes they captured in their explosive archival footage.

Coming to DVD today, Tuesday, June 14:PUTIN’S WITNESSES

Director:Vitaly ManskyWorld Premiere:Karlovy Vary 2018

Select Festivals:Toronto, IDFA, CPH:DOX, Camden, BFI London, Vancouver, Zurich, Gent, Leeds, Stockholm, Vilnius, Porto/Post/Doc, Docs Against Gravity, Seattle

About:An examination of the early life of Vladimir Putin and the political machine that brought him to power.

Coming to PBS’s American Masters tomorrow, Tuesday, June 14:BRIAN WILSON: LONG PROMISED ROAD

Director:Brent Wilson

World Premiere:Tribeca 2021

About:The Beach Boys’ lead songwriter takes a drive around Los Angeles with Rolling Stone editor and longtime friend Jason Fine in this nonlinear cinematic memoir, as vivid and multifaceted as his music.

Coming to VOD tomorrow, Tuesday, June 14:END OF THE LINE

Director:Emmett Adler

World Premiere:DOC NYC 2021

About:A heartfelt and scrupulous look into NYC’s massive, troubled subway system, this film poses the question: what happens when that life line of the city goes flat?

Inspired by a 1960s Italian potholing expedition, Michelangelo Frammartino’s almost wordless film is spellbinding

Having slept solidly through Il Buco, Michelangelo Frammartino’s long-awaited follow-up to the glorious Le Quattro Volte, on my first viewing attempt, I knew already that the film was at the more serene and lyrical end of the arthouse spectrum. What I hadn’t expected, having rewatched with fresher eyes, was quite how compelling this near dialogue-free meditation on overlapping cycles of life would turn out to be.

Loosely inspired by a 1961 caving expedition to Calabria by a group of young speleologists, it’s an arrestingly beautiful work. It finds a pure visual poetry in the way the mossy light of the mountain dusk is echoed by the velvety sage tones of the lichen-covered cave mouth; the way the ancient geological etching on the face of a cow herder evokes the weathered land that he walks each day.

Coming to theatres today, Friday, June 10:THE STORY WON’T DIE

Director:David Henry Gerson

World Premiere:Hot Docs 2021

Select Festivals:AFI Docs, Watch Docs, Poland’s American Fest, Woods Hole

About:A portrait of a young generation of Syrian artists who use their work to process their ongoing trauma and to express themselves as they never could under the repressive regime that forced them into exile.

New to VOD this week:THE SNOW CALLS

Director:Marjan Khosravi

World Premiere:IDFA 2020

Select Festivals:DMZ Docs, Big Sky Doc

About:After bearing three daughters, Mina has one more chance: her next child has to be a boy, or her husband will marry another woman.

Coming to Ovid.tv today, Friday, June 10:THE IMAGE YOU MISSED

Director:Donal Foreman

World Premiere:Rotterdam 2018

Select Festivals:CPH:DOX, RIDM, Cinema du Reel, Dokufest, Edinburgh, Dublin, Galway, Guth Gafa, BAFICI, Art of the Real, Indielisboa, Guanajuato, Melbourne, Vancouver, DocsMX

About:An Irish filmmaker grapples with the legacy of his estranged father, the late American documentarian Arthur MacCaig, through MacCaig’s decades-spanning archive of the conflict in Northern Ireland.

Coming to Discovery+ today, Thursday, June 9:DR. DELIRIUM & THE EDGEWOOD EXPERIMENTS

Executive Producers:Christopher Collins, Lydia Tenaglia, Craig H Shepherd, Nick Brigden

World Premiere:Discovery+ (June 2022)

About:An investigation into classified human subject research conducted on thousands of soldiers at the Edgewood Arsenal facility in Maryland from 1955 to 1975 by the United States Army Chemical Corps, experiments meant to evaluate the impact of potent, mind-altering chemical warfare agents on military personnel as an alternative to traditional combat.

New to VOD this week:MISSION: JOY – FINDING HAPPINESS IN TROUBLED TIMES

Director:Louie Psihoyos

Co-Director:Peggy Callahan

World Premiere:Tribeca 2021

Select Festivals:Thessaloniki Doc, Docs Against Gravity, Cleveland, Boulder, Mill Valley, Palm Springs, Mountainfilm

About:An exploration of the friendship between Archbishop Desmond Tutu and His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

Coming to Ovid.tv tomorrow, Friday, June 10:THE PATRIOT GAME

Director:Arthur MacCaig

World Premiere:Cannes 1979

Select Festivals:Rotterdam, Cinema du Reel, Festival dei Popoli

About:An essay film examining the conflict in Northern Ireland between 1968 and 1978, covering the height of the Troubles.

Coming to Netflix today, Wednesday, June 8:KEEP SWEET: PRAY AND OBEY

Director:Rachel Dretzin

Co-Director:Grace McNally

World Premiere:Netflix (June 2022)

About:A docuseries examining the rise and fall of Warren Jeffs in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

New to VOD this week:BEING BEBE

Director:Emily Branham

World Premiere:Tribeca 2021

Select Festivals:Provincetown, NewFest, Outfest, BFI Flare, Tallgrass, Sound Unseen, Image+Nation, Heartland

About:In 2009, Bebe Zahara Benet was crowned the first winner of RuPaul’s Drag Race, but the franchise hadn’t yet achieved notoriety, so without an infrastructure to support her next steps, Bebe is confronted with the fickleness of fame.

The multifaceted artist worked in photography, film and paint – a new retrospective explores his pioneering work around the globe from Harlem to Dakar

Coming to VOD today, Tuesday, June 7:BALONEY

Director:Joshua Guerci

World Premiere:Frameline 2021

Select Festivals:Outfest, LGBT fests in Tel Aviv, Palm Springs, Boston, Seattle,

About: The titillating and charming story behind San Francisco’s first and only all-male gay revue.

Coming to theatres and VOD today, Friday, June 3:WE ARE THE THOUSAND

Director:Anita Rivaroli

World Premiere:SXSW 2020 (unscreened)

Select Festivals:IDFA, Hot Docs, Melbourne, Docs Against Gravity, Thessaloniki Doc

About:An uplifting, inspiring, and emotional music documentary about a seemingly impossible plan to record a song by the Foo Fighters with a thousand musicians.

Coming to PBS’s American Masters tomorrow, Friday, June 3:JOE PAPP IN FIVE ACTS

Director:Tracie Holder, Karen Thorsen

World Premiere:Tribeca 2012

Select Festivals:AFI Docs, Rio, Brisbane, Ashland, San Francisco Jewish, Havana

About:A portrait of the founder of The Public Theater, who believed in the democratization of theatre for all, spearheading free performances of Shakespeare in the Park and producing groundbreaking plays in his legendary NYC venue.

I previously wrote about the doc here.

Coming to NYC’s Rooftop Films this Friday, June 3:THE JANES

Director:Tia Lessin, Emma Pildes

World Premiere:Sundance 2022

Select Festivals:San Francisco, Cleveland, Athena, Minneapolis-St Paul

About:The story of “Jane,” a group of women in Chicago who built an underground service for women seeking safe, affordable, and illegal abortions before Roe v Wade.

New to DVD this week:THE RELUCTANT RADICAL

Director:Lindsey Grayzel

World Premiere:Big Sky Doc 2018

Select Festivals:Guth Gafa, Salem, Ashland, Princeton Environmental, Thin Line, Planet in Focus, Wild & Scenic

About:An activist combats climate change by facing off against the fossil fuel industry, ultimately breaking the law to make a stand for future generations.

Coming to Starz tomorrow, Wednesday, June 1:WORKHORSE QUEEN

Director:Angela Washko

World Premiere:Slamdance 2021

Select Festivals:Calgary Underground, San Francisco Doc, DocEdge, Florida, Milwaukee, LGBT fests in Austin, Tel Aviv, Vancouver

About:After being cast on RUPAUL’S DRAG RACE, 47-year old suburban telemarketer Ed Popil leaves his job to pursue a full-time entertainment industry career as his drag queen alter ego, 1960s era housewife Mrs Kasha Davis. 

Coming to DVD and VOD tomorrow, Tuesday, May 31:THE WOBBLIES

Director:Stewart Bird, Deborah Shaffer

World Premiere:New York Film Festival 1979

About:The story of radical labor union the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), better known as the Wobblies, which championed the formation of “one big union” for all unskilled laborers, regardless of their race and gender.

Coming to CNN tonight, Monday, May 30:JULIA

Director:Julie Cohen, Betsy West

World Premiere:Telluride 2021

Select Festivals:Toronto, DOC NYC, Hamptons, Chicago, AFI Fest, Mill Valley, Philadelphia, Woodstock, Heartland

Notable Recognition:The doc was shortlisted for the Academy Awards.

About:A portrait of the trailblazing, exuberant chef who filled TV screens for decades. 

This no-frills documentary features gripping tributes to the plane and lost pals from surviving airmen, now in their 90s

Part oral history, part archive, this is a thoroughly researched account of the role of the Lancaster bomber in the second world war. It’s solid, no frills film-making, but that’s entirely appropriate given the sobering stories recounted by surviving members of Bomber Command, now in their 90s. The men pay tribute to the plane that proved to be a game-changer in Britain’s war.

But they also recall instances in which nearly 100 Lancasters were lost in a single night. “That’s 672 empty chairs at breakfast,” says one former airman. It’s a poignant image; but so too is the estimate of 25,000 lives lost in the bombing of Dresden, and the stain left on the consciences of the men who dropped the bombs.

Coming to Disney+ today, Friday, May 27:WE FEED PEOPLE

Director:Ron Howard

World Premiere:SXSW 2022

About:The story of renowned chef José Andrés and his nonprofit World Central Kitchen’s evolution over a 12 year period.

Coming to theatres today, Friday, May 27:FANNY: THE RIGHT TO ROCK

Director:Bobbi Jo Hart

World Premiere:Hot Docs 2021

Select Festivals:DOC NYC, DOXA, Inside Out, Frameline, Outfest, Los Angeles Asian Pacific, Santa Barbara, Athena, Cleveland, In-Edit, Hawaii, Doc’n Roll, Woodstock, Florida

About:Ferocious female rockers Fanny, who shattered glass ceilings in the ’70s, collecting fans like David Bowie before being buried in retro record bins, reunite fifty years later with a new record deal and a chance to rewrite history.

Coming to DVD tomorrow, Friday, May 27:ROMANTIC ROAD

Director:Oliver McGarvey

World Premiere:Edmonton 2017

Select Festivals:DocPoint Tallinn, DocPoint Helsinki

About:A long-married British couple take a six-month trip, driving their old 1936 Rolls Royce through rural India.

Coming to OVID tomorrow, Friday, May 27:STEALING RODIN

Director:Cristóbal Valenzuela

World Premiere:SANFIC 2017

Select Festivals:BAFICI, Thessaloniki Doc, It’s All True, Guadalajara

About:An investigation into the 2005 disappearance of a sculpture in Chile.