In the eye-opening documentary Navalny, film-maker Daniel Roher was given unprecedented access to a Russian politician surviving an assassination attempt and a prison sentence

In an interview broadcast last weekend, Jake Tapper of CNN put it to Volodymyr Zelenskiy that he might not survive the war with Russia and asked how he would want to be remembered.

“A human being that loved life to the fullest and loved his family and loved his motherland – definitely not a hero,” the Ukrainian president replied through an interpreter. “I want people to take me as I am: a regular human.”

Plus A Very British Scandal, a series about surfing entrepreneurs and Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s comedy about being a fictional president of Ukraine

Joseph Patel calls Smith’s Oscars conduct ‘selfish’ and says he is ‘so so very angry’ Rock introduced him and fellow producers as ‘four white guys’

Joseph Patel, the producer of music documentary Summer of Soul, has accused both Will Smith and Chris Rock of selfishness in overshadowing his film’s triumph on Sunday night at the Oscars.

Patel, who produced the documentary alongside Robert Fyvolent, David Dinerstein and director Questlove, said he was “still trying to make sense” of the exchange, which saw Smith slap Rock for making a joke about his wife’s alopecia.

A sober documentary shows colonial Britain’s role in the Israel-Palestine divide

Thoroughly researched and scrupulously balanced, this documentary, written, directed and presented by television producer Gillian Mosely (Tony Robinson’s World War 1), excavates the history of the Israel-Palestine conflict and attempts to engage with both sides of a seemingly unbridgeable divide. It is sober, thought-provoking stuff which, while it relies on some fairly hackneyed soundtrack choices (Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata and other classical greatest hits), surprises and illuminates elsewhere.

The fingerprints of Britain, with colonial policies that ignored common sense and human rights, can be found on a timebomb that dates back to the first world war. It is fascinating, if rather bleak, but does seem better suited to television than to a cinema release.

Gerry Anderson never put a matriarch in his shows because his own mother rejected him, a new documentary reveals

From Charles Dickens to Sylvia Plath to Eminem, many of the world’s most creative adults had a turbulent childhood. Now Gerry Anderson, the creator of Thunderbirds and Stingray, all of whose shows have no mother character, can be added to the list.

Previously unbroadcast interviews reveal that Anderson’s work lacked matriarchal figures because Anderson was so traumatised by his own relationship with his mother.

In the run-up to Sunday’s awards ceremony, here are the films, shorts and documentaries tipped for a statuette – most of which can be found online

After a long, bumpy awards season, the Oscars are finally tonight, and have come down to the worst fear of hand-wringing Hollywood traditionalists: for the first time, the two best picture frontrunners are from streaming platforms, while the traditional studio releases have all fallen behind.

In the one corner: Netflix’s The Power of the Dog, Jane Campion’s elegant, sinuously queer western, which led the field with a whopping 12 nominations – though insider whispers suggest it’s more admired in the industry than it is adored. In the other, Apple’s Coda, a perky coming-of-ager about a hearing teen breaking away from her deaf family: there are few great claims to be made for it artistically, but it warms people’s hearts, and that’s seen it surge ahead in the American guild awards.

This documentary is so intensely personal that it borders on claustrophobic, touching on imposter syndrome, privacy and Barnett’s relationship with her art

“I overthink what I need to say, and then I don’t say anything. Maybe it’s more useful just to talk.”

So says Australian musician Courtney Barnett in the revealing new documentary Anonymous Club, a film so intensely personal it almost borders on claustrophobic, as we enter the anxious mind of one of Australia’s most loved contemporary rock musicians.

The complicated and fractious history of the prog-rock titans is explored in revealing new documentary In the Court of the Crimson King

When Robert Fripp was considering who should direct a proposed documentary about King Crimson – the band he has devoted most of his life to – he knew right away what kind of person it shouldn’t be. “We had been approached by some very good, professional music documentary makers who would make a nice, conventional documentary from which I would learn nothing,” Fripp said by Zoom from his home in the West Midlands.

Rather than go in that direction, he chose director Toby Amies, “who had no familiarity with King Crimson whatsoever. For me, this was ideal,” he said. “I thought, ‘here is an independent film-maker with his own attitude who will come in and show me aspects of King Crimson that I’m perhaps unaware of.’”

Cherish Oteka’s film is about a former police officer who discusses his memories of homophobia and racial profiling in the Met

The Guardian documentary The Black Cop has won the Bafta for best short film.

Directed by Cherish Oteka and produced by Emma Cooper, The Black Cop is about Gamal “G” Turawa, a former Metropolitan police officer who explores his memories of homophobia, racial profiling and racial harassment in his early career.

A father and daughter are united by the absence of their mothers in Catarina Vasconcelos’s contemplative debut feature

Experimental, initially slightly inaccessible, this dramatised documentary about the family history of Portuguese first-time director Catarina Vasconcelos has a cumulative power that draws the audience into its dreamy, contemplative rhythms. Both Vasconcelos and her father lost their mothers early; she uses this as a bridge between them as they muse on the absence of these women and their effect on the lives they touched. But more than this, the film is a treasure box of family legends. The letters between Vasconcelos’s grandmother and her grandfather, a sailor, are poetically reimagined (in fact the actual letters were burned at her grandfather’s request after he died).

The actor, writer and director answers your questions on her new Lucille Ball documentary, women walking the line between aggression and assertion and rating her favourite British sitcoms out of five biscuits

What’s your process to prepare for directing, and how does this compare with your past films? fionasack Well, Lucy and Desi is the first documentary I’ve directed. There’s tons of prep and research before you can even start shaping the story. It was great to work on during a pandemic because, rather than being on set, I was out interviewing people. My editor – who worked on the Bee Gees and Pavarotti documentaries – and I kept carving away to get a point of view. It really started to take shape as we got to understand the subject more. So it was a very different animal.

How big an influence has Lucille Ball been on your own comedy? DeJongandtherestless