Being Blacker; Jane; The Repair Shop

“It’s a big, beautiful sprawl of a film, that spans continents as well as generations. It’s not just about Blacker, his children, his mother, grief and families, it’s about an entire community.”
Sam Wollaston, The Guardian

“Refreshingly, Molly Dineen’s intimate documentary let ordinary people do the talking. The result was a rare directness and honesty as we met reggae record shop owner and music producer Steve ‘Blacker Dread’ Burnett-Martin, his extended family, friends and the wider community in Brixton, south London.”
Michael Day, The i

“Dineen’s technique was both a strength and a flaw: operating the camera herself allowed her intimacy but gave the footage the feel of home video. It made everyday life look too ordinary. Her receptive but gently interrogative style, though, was the key to a portrait that told many quiet truths about life in contemporary Britain for the black community.”
Chris Harvey, The Telegraph

“It is a reminder that documentary-makers don’t have to patronise audiences to make them ‘engage’. They don’t need overbearing voiceovers, background music, recaps and soundbites because viewers are assumed to be dribbling idiots. This wasn’t a perfect documentary, but it managed to raise issues without lecturing. It’ll never catch on.”
Carol Midgely, The Times

“The BBC’s big documentary was tawdry and sad, inspiring little hope for the future of multi-cultural Britain. It all felt very bleak.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail

“An utterly transfixing account of primatologist Jane Goodall’s early years studying chimpanzees in Gombe National Park in Tanzania. With a Philip Glass score, and a new interview with Goodall, now 83, this was a spellbinding portrait of a woman who changed all our thinking about chimpanzees.”
Chris Harvey, The Telegraph

“A superlative study of the woman herself and her work. The photography was breath-taking, and the Sixties film stock yielded colours that digital video simply can’t reproduce. It’s frustrating that this magnificent programme was locked away on the National Geographic channel.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail

“The Repair Shop committed all the documentary sins with added jolly glockenspiels. This was especially grating because it had excellent material that deserved more gravitas.”
Carol Midgely, The Times