Top 5 Elizabeth Klinck documentaries to watch before AIDC 2025
Some of our favourite films from the extensive credits of AIDC 2025 Advisory Committee member and award-winning visual researcher Elizabeth Klinck
By Jessa Shields
We’re excited to welcome award-winning producer, editorial and visual researcher, and clearance specialist Elizabeth Klinck to AIDC 2025 as an Advisory Committee member and in-person Spotlight speaker at the conference.
A living legend in the archive realm, Elizabeth has been nominated for an Emmy Award in the craft of research and three times for the Best Visual Researcher at the FOCAL Awards in the UK. She won the Canadian Screen Award for best visual research six times between 2010 and 2021, and in 2023, Klinck was honoured with the Hot Docs Focus On award for her work in archive.
Here are five incredible films from Klinck’s career that you need to add to your watchlist before AIDC 2025.
1. Stories We Tell
Dir. Sarah Polley | 2012
Directed by Academy Award-winning screenwriter Sarah Polley, Stories We Tell is a deeply personal and multi-layered documentary exploring Polley’s family history, and particularly the revelation that her father may not be her biological father. It incorporates interviews with Polley’s relatives and family friends, her father Michael’s narration of his own memoir, and Super-8 footage of reenactments of events in Polley’s family’s history. Nominated for dozens of awards, it won the Grand Prix Focus award for best feature film in Montreal’s Festival du nouveau cinéma and received the $100,000 prize for best Canadian film at the Toronto Film Critics Association Awards.
Available to rent or buy on AppleTV+
2. Werner Herzog: Radical Dreamer
Dir. Thomas von Steinaecker | 2022
Werner Herzog: Radical Dreamer is an illuminating and entertaining portrait of the great filmmaker and self-appointed “soldier of cinema” Werner Herzog. Accomplished in both narrative and documentary filmmaking, Herzog is interested in the extremes of human experience, especially in the ways we relate to the natural world, and fans know him well for his distinctive, heavily-accented voice narrating his documentaries like Grizzly Man (2005) and Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2010). Werner Herzog: Radical Dreamer assembles an excellent line-up of interviewees to discuss Herzog’s life and career including Chloé Zhao, Wim Wenders, Patti Smith, Nicole Kidman, Robert Pattinson and many more.
Available on DocPlay
3. Long Distance Swimmer: Sara Mardini
Dir. Charly Wai Feldman | 2023
Sisters Sara and Yusra Mardini, both former pro swimmers, fled Syria in 2015, aged 20 and 17 respectively. As they were crossing the sea to Greece with 18 other refugees, the boat broke down, so Sara, Yusra and several others jumped into the water and swam, towing the boat for three hours until they reached the Greek island of Lesbos. In 2018 however, after volunteering to help other refugees landing in Lesbos, Sara Mardini was arrested for “international espionage and people smuggling”. Long Distance Swimmer follows Sara’s daily life in Berlin while she awaits her trial and continues to fight for justice.
Available on DocPlay
4. Amanda Knox
Dir. Rod Blackhurst, Brian McGinn | 2016
One of Netflix’s standout true crime documentaries, Amanda Knox tells the story of how Knox, an American exchange student in Italy, was wrongfully convicted of the murder of her British housemate Meredith Kercher in Perugia in 2007. It was a highly publicised case at the time, and the documentary brings to light the unscrupulous journalism and unapologetic sexism that surrounded Knox’s trial. Keeping its interviewees contained to only a handful of key players, Amanda Knox’s focused approach illuminates the terrifying notion that something like this could happen to anyone.
Available on Netflix
5. How to Change the World
Dir. Jerry Rothwell | 2015
How to Change the World tells the inspiring and chaotic story of the founding members of Greenpeace, and how they kick-started the modern environmental movement in the 1970s. The film draws on 1,500 archived 16mm reels of footage from the early days of the group’s activism that are in mint condition, providing an up-close-and-personal account of a heady time in the movement’s history. It premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, where it took home the World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award for Editing and the Candescent Award.
Available on DocPlay
Elizabeth Klinck attends AIDC 2025 thanks to the support of the Consulate General of Canada in Sydney and will join our other first-announced speaking guests Shiori Ito, Gabriel Shipton and Shane Boris as Spotlight Session speakers.
The full program and speaker line-up for AIDC 2025 will be announced 30 January 2025.
AIDC 2025: FUTURE TELLING will take place 2-5 March 2025 at ACMI in Melbourne / Naarm.
You can view our pass options and register HERE.
Main Image: Stories We Tell (2012)