Document 9 film festival highlights

The documentary film fest celebrates a 'year of protest' theme

Boasting one of their best film line ups in years, the Document 9 human rights festival takes the theme of protest as its mascot this year. The festival opens with Andrea Roggon's Soy Libre (I am Free) about life and hope in modern day Havana. The next day things really heat up with screenings of Risteard O'Domhnaill's remarkable grass roots protest film The Pipe, plus new radical agenda documentaries from Spain, Bulgaria, Holland, Germany and Latvia, among them The Other Chelsea: A Story from Donetsk, a sobering account of Roman Abramovich's Ukrainian counterpart.

Keeping with the theme, also screening at the festival is the fascinating Czech film, Manual On How To Create A Terrorist, and Blanketmen, about the 1976-81 H-Block protests. Best of all is Bernadette: Notes on a Political Journey, a very serious account of the life and time of Northern Irish firebrand MP Bernadette Devlin.

There's much more and also tons of great shorts from all over the world. Do yourself a favour, check out their programme and get yourself a three day festival pass. You won't regret it.

Document 9 is at GFT, CCA, GMAC and The Old Hairdresser's, Glasgow from Thu 13-Sun 23 Oct.