Film fest docos shed boring image

With box offices receipts down for the year and fans blaming boring remakes and sequels, three documentaries are winning rave reviews for turning real people - and penguins - into stars.

Murderball, Rize, and March of the Penguins are more like Hollywood feature films, their makers and promoters say, structured with tension, conflict and resolution.

Still, even as this new type of non-fiction film gains popularity, film-makers have a hard time financing them because documentaries are seen as stodgy.

Murderball, about quadriplegics who play wheelchair rugby, is being compared to an action-packed feature, while Rize director David LaChapelle likens his tale of overcoming adversity through dance to a movie musical.

And do not call March of the Penguins a nature movie. Director Luc Jacquet wanted to create an Impressionist painting on film. Penguins became an allegory for the age-old struggle to tame nature.

This style of movie won media attention at 2003's Sundance Film Festival, where winners for dramatic feature film American Splendor and documentary Capturing the Friedmans blurred the line between fiction and non-fiction. The box office success of last year's Super Size Me has shown that documentary makers can earn big profits.

But finding investors remains a problem because the idea of documentaries as purely educational fails to excite young audiences

- REUTERS

* Murderball and Rize play at the International Festival, which starts in Auckland today.