2. Searching For Sugar Man (Malik Bendjelloul, 2012)
Throughout this film, several people will tell you that Seventies singer-songwriter Sixto Rodriguez was heralded as the next Bob Dylan. This isnt quite true. Rodriguez was way better than that. A near-mythical figure often found wandering the streets of Detroit, he rolled in and out of town with the wind. People recall his jazz club performances as though describing a ghost. His acoustic blues, with lyrics filled with social injustice, corruption and unrequited love, made him the spokesman for the downtrodden and disenfranchised. The drug references in his most famous song, Sugar Man, may not have made it the most radio-friendly, but it was a sure-fire way to grab the teenage audience. But when his debut album, 1970s Cold Fact, sold disappointingly few copies, he was dropped from his record label and disappeared into thin air. Rumours of his death shortly followed, but after hearing news to the contrary, Bendjelloul travels to South Africa, where Rodriguez protest songs had become the soundtrack to the apartheid struggle. There, the filmmaker discovers that Rodriguez had a commercial appeal that had so eluded him in the States. The only downside was that he never received a penny in royalties, and still no one can track him down. Can a rock journalist turned private investigator help solve the case of the missing musician? Like its subject matter, Searching for Sugar Man has relied on word of mouth to survive, but there can be no recommendation too strong to ensure that this superb film reaches the audience that it deserves. Although winning Best Documentary Oscar was certainly a start...