"Director: Lucy Walker"

• Waste Land | DVD | (28/02/2011) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Filmed over nearly three years Waste Land follows renowned artist Vik Muniz as he journeys from his home base in Brooklyn to his native Brazil and the world's largest garbage dump Jardim Gramacho located on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro. There he photographs an eclectic band of catadores -- or self-designated pickers of recyclable materials. Muniz's initial objective was to paint the catadores with garbage. However his collaboration with these inspiring characters as they recreate photographic images of themselves out of garbage reveals both dignity and despair as the catadores begin to re-imagine their lives. Walker (Devil's Playground Blindsight) has great access to the entire process and in the end offers stirring evidence of the transformative power of art and the alchemy of the human spirit.

• The Crash Reel | DVD | (09/12/2013) from £9.99   |  Saving you £8.00 (44.50%)   |  RRP £17.99

  Film-maker Lucy Walker's documentary about snowboarder Kevin Pearce and his fight back from a career-threatening injury. Spurred on to try out ever more intricate manoeuvres by his fierce rivalry with Shaun White in the run-up to the 2010 Winter Olympics, Kevin Pearce is left with a life-threatening brain injury when he suffers a training accident at Park City, Utah, in 2009. Determined to help him through the tortuous recovery period, Kevin's family wastes no time in rallying round to help h...

• Blindsight | DVD | (30/03/2009) from £6.48   |  Saving you £9.51 (59.50%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Set against the breathtaking backdrop of the Himalayas BLINDSIGHT follows the gripping adventure of six Tibetan teenagers who set out to climb the 23 000-foot Lhakpa Ri on the north side of Mount Everest. The dangerous journey soon becomes a seemingly impossible challenge -- made all the more remarkable by the fact that the teenagers are blind. Believed by many Tibetans to be possessed by demons the children are shunned by their parents scorned by their villages and rejected by society. Rescued by Sabriye Tenberken a blind educator and adventurer who established the first and only school for the blind in Tibet the students invite the famous blind mountain climber Erik Weihenmayer to visit their school after learning about his conquest of Everest. Erik arrives in Lhasa and inspires Sabriye and her students Kyila Sonam Bhumtso Tashi Gyenshen Dachung and Tenzin to let him lead them higher than they have ever been before. The resulting 3-week journey is beyond anything any of them could have predicted.

• Buena Vista Social Club: Adios | DVD | (20/11/2017) from £7.55   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  In 1996, composer, producer, and guitar legend Ry Cooder entered Egrem Studios in Havana with the forgotten greats of Cuban music, many of them in their 60s and 70s, some of them long since retired. The resulting album, Buena Vista Social Club, became a Grammy-winning international bestseller. When Cooder returned to Havana in 1998 to record a solo album by 72-year-old vocalist Ibrahim Ferrer, filmmaker Wim Wenders was on hand to document the occasion. Wenders splits the film between portraits of the performers, who tell their stories directly to the camera as they wander the streets and neighbourhoods of Havana, and a celebration of the music heard in performance scenes in the studio, in their first concert in Amsterdam, and in their second and final concert at Carnegie Hall. The songs are too often cut short in this fashion, but Buena Vista Social Club is not a concert film. Wenders weaves the artist biographies with a glimpse of modern Cuba remembering its past, capturing a lost culture in music that is suddenly, unexpectedly revived for audiences in Havana and around the world. Wenders makes his presence practically invisible, as if his directorial flourishes or off-screen narration might deflect attention from the artists, who do a fine job of telling their own stories through interviews and music. It's a loving portrait of a master class in Cuban music, with a vital cast of ageing performers whose energy and passion belie their years. --Sean Axmaker

• Countdown to Zero | DVD | (15/08/2011) from £4.03   |  Saving you £10.96 (73.10%)   |  RRP £14.99

  COUNTDOWN TO ZERO is a compelling documentary by renowned British filmmaker and Academy Award nominee Lucy Walker (Waste Land, Blindsight), which offers a passionate and riveting look at the history of the atomic bomb.