The legendary Jamaican reggae singer/musician Bob Marley deserves and—good news—has a truly great documentary detailing his rich, fascinating life. Kevin Macdonald gets the credit for shouldering a derailed project with permission for rights to the music running out. The two-and-a-half hour film speeds by with a wealth of candid interviews and archival footage.

This year’s fifth annual St. Louis Q-Fest offers something for just about everyone with 21 fiction and nonfiction features plus seven short films with the U.S., Canada, Belgium and Italy represented. Q-Fest kicks off its five days at the Tivoli at 1:30 Sunday, April 22nd with four very different films from which to choose. 

Multi-award winning producer, director, writer and editor Steve James has crafted engaging, landmark documentaries for over 25 years. This weekend Webster University hosts James for a filmmaking workshop along with screenings of four of his works: Hoop Dreams, The Interrupters, No Crossover: The Trial of Allen Iverson, and At the Death House Door.    

Producer/director David Gelb makes an impressive debut with his documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi. True to its title, indeed 85-year-old Jiro Ono does dream of sushi as he has since he began his apprenticeship at 10 years old.

For lovers of candid but dull home movies, the documentary Bombay Beach is just the ticket.

For over forty years, producer, director and editor Frederick Wiseman has crafted unique nonfiction films. Choosing institutions or groups as subjects, adding no interpretive voiceover narration, refusing to intrude with his queries, Wiseman delivers a fly-on-the-wall immersion. His latest documentary takes viewers inside Paris' Crazy Horse, described by the director as "supposedly the best chic nude show on earth."

Cinema lovers know about the legendary Roger Corman: his extraordinarily low budget films beginning in 1954, his giving a who's who of stars and directors their starts, and his work ethic that accounts for over 400 projects as writer, producer and/or director. Still Corman's World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel brings this man and his accomplishments to vivid life.

As much a human-interest story as a spiritual odyssey, Jennifer Fox's documentary My Reincarnation chronicles the relationship between spiritual Tibetan Buddhist Master Chögyal Namkhai Norbu and his secular son Yeshi. Fox gives equal screen time to both men, crosscutting between scenes with them together and alone, while also giving each voiceover narration to express innermost thoughts and feelings.

Acclaimed filmmaker Steve James will present a workshop/master class on documentary film on April 28.

Some people eat to live; others live to eat. Spanish chef Ferran Adrià lives to create aesthetically pleasing, innovative food. Several sources praise his El Bulli restaurant as the most fascinating, best in the world. Until recently, El Bulli closed for half the year so master chefs could concoct avant-garde culinary treats, quietly documented in El Bulli: Cooking in Progress.

The Swell Season meanders through the slow unraveling of the fragile relationship it follows over two years. That the couple under scrutiny is Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglova gains the documentary some affection since Glen and Mar achieved a measure of fame after starring in the 2006 independent film Once. In it, they became a couple on and off screen.

This Way of Life profiles a year plus in the hand-to-mouth existence of the Ottley Karena family in the north Island of New Zealand. Peter and Colleen and their five, soon six, children live modestly, but precariously, by any standards. Peter kills their meat, herds their horses in the spectacular Ruahine Mountain range, and describes his honorable approach to life.

Everyday Sunshine: The Story of Fishbone starts with enviable energy and maintains its pace throughout Lev Anderson and Chris Metzler's engaging, enlightening documentary. Periodic voiceover narration by Laurence Fishburne relates relevant history, describing the racial segregation of 1979 LA and subsequent busing that brought the original six band members together.

For fans of A Tribe Called Quest and, in fact, for anyone interested in the hip hop scene, first time director Michael Rapaport’s Beats, Rhymes and Life is an informative and enjoyable documentary. Through recent interviews and archival footage, Rapaport weaves together the rise, the fights, and the reunion of Tribe’s two central rappers, Phife Dawg and Q-Tip.

American: The Bill Hicks Story begins early in the life of its title character in suburban Houston. It progresses chronologically through major moments up to Hicks' death of pancreatic cancer in 1994 at only 32. However, the documentary breaks one of the cardinal rules of filmmaking, or any good story telling: don't talk about it, show it.

Forty-nine-year-old Buck Brannaman is already a legend in horse riders' circles and among working cowboys. The documentary Buck about his early life and who he became as he survived those years will, I hope, spread his inspirational attitude to everyone, because Buck is an extraordinary human being, embodying sincere politeness and heartfelt humanity, all the more surprising given his upbringing.

Webster University features three documentary films in a Multicultural Committee Film Series from Thursday, April 7th, through Sunday, April 10th. The film I previewed, Monica and David, follows a Down syndrome couple from preparation for and enjoyment of their wedding through a trying relocation with Monica's admirably supportive mother Maria and stepfather Bob.

The documentary Nénette cleverly shifts perspective from beginning to end. For French director Nicolas Philibert trains his camera on 40-year old orangutan Nénette in the Parisian Jardin des Plantes where she has lived since 1972. Visitors appear only in reflections on the enclosure glass with their comments sometimes overheard. It's a fitting, loving, and heartbreaking tribute.

The unusually titled documentary Marwencol recounts the story of an equally unusual world and the man who invented it. Brutally beaten in April 2000, Mark Hogancamp emerged from nine days in a coma and 40 days in the hospital with minimal memory of his past, and so he decided to create a 1/6th scale World War II town.

Too many documentaries about artists fail to rein in the narcissistic indulgence of a work focusing on a talented subject—whether filmmaker, painter, musician, or other. Not so in Waste Land, a credit to director Lucy Walker and a tribute to mixed-media, photographic artist Vik Muniz who expresses an inspirational social conscience.

Over the years, fiction and nonfiction films have dramatized the short life of artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, my favorite being Julian Schnabel's 1996 Basquiat with Jeffrey Wright. But producer/director Tamra Davis' documentary Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child trumps them all.

Thierry Guetta is energetic and focused; well, more accurately, Thierry's frantic and obsessed. He doesn't go anywhere without his camera, as he admits in the opening shots, Los Angeles, 1999. To pay for his mania, he runs a used-clothing store, though his wife Debora does the work since Thierry is videotaping graffiti artists in New York, London, and Paris. Loquacious, charming Thierry ingratiates himself with a who's who of street artists, with Shepard Fairey and, in his greatest coup, the elusive Banksy. Pressed for his reasons for all the shooting, Thierry says he's making a documentary.