BRANNAVAN GNANALINGAM reports from the Wellington Film Society. This week: introducing Ross McElwee.

THE FILM SOCIETY has opened its mini-retrospective of brilliant American documentary maker Ross McElwee with two of his earlier short-ish films: Charleen and Backyard. The recent spate of self-deprecating, confessional documentary-making (e.g. I Am a Sex Addict) have their roots in McElwee’s distinctive work. His essay-films merge the social and the historical into something, well, personal (though not necessarily about himself). His hilarious, incisive work reaches its peak with next week’s Film Society film Sherman’s March, but these two little films provide plenty of pleasure, and point to his later works’ idiosyncrasies.