Debbie Melnyk and Rick Caine both profile and participate in the burgeoning industry of books, websites and films that seek to debunk or discredit the notoriously polemical filmmaker Michael Moore. But what sets Manufacturing Dissent apart from the rest is the journey of a sweet Canadian lady with honest intentions who really just can’t get an interview with the celebrity firebrand. The narrative parallels – and ultimately casts doubt on – the central premise of Moore’s breakthrough Roger and Me: the refusal of General Motors CEO and chairman Roger Smith to grant him an audience. Following the 2004 Slacker Uprising Tour around US universities (aimed at getting the apathetic youth bloc to vote), Melnyk and Caine evenly document Moore’s controversial history by balancing interviews with friends and foes. In the process of building a case against Moore’s dilatory and bullying tactics they shed light on the fascinating character of someone living under constant public scrutiny, whose career and reputation depends on never giving up ground and creating a persona more trademark than human being. Melnyk and Caine raise crucial questions about the integrity of the documentary genre and even the definition of truth as they sift through a catalogue of inventions, manipulations, equivocations, omissions and – perhaps most deceptive of all – a lack of basic context. As a result, debate about ‘the greater good’ and ‘the means justify the ends’ elevates Manufacturing Dissent above mere party politics and into the loftier spheres of philosophy and ethics.

From the only-in-Japan files comes the story of the impossibly charming Issei-san and crew, who charge girls pots of cash to be picked up and taken back to the Café Rakkyo, where they have the opportunity to buy over-priced champagne for their beautiful beaux. At first the ‘hosts’ in Jake Clennell’s debut, The Great Happiness Space: Tale of an Osaka Love Thief, seem like straightforward inversions of the geisha – this time it is young males who are smothered in effeminate cosmetics and baroque accoutrements, and paid to serenade and entertain women. But it doesn’t take Clennell long to uncover the horrible neuroses beneath the glamour when insincere flattery and sadistic scoldings are just tools of the trade. Issei’s frankness is by turns refreshing and appalling, but it is Clennell’s candid interviews with the clients that really convey the tragedy and weirdness behind this combination of personal and business relationships, where each party are as needy as the other. Things get really rotten when it is revealed some girls are prostituting themselves to earn the money for the platonic ‘financial worship’ – one girl even seeks to usurp Clennell’s interviews as part of her game strategy to win over Issei.—Joe Sheppard