Billy the Kid

Aroview: Genuinely disarming verite-style doco records the daily doings of awkwardly lovable Billy, a straight-shooting small-town teenager who refuses to change who he is to suit society.

Unabashedly public where others would've stayed private, this captures the angst of adolescence in all its painfully earnest intensity, as Billy courts his first sweetheart and attempts to fit in with his peers; the consequences alternately funny, cringeworthy and heartbreaking. With its articulate subject holding forth on a range of subjects - turning plain-spoken platitudes into uncensored eloquence in the process -, this sheds its traces of exhibitionism to become that rare breed of documentary: one that acknowledges mental illness without allowing it to overshadow individuality.

NZ International Film Festival 2008