Falling between the more established Sheffield Docs Fest and the East End Film Festival, Open City Docs Fest presented an impressive range of films and talks at London’s UCL last week with quiet confidence.

While Sheffield Docs Fest has grown considerably in recent years (the festival opened with  Jarvis Cocker’s The Big Melt - a hymn to the city and its relationship with steel and heavy industry) and EEFF returns this week (25 June - 10 July) with its annual take over of London’s creative heartland; Open City Docs Fest focused on the work, encouraging audiences to discuss the films and build relationships at every opportunity.

The festival opened with a gala screening of The 12 O’Clock Boys, which tells the story of Pug, a thirteen year-old boy growing up in East Baltimore and his attempts to join an infamous dirt bike gang. Over three years director Lofty Nathan documented Pug’s coming of age on the mean streets of one of America’s most deprived cities, providing an intimate and troubling account of a young mans right of passage.

Fans of The Wire will recognise the urban poverty and streets teaming with disenfranchised youth. Nathan takes us on a rigorous tour through this landscape where opportunity is scant, adolescence is short-lived and alternatives to criminality are limited. The claustrophobia is punctuated by rapid, haphazard editing, the camera often extremely close to its subject and the urban racket a constant background throughout.

Relief comes occasionally in expansive sequences of the 12 O’Clock Boys as they ride through Baltimore like Wu-Tang on wheels, harassing police and performing death-defying stunts with exhilarating choreography. During one of these scenes, as the riders pull trademark vertical wheelies, arms outstretched and faces ecstatic with the thrill of ride, we hear Pug say: “They’re free, they get on that bike, they feel powerful. Whatever’s going on in their lives, it’s all gone. They can escape.”

As with The Wire, there is a sense of voyeurism implicit in watching lives so significantly other than our own. Nowhere in the film illustrates this more powerfully than when Pugs’ mother Coco, a retired exotic dancer, throws a party. As adults and children dance provocatively in the kitchen, booze flows freely and Pug gets a tattoo from a family friend, emphasising the slim divide between childhood and adulthood in East Baltimore.

Perhaps this is why the 12 O’Clock Boys themselves are so regressive. Their dare devil sprees through the city are every young boys dream, and while there’s undoubtedly a subversive agenda to rile the authorities, it’s a juvenile sort of rebellion reminding us these young men have been deprived not only of socio-economic equality but of youth itself. As the film progresses, we watch uneasily as the vulnerable young Pug searches for belonging with the pitfalls of a desperate society never far away and raw adrenalin the only escape.

I Am Breathing records the last months in the life of Neil Platt. Shortly after the birth of his son Oscar he is diagnosed with Motor Neuron Disease, leaving Neil to contemplate his life and legacy and anticipate all the things Oscar may want to ask his father when he grows up.

Using voice recognition and video diary the film charts Neil’s life as he lives with his debilitating condition.  Despite its heartbreaking story the film is strikingly lacking in sentiment. Instead, we’re offered a glimpse of the world through Neil’s eyes as he tells his story with sharp wit and a wry Northern humour. In his own words: “it is a tale of fun and laughs with a smattering of upset and devastation.”

Neil takes a lighthearted approach to a posthumous fatherhood, reflecting on his life experiences affectionately.  On meeting his wife, he says: “I met your mother at a friends house party. One thing led to another and the next evening we were having a Chinese takeaway.”

Crucially he avoids dogma, opting to offer Oscar subtle suggestion and never confusing hindsight with entitlement or authority: “I cant tell you how to live your life” he says over Super 8 footage of his student days “but I can recommend having a crack at a musical instrument.”

Made on a shoestring, the film occasionally strays over the invisible line between reality television and documentary. However, ultimately it transcends these stylistic issues, delivering an absorbing and emotional account of a family facing tragedy. The protagonist shines with dignity and courage, and when the inevitable conclusion comes we miss Neil as though we had known him well.

I Am Breathing is a subtle mediation on life, love and legacy delivered without pathos; a moving portrait of a man losing grip on all we hold dear and for this reason alone is an important film.

The festival closed with a screening of Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer documenting the imprisonment of Russia’s all girl enfant terribles and their meteoric rise to fame. Through a series of interviews with their family, those that oppose them and some remarkably candid courtroom footage we are given an insight into the iconic group and their trial.

The film has a very clear agenda, clarifying the good guys from the bad guys from the outset. The girls are presented as heroines fighting against an oppressive authoritarian regime, while their adversaries - such as the Russian Orthodox Church - are depicted like a bumbling Greek chorus.

In one scene we are escorted through the church by a group of bearded brethren. Like the knights of the Templar they show us their crucifixes on huge wooden wands, sacred phalluses they dub their “most deadly weapons.” “The word ‘pussy’ is a devious word” says one man, his shirt emblazoned with a scull and crossbones that reads ‘Orthodox or Death.’ “There have always been witches unwilling to repent.”

These characters play straight into the film-makers hands, and such startling ignorance could almost have been scripted by Pussy Riot themselves. Unsurprisingly the film is unapologetic in its bias. This is after all both a rally against patriarchy and the hippest cause to catch the attention of the West since Live Aid.

But despite the unprecedented access to Pussy Riot and the riveting controversy surrounding them, the film misses vital opportunities to explore the story in more depth. One critic voices his concern that they have “caused irreparable damage to liberalism”, an interesting case in point which says as much about Russia’s estrangement from democracy as it does about Pussy Riot’s failure to communicate their message with clarity.

Character studies of the girls are slight, leaving us wondering how they came to be reactionaries in the first place. Outspoken and confrontational Nadya, for example, who’s extreme protests (including a public orgy at eight months pregnant) gained headlines long before the current scandal. Somewhat edgier than her counterparts, Nadya is quite the narcissist, saying “I always look good” while having her picture taken and being told “this is not your speech for candidacy” after a particularly digressive courtroom rant.

I was left wondering to what extent ego plays a part in this righteous political circus. However, as often the case with portraits of revolutionary pin-ups, any attempt to demystify Pussy Riot is neglected in favor of idol worship.

For more info on Open City Docs Fest check out opencitydocsfest.com