Wallingford's Film First

On December 9, 1981, Mumia Abu-Jamal was arrested for killing Daniel Faulkner, the white Philadelphia cop who was assaulting his brother Billy Cook. He remains on Death Row, despite the intercession of Amnesty International. The insecurity of a guilty verdict reached through a combination of police intimidation and institutionalised racism has already been established in John Edginton's 1997 documentary Mumia Abu-Jamal: A Case for Reasonable Doubt? But it does no harm to examine the new evidence it is hoped will finally overturn this infamous miscarriage of justice.

Produced by the husband-and-wife team of Colin Firth and Livia Giuggioli, and including interviews with such high-profile supporters as Angela Davis, Alice Walker, Mos Def and Snoop Dog, this is well-meaning and competently made. But Evans's use of activist William Francome (who was born on the day that Abu-Jamal was detained) as our guide through the legal and socio-political complexities feels more than a little contrived.

The mood lightens considerably for Uberto Pasolini's Machan (2008), which recalls the disappearance in September 2004 of the 23-man Sri Lankan handball team while competing in a tournament in Bavaria.

Bartender Gihan De Chickera and fruit salesman Dharmapriya Dias are sick of trying to make ends meet off the tourist track in Colombo. Furthermore, Dias has to endure the wrath of brother Dharshan Dharmaraj, who helped pay his debt to a local shyster and now faces the prospect of his wife going to work as a maid in the Gulf to keep up the payments. So, having had yet another visa application rejected, Dias hits upon the idea of forming a handball team, entering an event in Germany and then vanishing into the lucrative underground economy.

However, the plan also appeals to several of his neighbours, including a people trafficker and a couple of corrupt cops, and Dias has to produce kit and credentials for all of them to keep his dream alive. But the preparations leave no time for practice and the team is so severely hammered in its first two matches that the immigration authorities become suspicious. However, the Sri Lankans have become overnight celebrities and national pride dictates that they postpone fleeing to their chosen destinations until after their final game.

Marking the directorial debut of Uberto Pasolini, this has much in feel-good common with The Full Monty, which he produced back in 1997. Despite Stefano Falivene's camera capturing the desperate poverty in which Dias lives with his sister and eccentric aunts, the emphasis falls more on chancer charm than socio-economic actuality. Yet this still manages to get its message across while also being hugely entertaining.

In stark contrast, the positive contribution that women can make in areas of patriarchal intransigence is examined by director Gini Reticker and producer Abigail Disney in Pray the Devil Back to Hell, which recalls how Christian and Muslim women combined to bring an end Liberia's second civil war by barricading stalled treaty talks that were being held in Ghana. This may not be the most audiovisually innovative title on offer this week, but it's certainly the most inspirational.

Liberia was founded in 1847 by slaves who had been emancipated in the United States and wished to return to their African roots. However, the sense of unity didn't last and, at the height of a conflict that would eventually claim over 200,000 lives, warlord Charles Taylor took power in 1989 and imposed a barbarous regime dedicated to keeping the population divided and demoralised by allowing lawless gangs of drug-addled youths to roam the streets and intimidate anyone who dared to oppose them.

Having chronicled the murderous struggle between Taylor and Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD), Reticker and Disney turn their attention to the sprawling refugee camps outside the capital Monrovia and show how the deleterious impact that they were having on daily life prompted Christian social worker Leymah Gbowee and Muslim cop Asatu Bah Kenneth to join forces to protest for peace. In addition to wearing white t-shirts and occupying the city's fish market, they also used Lysistratan tactics to win over their menfolk and finally dispatched a delegation to the 2003 peace talks in the Ghanaian capital Accra to maintain the pressure on combatants who were enjoying the trappings of power too much to conclude a truce.

The passion and eloquence of these resourceful and courageous women make this as engaging as it's compelling, and the election of Africa's first female president, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, gives it an optimistic climax. Reticker makes unfussy use of distressing archival footage to put events in their historical context. But she also wisely allows Gbowee, Bah Kenneth, Etty Weah, Vaiba Flomo, Etweda Cooper and Janet Johnson Bryant to speak for themselves and her admiration for their strength, solidarity and common sense elevates this from a simple tribute to their tenacity and humanity to being a clarion call for movements for peace, truth and reconciliation across the globe to emulate the Liberian women's persistence, vigilance and pragmatism.

While this moving account was filmed over many months, Kurdish director Bahman Ghobadi required only 17 days to make No One Knows About Persian Cats, which follows the progress of two young Iranian musicians as they race against the clock to organise a covert gig, record an album and make arrangements to perform in Europe. The winner of the Special Jury Prize at Cannes and resembling a mumblecore hybrid of Fatih Akin's Crossing the Bridge: The Sound of Istanbul (2005) and a youthful variation on Ghobadi's own Half Moon (2006), this is a celebration of the urban iconoclasm that helped drive this summer's post-electoral protests. But while it reveals the extent to which underground culture, mobile phones and social networking sites have taught a generation of Iranians to kick against the system, this is also a cautionary tale that warns about expecting too much too soon.

Fresh from another spell inside for playing music without a licence, Ashkan Koshanejad and Negar Shaghaghi receive an invitation to appear in London. However, they lack the documentation to secure their passage and could do with some new bandmates. So, when they meet wheeler-dealing bootlegger Hamed Behdad at an illicit recording studio, they decide to entrust him with the details, while they write some English songs. Behdad introduces them to an ageing rascal who can get them their passports and visas and then transports them around Tehran on his motorbike to watch a range of indie groups in the hope of recruiting instrumentalists for their tour.

However, things don't go smoothly, as the musicians Koshanejad and Shaghaghi are most keen to hire aren't free and they struggle to find a suitable venue for their debut show. Moreover, Behdad proves to be highly unreliable and Shaghaghi becomes convinced that he's going to rip them off. Yet when there's a delay with the money that Koshanejad's mother is supposed to be wiring from Germany, Behdad sells his bike to pay for the fake paperwork. And that's when he sees his contact being bundled into the back of a police car.

Ghobadi can't be faulted for trying to showcase as many bands as possible in this whistlestop survey of the Iranian rock scene. The mix couldn't be more eclectic and he shoots the various electric bluesmen, heavy metalists, daff-tapping folkies, strutting rappers and indie boppers in locations as different as cellars, rooftops, sitting rooms and ancient ruins. He also frequently complements the numbers with MTV-style videos (undoubtedly the film's visual highlight) that tellingly expose the harsh realities of life under Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But for all Koshanejad's awkward hipness and the scarf-clad Shaghaghi's constant fretting, the linking episodes (with their surfeit of transient characters) are rather dull. There are exceptions, such as the droll price list for black-market documents and Behdad's motor-mouthed explanation to an unseen cop why he's in possession of so many counterfeit movies. But it's only on the day of the concert, when Koshanejad and Shaghaghi track down the missing Behdad to a wild party across town, that the story's poignant human element finally kicks in.

Finally, the festival closes on another musical note, as singing earns 77 under-privileged children from South Africa's Guguletu township the chance to perform on a bigger stage in Holly Lubbock's Fezeka's Voice. Under the baton of tireless teacher Phumi Tsewu, the choristers from Fezeka High School have attained such high standards that they have been invited to sing at Salisbury Cathedral. But rehearsal time is fast elapsing and some of the students have yet to secure their travel documents.

Although the focus falls primarily on Tsewu and his unwavering faith in his sometimes mischievous charges, Lubbock also follows 16 year-old Busi (whose mother dies of AIDS) and 17 year-olds Zukisa and Nokwanda, as they prepare for the trip of a lifetime. Sadly, classmate Thobela has to stay behind because his family is unable to find the paperwork required to support his passport application. Thus, he not only misses the day in London (complete with a visit to Madame Tussaud's and a ride on the London Eye), but also the warm welcome extended by the Salisbury residents determined that the teenagers should enjoy every second of their stay.

News of a family tragedy cruelly intrudes upon Tsewu's triumph. But it speaks volumes for this dedicated and inspirational conductor that he gets the best out of the choir when it matters most and bounces back with redoubled enthusiasm when starting again with a new crop of recruits.