New to DocPlay in June

DocPlay has kicked off its June premieres early by celebrating Ange Postecoglou’s Europa League win with the exclusive streaming of the Melbourne-made documentary Ange and the Boss: Puskás in Australia.

It tells the improbable story of all-time great Hungarian striker Ferenc Puskás’s time in Australia. Reads the blurb:

Barely able to speak English, Puskás united and inspired South Melbourne Hellas to a dramatic NSL Championship win in 1991; eating, drinking, and enjoying himself along the way. His captain and protégé was Ange Postecoglou, now Tottenham coach and one of Australia’s most successful sporting exports. Ange and his Hellas teammates – including Paul Trimboli, Miki Petersen, Gus Tsolakis and Con Boutsianis – light up the screen with their love and appreciation for Puskás and the aura he generated. A sports documentary and a look back at life in Australia, Ange & the Bosshighlights immigrant identity and belonging, gluttonous pasta consumption, and the broken window winder in Ange Postecoglou’s Datsun 200B.

Also new in June are:

The Grab (June 2): An investigative journalist uncovers the money, influence, and alarming rationale behind covert land grabs by some of the world’s most powerful countries. From director Gabriela Cowperthwaite (Blackfish).

Black Coast Vanishings (June 5): The gripping investigation into the disappearance of six people in Piha Beach that first screened on Three.

Elizabeth: A Portrait in Parts (June 12): From the director of Notting Hill and Tea with the Dames comes a nostalgic, uplifting and modern documentary about Queen Elizabeth II.

The Gene: An Intimate History (June 23): From director Ken Burns, The Gene weaves together science, history and personal stories for a historical biography of the human genome, while also exploring breakthroughs for diagnosis and treatment of genetic diseases, and the complex ethical questions they raise.

Lewis and Clark (June 23): A 1997 Burns series about America’s greatest story of adventure, the Corps of Discovery, led by Lewis and Clark. (Upscaled to HD.)

AFTRS Shorts (June 26): Six emerging Australian documentary-makers present new works that span such diverse themes as urban beekeeping, Sydney’s marine ecosystem, masked wrestling, and art and queer identity.

K Road Chronicles (June 26): Season four of the NZ series about homelessness from the inside. Six, once homeless herself, now a journalist, is our guide to the colourful, diverse, harsh and often tragic world of the people living on and around Auckland’s Karangahape Road.

School of Hard Knocks (June 30): A former professional wrestler, now tragically confined to a wheelchair, runs a school for aspiring wrestlers in Perth, hoping to give them the physical, mental and emotional skills to succeed in the ring and in their troubled lives.