Filmworker

This approachable, fan-aimed documentary by Tony Zierra (My Big Break) offers a fresh angle on the late, reclusive Stanley Kubrick. It bypasses his usual custodians to tell the story of Leon Vitali, Kubrick's devoted personal assistant for the 19 years between pre-production on The Shining up to the director's death in 1999. A factotum whose job descriptions are reeled off in exhaustive montage ("dialogue coach, casting, in charge of shipping, television, sales, video transfer, checking prints, trailer translation..."), Vitali was a jobbing English TV actor, cast in Barry Lyndon, who gave it all up to become Stan's right-hand man. A raffish raconteur with the look of an ex-member of Guns N' Roses, Vitali delivers his croaky testimony aided by industry figures and actors Ryan O'Neal, Matthew Modine, R Lee Ermey and Danny Lloyd (whom Vitali plucked as a five-year-old out of 5,000 hopefuls for The Shining). While his proximity allows glimpses into Kubrick's soppier side - a cherished handwritten note ("Thank you for your great talent, energy and kindness"); an anecdote about Vitali rigging up video surveillance throughout Kubrick's house to monitor a poorly cat while he worked - you can't help feel sorry for the put-upon PA. Despite his upbeat demeanour, years of below-the-line devotion appear to have prematurely aged him. Despite being cruelly denied an invite to the opening of a posthumous Kubrick exhibition in LA, we're told the self-described "filmworker" acted as a free tour guide anyway.