Meet the Friedmans - a middle-class, seemingly typical Jewish family living in the suburbs of Long Island, New York.

To all who knew them the only apparent abnormality they were ever inclined to display was their obsessive compulsion to document their lives - first on Super-8 film, then on home video. But their filming wasn't just limited to birthday parties and holidays. Everything was captured - Dad carving a roast, the brothers playing games in the living room, every part of family life, they filmed.

And so it continued until 1987, when accusations of the molestation of school children were levelled at the father, schoolteacher Arnold, and his youngest son, thus shattering the community and leaving the family only one option - to do as they have always done - capture the arrest, trial and its horrifying aftermath.

Director Jarecki constructs a film where the viewer's opinion is subverted with each new revelation - creating a portrayal of family through the use of their own home movies combined with interviews with them, the authorities and members of the community. In this film there is no black and white, we can never know the truth.

A masterpiece ' one can only hope Jarecki finds another subject as rich as this family, which was obsessed with itself but needed a filmmaker to begin to see itself at all. - The New Yorker

Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary - Sundance Film Festival 2002