As a producer and director, Ian Bonhôte favours polished documentaries with plenty of ceremony. We like his attention to what people can do, though Rising Phoenix shows how readily distinct lives become the same encouraging story.
Fi1m perspective
In Rising Phoenix (2020), athletes are posed like classical statues. Ian Bonhôte produces the film and co-directs with Peter Ettedgui, giving Paralympic sport a grand, carefully arranged presentation. He wants us to look closely at what these athletes can do, and he makes that a pleasure. It is an affecting introduction to the sport, worth seeing despite a tendency to make different lives resemble the same encouraging story. Bonhôte takes his subjects seriously; the trouble comes when he makes admiration feel like the only permitted response.
His early work in music videos and commercials was followed by Alleycats (2016), an action thriller set among London's underground bike racers. The turn to documentary came with McQueen (2018), co-directed with Ettedgui and structured around Alexander McQueen's runway shows. Personal archives and interviews supply material, but the work provides the way through the life. The pair continued from Rising Phoenix to Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story (2024), drawing on family archives. Across these documentaries, Bonhôte favours chapters and carefully presented interviews over an unobtrusive, observational approach.
We were moved by the competition footage in Rising Phoenix, because the athletes' skill gives us a clear reason to care. The insistent music is less helpful. It keeps reinforcing an admiration the images have already earned, while the crowded storytelling reduces the time available for each person to emerge separately. His use of strong close-ups and wide shots shows an interest in both personality and setting. That visual care works better than the pressure to find the same uplift in everyone.
His production partnerships include Andee Ryder, with whom he co-founded Misfits Entertainment; Ettedgui remains the recurring co-director on the documentaries. Their shared authorship matters when assessing both the thoughtful presentation and the heavy emphasis. We would welcome less musical prompting and more room for the individual stories, not a wholesale change of approach. Start with Rising Phoenix for the athletes and the competition, and be prepared for the soundtrack to offer more encouragement than either needs.
Biography
Ian Bonhôte is a Swiss documentary filmmaker, director and producer. Born in June 1977 in Geneva, he has worked on several feature documentaries.
His credits include directing McQueen (2018), Rising Phoenix (2020), on which he also served as producer, Alleycats (2016) and Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story (2024). He has received BAFTA nominations for his work.
