There Are No Innocent Bystanders / Documentary (The Libertines)

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Longtime collaborator Roger Sargent directed a feature length documentary on the band's 2010 reunion, that was released in Spring 2012. The Libertines: There Are No Innocent Bystanders offers an account of the band’s 2010 Reading and Leeds Festival shows, including Sargent’s NME cover shoot announcing the festival appearances, rehearsals and warm-up shows, and their festival stage appearances.
The film is produced by Pulse Films and had its World Premiere at East End Film Festival in April 2011 including the whole band except for Peter. The film toured UK O2 Academy venues in March 2012 and Europe April till June 2012 which was followed by a limited theatrical release in the UK and a DVD release.

There Are No Innocent Bystanders', the eagerly awaited documentary by Roger Sargent, follows the band as they prepare to reform for gigs at the Kentish Town Forum and at the Reading and Leeds festivals. This is punctuated by a history of the band from its inception to its fractured split. Few documentaries are made with such startling intimacy as this one, long time friend of the band and photographer (responsible for that album cover) Sargent is fly on the wall at moments of heightened tension and great jubilation. Seeing the band take their first uneasy steps towards practicing their first song in six years is an acutely uncomfortable view, and by the end you're hugely aware of how far the band had came by the time they walked on the Reading stage. It takes a lot of effort to sound that chaotic.

There Are No Innocent Bystanders' is perhaps as intimate and frank portrait of the band that we are ever likely to get, and captures all of the uncertainty and all of the spectrum of emotions that the Libertines reformation was to those involved. The film carefully does not show the Libertines story as being over, but does shine a light on the bruises and scars that stop the next page from being turned. A powerful and candid documentary, this is a must for any Libertines fan or anyone interested in one of the most riotous and fractured stories in rock'n'roll.

The DVD extras Including the Warm Up Show at the forum, the extend interviews and more