There's a fantastic, filmic moment in director Henry-Alex Rubin's family history that perhaps helps to shed light on his penchant for bringing a cinematic touch to real events. His father ducked out of law school in the US to head to Paris, where he rode the ramparts in the 1968 Parisian student riots and met Henry-Alex's mother, whom he promptly married just 10 days later.

Born in the US, Rubin moved to Paris as a 15-year-old, returning Stateside to study film at Columbia University and going on to gain a taste for the documentary genre that echoed the French and British New Wave. He emerged to direct the award-winning documentaries Freestyle (featuring Mos Def, The Roots and Biggie Smalls) and the 2005 Oscar-nominated Murderball and also served as second unit director on films including Cop Land and Girl Interrupted. The differing styles honed his cinematic and documentary filmmaking skills. "Ultimately it's about trying to translate a real moment that's happening in front of you in a way that lets the audience feel the same way you do," he says. "Most docs are not shot with shot lists, sequences or cinema in mind, so if you apply the idea of fiction filmmaking to documentary filmmaking you can create something potentially more impactful."

Signing with Smuggler in 2006, Rubin shot spots for adidas and the NHL among others before reaching major success with this year's Burger King "Whopper Freakout", a hidden camera campaign that showed BK fans deprived of their favorite fast food feast. It cleaned up at Cannes (winning an Integrated and two Gold Film Lions) and at awards shows worldwide. He recently wrapped a branded TV show for Office Max through DDB, Chicago, as well as a Wal-Mart campaign and is preparing to shoot a film about a group of friends who are border patrol agents, tentatively starring Ethan Hawke, Topher Grace and Julia Stiles.

My childhood was quite lonely. I took refuge in movies. I don't think I had friends until we moved to France. It's a real joy when people start listening to you and aren't beating you up.

There are two kinds of documentaries: ones that give [the genre] a bad name, where people talk at the camera and you're hearing stuff and not seeing it. Then there's the other kind, the cinéma vérité style, which is closer to the French and British New Wave. You're just watching people live and I love that.

Capturing real people is just as much of an art form as [shooting] fiction. You can either capture reality by getting people to be comfortable and open themselves up to you, or you hide the camera, which is a shortcut to [that]. All the work is about getting the people to be themselves, to be true to themselves. One of the things I love about docs - which is very rare to see in a movie - is a genuine note on screen: you're not saying, "That was really well done and well acted," you go, "Wow" - it hits you and you get a lump in your throat because it's a true, honest moment.

When you give too many answers to anybody about anything they'll forget what you've told them. That's the problem with most Western scriptwriting, everything is answered for you. There's never any mystery... it's not even a [concept] that preoccupies most American filmmakers much - the idea of tone, of mystery or holding someone captive.