WORLD PREMIERE In 2015, three young Muslims were murdered in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. 36 SECONDS documents the heartbreaking aftermath in that community, and reflects on what it means to be Muslim in the American South, where the country’s gun laws and Islamophobia intersect. Through the devastation and heartbreak of the film emerges a portrait […]
NYC PREMIERE Rage. Anger. Shock. Fear. As the nation watched in disbelief, throngs of rioters descended on the capitol, and the people on the ground, mired in chaos, suddenly found their lives in jeopardy. From Nancy Pelosi, to Liz Cheney, to Steven Sund, D.C. Police Chief, more than 50 senators, representatives, staffers and police officers […]
WORLD PREMIERE Stevan, a 60-year-old, former porn performer from Serbia awaits the outcome of a Kafkaesque trial process in a Maltese prison. The moody landscapes reflect the loneliness and desperate state he was in prior to his arrest for public exposure in this bizarre story, which unspools like an eerie mystery. – Ruth Somalo The […]
NYC PREMIERE In 2005 at Guantanamo Bay, US Air Force JAG Attorney Yvonne Bradley volunteered to defend Binyam Mohamed who was facing a death penalty. She soon finds her world flipped upside down, as she uncovers the harrowing truth about the US legal system and questions whether some detainees are truly terrorists. Bradley’s captivating story […]
NYC PREMIERE The brutal murder of a young investigative journalist and his fiancée in 2018 ignited one of the biggest protests in Slovakia since the fall of communism. As colleagues and family search for answers, a source leaks a secret case file of the murder that reveals corruption at the highest level of government. Filmmaker […]
INTERNATIONAL PREMIERE An extraordinary and necessary essay film constructed entirely out of a vast archive of news footage from the ‘80s and ‘90s, OUR MOVIE (NUESTRA PELICULA) is a response to the violent history that imprinted itself on the director in her formative years in Colombia. Images of blood spatters, bullet holes, coffins, and Colombians […]
WORLD PREMIERE In the dangerously overcrowded California State prison system, 50 men serving life sentences are given the opportunity to become substance abuse counselors. As the first-ever participants in the Offender Mentor Program, the group reckons with their own demons as they excavate the deep trauma of their fellow inmates. An intimate study on the […]
Filmmaker Robert Greene has pushed the boundaries of collaborative documentary in innovative films such as Kate Plays Christine and Bisbee ‘17. In Procession, he deepens his practice of collaboration to document a drama-therapy project working with six men in Kansas City, Missouri who were abused by Catholic priests as children. “Greene’s process — free of […]
Filmmaker Stanley Nelson, a DOC NYC Lifetime Achievement Award recipient, has a distinguished career telling stories of Black struggle against white supremacy. He teams with co-director Traci A. Curry to revisit the largest prison uprising in U.S. history at the Attica Correctional Facility in upstate New York in 1971. The filmmakers conduct dozens of new […]
US PREMIERE Despite imprisonment, journalist Khadija Ismayilova courageously exposes the intricate corruption tactics of the families ruling Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, and Kazakhstan. Their dictatorships violate multiple human rights and launder public funds. Ismayilova strips the regimes of their democratic veneers to reveal their use of “caviar diplomacy”—e.g. American pop stars, six-figure cash gifts, and five-star hotel […]