Press Highlights from DOC NYC
DOC NYC was fortunate to receive rapturous praise from the press for our 5th annual festival. Read on for highlights and check out our video and radio pieces on CBS, Leonard Lopate, and Brian Lehrer, as well as a full highlights “bible” from Indiewire.
“Images That Dare You to Turn Away” – Stephen Holden, The New York Times
“Documentary isn’t really a genre; it’s an idea, one that, no less than the idea of fiction, takes part in all of the cinema’s genres and modes. There are musical documentaries and romantic ones, war documentaries and Western documentaries and documentary comedies, experimental documentaries and realistic documentaries and hallucinatory documentaries. And one very rare and very great documentary, screening on Sunday morning at 11:45 A.M. at IFC Center, as part of the DOC NYC series—’David,’ produced by the late Robert Drew, from 1961—is an Expressionistic documentary.” – Richard Brody, The New Yorker
“Bigger isn’t always better. But when it comes to DOC NYC, now the largest documentary film festival in the U.S., the five-year-old upstart event has proven itself a worthy new addition to the nonfiction calendar. By all accounts, screenings have been selling out; the country’s top documentary filmmakers, from Albert Maysles to D.A. Pennabaker, are showing up for tributes and events; and sales agents are closing deals on select world premieres. “ – Anthony Kaufman, Indiewire
“So it goes in Thomas Wirthensohn’s joyous yet dispiriting portrait Homme Less, a film that exemplifies the lineup at this year’s DOC NYC festival: Here’s movie after movie digging into the struggle to live and to thrive in this city, in this country, in this world. Of all the subjects in this year’s 150-plus films, only Reay has the chutzpah to look right at us and suggest what exactly we should do about the troubles being documented, even if it’s just to surrender a couch.” – Alan Scherstuhl, The Village Voice
“If you’ve begun to notice an abundance of socially-conscious filmmakers gathered together in lower Manhattan this week, first of all — you’re wonderfully observant. Secondly, there’s a reason for it. This week marks the beginning of DOC NYC, the two-week long festival devoted to documentary storytelling of all kinds. From humor to reportage, memoirs to historical portraits, the cinematic bonanza covers everything new and noteworthy in the world of documentary filmmaking.” – Katherine Brooks, The Huffington Post
“Fiction is overrated, it’s said, but rarely does the maxim make more sense than at the annual DOC NYC festival, an essential event on the cinephile’s calendar.” – Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out New York
“With so many worthy documentaries entering the awards fray, high-profile programs such as America’s largest documentary festival, DOC NYC, are a crucial gateway to getting the right people in the documentary community–and media–to focus attention on the cream of the crop.” – Anne Thompson, Indiewire-Thompson on Hollywood
“DOC NYC, the annual documentary festival commencing its fifth edition Thursday, stands out as the most comprehensive celebration of the nonfiction form in the five boroughs or anywhere else for that matter.” – Robert Levin, AM New York
“The well-curated fest is yet again a wonder to behold.” – Tom Roston, Doc Soup
