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THE VILLAGE DETECTIVE: A SONG CYCLE (pictured above), THE MOST BEAUTIFUL BOY, MAN IN THE FIELD
2021 VISIONARIES HONOREES
Joan Churchill
Lifetime Achievement
Raoul Peck
Lifetime Achievement
Peter Nicks
Leading Light Award
Chi-hui Yang
Robert & Anne Drew Award
Joan Churchill
Joan Churchill has a distinguished documentary career. She began her career as a cameraperson on films such as Gimme Shelter; Hail, Hail Rock and Roll and Jimi Plays Berkeley. She is a long-time collaborator with Nick Broomfield with directing credits on Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer; Soldier Girls and Juvenile Liaison. Among her many credits as a cinematographer are the documentaries Last Days in Vietnam, Shut Up & Sing and Down from the Mountain. She is the first documentary-focused director of photography to be accepted into the American Society of Cinematographers (A.S.C.) and one of the few women.
Raoul Peck
Raoul Peck was born in Haiti and educated in Congo, Brooklyn and France. His credits as a documentary director include Lumumba, Death of a Prophet; Fatal Assistance; the Oscar-nominated I Am Not Your Negro; and the four-part HBO Documentary Films’ groundbreaking series Exterminate all the Brutes. His directing credits in fiction films include Lumumba; Sometimes in April; Moloch Tropical; and The Young Karl Marx. His complex career includes an 18-month stint as Haiti’s Minister of Culture, two years teaching at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and nine years as the President of the French national film school La Fémis in Paris.
Peter Nicks
Peter Nicks is an Emmy Award-winning director, producer and cinematographer known for the immersive documentaries The Waiting Room, The Force and Homeroom, which form a trilogy exploring health care, criminal justice and education in Oakland, California. Nicks recently co-founded Proximity Media with fellow Oakland-based filmmaker Ryan Coogler.
Chi-hui Yang
Chi-hui Yang is a Senior Program Officer for Ford Foundation’s JustFilms initiative and makes grants globally in documentary film, new media and visual storytelling. He manages a portfolio of grants that support artist-led, socially engaged filmmaking, advance a more equitable and inclusive documentary sector, and build the power of organizations and individuals grounded in communities of color and the Global South. At Ford he has helped found a number of innovative funding initiatives, including Critical Minded, which supports and builds the capacity of cultural critics of color.
Before joining the foundation in 2015, Chi-hui worked extensively as a film curator, including as a selection committee member for MoMA’s Doc Fortnight and a consulting series producer for PBS’s POV. From 2000 to 2010, he was director of the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival, the largest event of its kind in the nation.
Meet Our Programmers
Ruth Somalo
Programmer, Features
Karen McMullen
Programmer, Features
Brandon Harrison
Programmer, Features
Samah Ali
Programmer, Shorts & DOC NYC U
Bedatri D. Choudhury
Associate Programmer, Features
Kim Garcia
Associate Programmer, Features
DeWitt Davis
Associate Programmer, Shorts
Elyse Wang
Associate Programmer, Shorts
Thom Powers
Artistic Director
Ruth Somalo
Programmer, Features
Ruth is a Spanish programmer, curator and filmmaker. She has worked with DOC NYC for eleven years, programs for the Architecture and Design Film Festival and often curates independent nonfiction programs like “Holy Fluids” (UnionDocs), “Broken Senses” (Anthology Film Archives) and “The Limit Of Our Gaze” (KJCC). Ruth has programmed for International Festivals like DocumentaMadrid, was the co-director of Impugning Impunity Human Rights Film Festival and serves as President of The Flaherty Board of Trustees.
Karen McMullen
Programmer, Features
Karen is a Features Programmer at Tribeca Festival, Director of Programming at TIDE and screener for Sundance Film Festival. She’s a juror at Pan African and Bentonville Film Festivals, Black Public Media and Cinema Eye Honors. She moderates for African Film Festival, Pure Nonfiction, Netflix, NYWIFT, HBO and more. She’s a guest speaker on television, radio and at filmmaking organizations. She’s a Brown University graduate and has editing credits on features, documentaries, and short films.
Brandon Harrison
Programmer, Features
Brandon Harrison is a producer, writer, and programmer. He began as a screener at DOC NYC, before joining the programming team in 2019. He also programs documentaries at the Brooklyn and Nashville Film Festivals, as well as new online work at Tribeca. Brandon has produced multimedia content for a variety of media outlets including Players’ Tribune, Vanity Fair, and Vox. He’s also a judge for the FilmFund. Brandon is a graduate of Morehouse College and received his M.A. in Cinema from UCLA.
Samah Ali
Programmer, Shorts & DOC NYC U
Samah Ali is a distributor and film programmer based in New York City and Toronto. A lover of documentaries and virtual reality, she programs for Academy Award qualifying festivals DOC NYC, Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival, and Hot Docs Film Festival. She is also the founder of Sisterhood Media, a production and distribution company streaming films on their platform, Sisterhood Media TV. You can interact with her on Twitter @sistersamah.
Bedatri D. Choudhury
Associate Programmer, Features
Bedatri is a culture journalist and documentary film professional. She has managed documentary projects at Doc Society, Working Films, The Gotham Film & Media Institute, and CAAM, among others. An alumna of the NYFF Critics Academy, Sundance and SXSW Press Inclusion Initiatives, the National Critics’ Institute, and Berlinale Talents, she lives in New York City. Presently, she is the Managing Editor of Documentary Magazine.
Kim Garcia
Associate Programmer, Features
Kim Garcia is a New York based filmmaker whose work has shown at Newfest, Fringe! Queer Film and Art Fest, and Seattle Queer Film Festival. She has filled various roles in exhibition and operations at Tribeca Film Festival, CAAM, NewFest, and Nantucket Film Festival. Currently, she is a screener for American Documentary’s POV program and moonlights as a film projectionist at repertory cinemas throughout the city.
DeWitt Davis
Associate Programmer, Shorts
DeWitt has been working with film and cinema presentations for over 15 years. He has been with DOC NYC since the first year of the festival and an Associate Programmer of Shorts since 2018. Over the years he has worked for multiple North American film festivals in the technical and programming teams. He also worked in film restoration and taught classes in motion picture film for Kodak.
Elyse Wang
Associate Programmer, Shorts
Elyse is a documentary programmer, storyteller, and life-long student. Her passion for non-fiction media and public media have led her to program for the Asian American International Film Festival and work on a film project with CAAM. Although she loves all parts of the filmmaking process, her favorite part is being able to share stories with new audiences and highlight the voices that are telling them.
Thom Powers
Artistic Director
Thom Powers is the founding Artistic Director of DOC NYC. He also serves as the documentary programmer for the Toronto International Film Festival now in his 15th year. He hosts the podcasts Pure Nonfiction and WNYC’s Documentary of the Week. He programs for the Miami International Film Festival and teaches at the School of Visual Arts. He is a co-founder of the Montclair Film Festival, Cinema Eye Honors and the Garrett Scott Documentary Development Grant. He previously spent a decade directing documentaries for HBO, PBS, and other outlets; and worked as marketing director and editor at Fantagraphics Books.
Congrats to our inaugural Spring Showcase alumni on their Emmy Nominations. Check out our Spring Showcase archive here.
76 DAYS
Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking
BILLIE EILISH: THE WORLD’S A LITTLE BLURRY
Outstanding Music Direction
Outstanding Picture Editing for a Nonfiction Program
Outstanding Sound Editing for a Nonfiction or Reality Program (Single or Multi-Camera)
Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Nonfiction or Reality Program (Single or Multi-Camera)
CITY SO REAL
Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series
Outstanding Cinematography for a Nonfiction Program
FRAMING BRITNEY SPEARS
Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special
Outstanding Picture Editing for a Nonfiction Program
PRETEND IT’S A CITY
Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series
THE SECRETS OF THE WHALES
Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series
Outstanding Cinematography for a Nonfiction Program
Outstanding Narrator
THE SOCIAL DILEMMA
Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special
Outstanding Directing for a Documentary/Nonfiction Program
Outstanding Writing for a Nonfiction Program
Outstanding Cinematography for a Nonfiction Program
Outstanding Picture Editing for a Nonfiction Program
Outstanding Music Composition for a Documentary Series or Special (Original Dramatic Score)
Outstanding Sound Editing for a Nonfiction or Reality Program (Single or Multi-Camera)
THE YEAR EARTH CHANGED
Outstanding Narrator
DOC NYC and IF/Then Shorts, in partnership with The Redford Center, calls short documentary filmmakers to take part in the inaugural IF/Then x The Redford Center Nature Access Pitch.
The DOC NYC Short List for documentary features has a history of being a predictor of other awards—from critics’ prizes and top ten lists to the Oscars. The selection officially started in 2012 with 10 titles and grew to 15 titles in 2014. Notable statistics:
- For the last nine years, DOC NYC has screened the documentary feature that went on to win the Academy Award.
- The festival has screened 24 of the last 25 Oscar-nominated documentary features.
- In 2019, DOC NYC screened 13 of 15 titles that were named to the subsequent Academy Award Documentary Shortlist.
DOC NYC’s Short List selections are chosen by the festival’s programming team, overseen by Artistic Director Thom Powers and Director of Programming Basil Tsiokos. Most of the DOC NYC Short List titles will be shown on the festival’s online platform, with the films followed by a recorded Q&A with the filmmakers. Additionally, the films’t directors or other collaborators will participate in DOC NYC PRO Short List Features and Shorts days that will take place online in early December; details to be announced. The DOC NYC PRO Short List Features Day is co-presented by MTV Documentary Films.
For the second year, the Short List: Features will vie for juried awards in four categories: Directing, Producing, Cinematography, and Editing. Last year’s winners in these categories were The Edge of Democracy (Directing), American Factory (Producing), Apollo 11 (Editing), The Elephant Queen (Cinematography), and For Sama (Special Recognition for Courage in Filmmaking).
This year’s selections for Short List: Features are:
Dir: Hao Wu, Weixi Chen, Anonymous
Prod: Hao Wu, Jean Tsien
A suspenseful, immersive look at life under COVID-19 lockdown in Wuhan, China, focused on front-line hospital workers and their patients. (Courtesy of MTV Documentary Films)
Dir/Prod: Jesse Moss, Amanda McBaine
An annual civics program reveals modern-day democracy in a microcosm as high school boys create a mock government in Austin, Texas. (Courtesy of Apple Original Films/A24)
Dir/Prod: Alexander Nanau
Prod: Bianca Oana, Bernard Michaux, Hanka Kastelicová
This riveting investigative film follows a team of Romanian reporters as they doggedly uncover a deadly scandal that reaches the highest levels of government. (Courtesy of Magnolia Pictures/Participant)
Dir/Prod: Nicole Newnham, Jim LeBrecht
Prod: Sara Bolder
A chronicle of America’s disability rights movement and its origins in a liberating summer camp for disabled teens. (Courtesy of Netflix)
Dir/Prod: Kirsten Johnson
Prod: Katy Chevigny, Marilyn Ness
When the filmmaker’s 86-year-old father begins to lose his memory, she enlists him in a playful project to confront his mortality with a sense of humor. (Courtesy of Netflix)
Dir/Prod: Elyse Steinberg, Josh Kriegman, Eli Despres
Prod: Maya Seidler, Peggy Drexler, Kerry Washington
This inspiring and vital film follows lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union as they battle the Trump administration over cases of immigration, abortion, LGBTQ+ equality, and voting rights. (Courtesy of Magnolia Pictures/Topic)
Dir: Victor Kossakovsky
Prod: Anita Rehoff Larsen
A cinema vérité immersion into the experiences of several animals on a farm, focused on a sow and her new litter of piglets. (Courtesy of NEON)
Dir: Nathan Grossman
Prod: Cecilia Nessen, Fredrik Heinig
A portrait of Greta Thunberg’s meteoric one-year rise from high-school climate strike organizer to inspiration for a global movement. (Courtesy of Hulu)
Dir: Sam Pollard
Prod: Benjamin Hedin
Using recently declassified files, MLK/FBI examines J. Edgar Hoover’s relentless campaign of surveillance and harassment against Martin Luther King, Jr. (Courtesy of IFC Films)
Dir/Prod: Kirby Dick, Amy Ziering
Prod: Jamie Rogers, Amy Herdy
This groundbreaking investigation of sexual assault in the music industry explores the complex factors that make it difficult for Black women to speak out and be heard. (Courtesy of HBO Max)
Dir: Jeff Orlowski
Prod: Larissa Rhodes
An exposé of the insidious hidden systems of control behind our increasingly networked world, as revealed by former tech world insiders. (Courtesy of Netflix)
Dir/Prod: Ramona S. Diaz
Prod: Leah Marino, Julie Goldman, Christopher Clements, Carolyn Hepburn
A chilling look at the assault on fundamental democratic freedoms in the Philippines through the persecution of courageous journalist Maria Ressa. (Courtesy of PBS Distribution/FRONTLINE)
Dir/Prod: Garrett Bradley
Prod: Lauren Domino, Kellen Quinn
A moving chronicle of a marriage and a family separated by incarceration, focused on Fox Rich, who has spent 21 years fighting for the release of her husband from a 60-year prison sentence. (Courtesy of Amazon Studios)
Dir/Prod: Michael Dweck, Gregory Kershaw
Enter the secretive world of the only people–and dogs–who are able to find the elusive white Alba truffle, the most expensive ingredient in the world. (Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics)
Dir/Prod: David France
Prod: Alice Henty, Joy A. Tomchin, Askold Kurov
A courageous team of Russian activists operate an underground railroad to help LGBTQ+ Chechens escape state-sanctioned persecution (Courtesy of HBO Documentary Films/Music Box Films)
The Short List: Shorts showcase of 12 titles is now in its third year at DOC NYC. Last year the selection included 7 of the 10 films that went on to be named to the Oscars Shortlist for Documentary Shorts and 3 of DOC NYC’s picks went on to be Oscar nominees. For the second year, a DOC NYC jury will select one of the Shorts for a Directing Award. Last year’s winner was Stay Close.
This year’s selections for Short List: Shorts are:
Abortion Helpline, This Is Lisa
Dir/Prod: Barbara Attie, Janet Goldwater, Mike Attie
At a Philadelphia abortion helpline, counselors answer nonstop calls from women who are seeking to end a pregnancy, but can’t afford to do so. A revealing look at how economic stigma and cruel legislation determines who in America has access to abortion. (Courtesy of Topic/Women Make Movies)
Dir: Taylor Rees
Prod: Shirley Whitaker
Winfred Rembert, a survivor of an attempted lynching in 1967, a Star Wars fanatic, and leather artist, develops a friendship with Doctor Shirley Jackson Whitaker, who is on a mission to memorialize the forgotten 4,000 African Americans lynched during the Jim Crow era. (Courtesy of XTR)
Dir: Geeta Gandbhir
Prod: Jessica Devaney
A tale of migration and deportation, this film follows four characters as they struggle to make sense of their lives in Tijuana. Each with a different story, they’re linked by displacement and call center work in a country that’s unfamiliar and frightening, yet sometimes a ray of hope. (Courtesy of Topic)
Dir/Prod: Anders Hammer
Prod: Charlotte Cook
In the fall of 2019, a proposed bill allowing the Chinese government to extradite criminal suspects to mainland China escalates protests throughout Hong Kong. Unfolding across a year, this film captures the determination and sacrifices of the protesters, the government’s backlash, and the passage of the new Beijing-backed national security law. (Courtesy of Field of Vision)
Dir/Prod: Alison Klayman
Japanese artist Azuma Makoto has sent his floral sculptures into space and sunk them to the bottom of the ocean, but, most of the time, he thinks about the life and death of flowers. (Courtesy of New Yorker)
Dir/Prod: Skye Fitzgerald
Prod: Michael Scheuerman
This unflinching look at the human-caused famine in Yemen follows health care workers Dr. Aida Alsadeeq and Nurse Mekkia Mahdi as they work to save the lives of hunger-stricken children in two therapeutic feeding centers, against the backdrop of a forgotten war. (Courtesy of RYOT/Vulcan)
Dir: Safyah Usmani
Prod: Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy
Social media superstar Qandeel Baloch pushed boundaries in conservative Pakistan like no other. In 2016, high on her newfound celebrity, Qandeel exposes a well-known Muslim cleric–with tragic results. (Courtesy of MTV Documentary Films)
Dir/Prod: Sophia Nahli Allison
Prod: Fam Udeorji
The injustice surrounding the shooting death of 15-year-old Latasha Harlins at a South Central Los Angeles store became a flashpoint for the city’s 1992 civil uprising. Nearly three decades later, director Sophia Nahli Allison removes Latasha from the context of her death to craft a dreamlike portrait of a promising life lost. (Courtesy of Netflix)
Dir/Prod: Carol Nguyen
Prod: Aziz Zoromba
Filmmaker Carol Nguyen interviews her family to craft a portrait of love, grief, and intergenerational trauma. (Courtesy of Travelling Distribution)
Dir: Christopher Auchter
Prod: Selwyn Jacob
On the 50th anniversary of the first new totem pole raising on British Columbia’s Haida Gwaii in almost a century, Haida filmmaker Christopher Auchter steps through history to revisit the day that would signal the rebirth of the Haida spirit. (Courtesy of New York Times Op-Docs / POV / National Film Board of Canada)
Dir/Prod: Tiffany Hsiung
A daughter journeys to Taiwan seeking her mother’s long lost mother, uncovering family secrets and connecting the generations. (Courtesy of CBC/POV)
Dir/Prod: Maja Novaković
In the lush pastoral hills of Eastern Bosnia, two old women share solitude. The care they have for each other is not composed of words, but rather their daily conduct. They are in a conversation with the land, welcoming the voices of nature, and the songs of a memory that is dying out.