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 […]
Oscar-nominated filmmaker Liz Garbus, known for her complex portraits of Bobby Fischer, Nina Simone and Marilyn Monroe, takes a fresh look at the life of undersea explorer Jacques Cousteau. Her profile is neither hagiography nor exposé, but rather a nuanced look at his passions, achievements, blind spots, and tragedies. We gain insights into key figures […]
When the coronavirus first became news in January 2020, filmmaker Nanfu Wang was visiting her family in China. In this penetrating film essay, she seeks to understand how governments shaped information about the pandemic both in China and the United States, making decisions with far-reaching ramifications. She skillfully weaves a wide range of sources to […]
When 12 young soccer players and their coach were trapped by monsoon floods inside a cave in Thailand, the world watched for 16 days as reporters gave updates from outside the rescue zone. Now we gain a perspective that no journalist could capture, through the eyes of Thai and international rescue divers and never-before-seen footage. […]
Winner of the Best Documentary Feature Award at the Tribeca Film Festival, Ascension is an impressionistic portrait of China’s industrial supply chain that depicts a thriving capitalism in a communist state. The film unfolds in three parts, its focus shifting from factory workers, to an aspirational middle class, and finally to the hedonistic elites at […]
What does it mean to bring a rape accusation against one of the most powerful figures in the entertainment industry? Examining the complex factors that make it difficult for Black women to speak out and be heard, Oscar-nominated filmmakers Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering (The Hunting Ground, DOC NYC 2015) follow several women, including Drew […]
Facebook, Google, and YouTube quickly became part of our daily lives. Now users are starting to question their downsides of isolation, addiction, and the spread of fake news. In The Social Dilemma, we find some of their biggest critics are people in the tech industry who used to work for these companies, such as Tristan […]
Filmmaker Kirsten Johnson (Cameraperson, DOC NYC 2016) creates an inventive and emotional portrait of her widowed father, Dick, an 86-year-old psychiatrist. When he shows early signs of losing memory, Kirsten enlists him in a playful project to confront his mortality with a sense of humor. They stage fictional scenarios with a macabre sense of humor […]
The liberation movements around race, gender, and sexuality have been well-documented. Now Crip Camp shines a light on the overlooked, but equally important, disability rights movement. Its origins trace back to Camp Jened, a haven for disabled teens in the early 1970s, down the road from Woodstock. Directors Nicole Newnham and Jim LeBrecht (a former Jened camper […]
2020 SHORT LIST: PRODUCING AWARD Oscar-nominated filmmaker David France (How to Survive a Plague, DOC NYC 2012) delivers a suspenseful real-life thriller that will have you on the edge of your seat. Inspired by The New Yorker reporting of Masha Gessen, the film follows a courageous team of Russian activists who operate an underground railroad to help LGBTQ […]