NYC PREMIERE Lea Najjar’s debut follows plumes of smoke from the devastating 2020 explosion in Beirut and guides us through the rooftops of the city where men play kash hamam with pigeons, luring them in, casting them away, watching them fly. In this cyclical motion, Najjar finds a resonance with the endless strife of living in […]
After Sherman director Jon-Sesrie Goff turns his lens towards the South Carolina’s landscape, the notion of home, a community of friends and loved ones, his father, Reverend Dr. Norvel Goff, and himself. Expertly deploying personal and historical archival footage, observational and experimental techniques, the film is a poignant polyphonic exploration about how systemic racial discrimination […]
Filmmaker Reid Davenport, a past honoree of DOC NYC’s 40 Under 40 showcase, creates a diaristic portrait of his life, at times from his wheelchair. Candid and unsentimental, Davenport captures quotidian moments of human connection and frustration on the streets of Oakland. When a circus tent goes up outside of his apartment, his reflections turn to […]
Filmmaker Sierra Pettengill begins with footage filmed by the US military in the 1960s of dress rehearsals for show-of-force responses to the domestic unrest that was unnerving America at the time. The material’s horrifying implications quickly settle in, however, as Pentengill digs deep into other archival material to answer the question of how these large-scale […]
NYC PREMIERE David Siev, one of DOC NYC’s 40 Under 40 this year, turns his camera on his own small-town Michigan family’s fight for their American Dream during a transitional moment that mirrors a time of great flux in America. Siev’s father is from Cambodia and mother from Mexico, and the restaurant the family runs […]
Ramin Bahrani (99 Homes; The White Tiger) directs his first feature documentary with all the nuance and artistry that he’s brought to his fiction work. In this reckoning with America’s gun culture, Bahrani profiles Richard Davis, who created a bulletproof vest that saved hundreds of lives. Davis mythologized his work by producing his own low-budget […]
US PREMIERE In the hopes of making it to the US, a group of Cuban migrants enters Colombia by way of the treacherous Darién Gap jungle to reach Panama, where they wait in the limbo of a makeshift camp, uncertain of deportation. Cuban director Marcel Beltrán intersperses his filmed visits with migrants’ own cell phone […]
NYC Premiere: For centuries, Dalits, deemed untouchable within Hinduism’s caste hierarchy, have been denied access to education. Amidst rising Hindu nationalism, Dalit women fight the double-edged sword of caste and patriarchy as they manage Khabar Lahariya, India’s only newspaper run by women. Described as a “rousing and inspirational tribute” by Variety, Writing with Fire traverses […]
NYC PREMIERE Filmed over six months, Mr Bachmann and His Class takes us inside the classroom of a German primary school for immigrant students, led by an inspiring teacher. Filmmaker Maria Speth works in the tradition of Frederick Wiseman, using an immersive approach and expansive length to capture Bachmann’s progressive approach to teaching. “This is […]
NORTH AMERICAN PERMIERE Children of dead ISIS members have been left to wallow in abject neglect in refugee camps, in penance for their parents’ “sins.” Protagonist Patricio Galvez sets out to free his own grandchildren from Syria’s hellish al-Hol camp, putting up a lonely and heart-rending fight against a wall of bureaucracy and the grief […]