WORLD PREMIERE Chinatown Fair opened as a penny arcade on Mott Street in 1944. Over the decades, the dimly lit gathering place, known for its tic-tac-toe playing chicken, became an institution, surviving turf wars between rival gangs, changing tastes and the explosive growth of home gaming systems like Xbox and Playstation that shuttered most other […]
WORLD PREMIERE The United Nations’ International Court of Justice resolves international disputes through dialogue rather than warfare. Modeled on the ICJ, the Jessup is a prestigious simulated court competition that offers a sneak peek at the international leaders of the future. All Rise profiles seven passionate international law students, representing Jamaica, India, Palestine, Russia, Israel, Uganda […]
US PREMIERE Located on the edge of a cliff in China’s Sichuan province, the village of Gulu has been isolated from the outside world for centuries. Everything changes when Bao, an idealistic young revolutionary, arrives with plans to modernize the village, beginning with its only school. This doesn’t sit well with Shen, who, despite the […]
Risking execution to create work while imprisoned during China’s Cultural Revolution, Mu Xin demonstrates that great art is born of great struggle. This film is followed by CLAUDE LANZMANN: SPECTRES OF THE SHOAH Doors open at 7:30, event start time is now 8:00. Prior to the film screening, DOC NYC will present the awards for the […]
NYC PREMIERE Leading United States legal expert on China, and the first American lawyer there after normalization of US-China relations, Jerome Alan Cohen, tells the harrowing tale of how and why his China studies prepared him to rescue his college classmate, Jack Downey, from ‘behind enemy lines’ after Downey’s CIA mission to infiltrate communist China […]
In the final weeks of the Vietnam War, with the invasion of Saigon imminent, the White House ordered the evacuation of U.S. citizens—but their South Vietnamese allies flooded onto embassy grounds seeking help. Rory Kennedy captures the dramatic withdrawal from multiple perspectives, skillfully interweaving little-seen archival footage with reflective interviews with participants who were on […]
Celebrating mentorship as much as music, Alan Hicks’s inspirational and poignant film explores the common bonds between a 92-year-old jazz legend and his 23-year-old protégé. In his storied career, Clark Terry has played with luminaries like Count Basie and Duke Ellington, and counts Quincy Jones and Miles Davis among his past pupils. Now, as he […]
NYC PREMIERE A fascinating exploration of history as reflected through a nation’s popular culture, John Pirozzi’s film excavates Cambodia’s lost era of American-inflected music. Just as traditional Cambodian songs took on a French colonial influence in the 1950s and ‘60s, the presence of US Armed Forces Radio during the Vietnam War inspired a fusion of funk, […]
NYC PREMIERE American Richard Adams married Australian Tony Sullivan in Boulder, Colorado in 1975, during a brief period when same-sex marriage was legal in that state, and subsequently filed for a green card for Tony. After receiving an explicitly homophobic denial and an order for deportation, the couple filed the first federal lawsuit seeking equality […]
WORLD PREMIERE In Sara Newens and Mina T. Son’s spirited sports film, three driven teenage athletes attempt to go for Olympic gold. Their sport? The perpetually popular but underappreciated game of table tennis. Northern California’s Ariel Hsing and Lily Zhang balance friendship and professional rivalry to see who’ll come out on top, while Long Island’s […]