Filmmaker Dror Moreh proved himself an expert navigator of powerful figures in his Oscar®-nominated film The Gatekeepers, about the leaders of Israel’s Shin Bet security agency. Now he employs his talents to probe the American-led negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians in 2000. The main insiders on camera are six top American diplomats who testify to […]
2020 SHORT LIST: SPECIAL JURY RECOGNITION FOR TRUTH TO POWER Journalism’s role of exposing corruption has rarely been as dramatically portrayed as in Collective. Filmmaker Alexander Nanau follows a team of Romanian reporters in real time as they doggedly uncover a deadly scandal that reaches the highest levels of government. Like a real-life version of […]
Runner Up: Audience Award DOC NYC 2020 WORLD PREMIERE | How can we bring accountability over the climate crisis? This inspiring story of youth activism documents 21 activists from across the nation as they file a groundbreaking lawsuit against the United States. The case reveals evidence that the government has endangered their constitutional rights to life, […]
Phil Demers, an eccentric free spirit, becomes an unexpectedly popular trainer at Niagara Falls’ Marineland after forming a bond with the park’s first walrus, Smooshi. For the next decade Demers cares for Smooshi and other animals in increasingly decrepit conditions. After he quits as a result of these concerns—and is accused of plotting to steal […]
Oscar-winning filmmaker Bryan Fogel (Icarus,DOC NYC 2017) investigates the 2018 murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. The film breaks new ground with access to key sources including Khashoggi’s fiancée Hatice Cengiz, Turkish police and prosecutors, and the young Saudi dissident with whom Khashoggi was working. Revealing that this […]
Oscar-winning filmmaker Errol Morris is drawn to larger-than-life characters, but Joanna Harcourt-Smith soars above them all. She’s a Scheherazade of sexual escapades and psychedelic tripping as she describes her life with the High Priest of LSD Timothy Leary through his period as an escaped convict who was recaptured in her company. Did she betray him […]
2020 METROPOLIS GRAND JURY PRIZE After making the dangerous journey from his native Guatemala to New York City, 15-year-old Luis struggles to balance attending school and finding work to support his family back home. Meanwhile, Judy, a Cuban-American ICE agent, faces her own internal conflict with the shifting enforcement priorities of her longtime career, from […]
The 11 members of the Enache family have long lived off the grid in a sprawling tract of wilderness adjacent to the city of Bucharest. When the authorities decide to reclaim this land, the family is evicted from their paradise and forced to resettle in the unfamiliar city. Through exceptional observational filmmaking, first-time filmmaker Radu […]
WORLD PREMIERE | Iconoclastic historian Andrew Bacevich delivers an anti-colonial critique of US foreign policy in the Middle East, informed by his long career in the Army. While other historians analyze changing presidential administrations, Bacevich sees one long Oil War. There are scant differences between Democrats and Republicans when it comes to the sacrifice of soldiers’ lives. […]
WORLD PREMIERE | Abigail Child has been at the vanguard of experimental media since the 1980s. In her latest project, she offers viewers an eerie and exciting look into the present and future of artificial intelligence through the perspectives of robotics scientists, entrepreneurs, and a Black lesbian robot named BINA48. Exploring AI’s design, potential medical […]