This program presents two films appearing in our Short List: Shorts section recognizing some of the top documentary shorts films of the year. THE GIRL AND THE PICTURE DIR: Vanessa Roth 80 years ago, Xia Shuqin witnessed the murder of her family during the Nanjing Massacre. The Girl and the Picture uncovers how an American […]
WORLD PREMIERE Based on Amanda Ripley’s bestselling book, The Smartest Kids in the World follows four American teenagers who go abroad to study in the Netherlands, Finland, Switzerland, and South Korea – nations that dramatically outperform the US in education. Filmmaker Tracy Droz Tragos was previously on the DOC NYC Short List with her film […]
WORLD PREMIERE For nearly 15 years, basketball has played a central role in bringing together the South Sudanese community in Australia. This is Yarra follows the story of Riyadh Aden and Deng Dut from the Yarra Wild Beasts as they prepare for the South Sudanese Australian National Basketball Association Tournament, with the hope of taking […]
USA PREMIERE A traffic separating device is installed in the middle of Stockholm. It is supposed to keep normal cars away and only let buses pass. It turns into a disaster as normal cars continue to go there and hundreds of cars get destroyed every week. Tragic and funny situations occur and we filmed the […]
NYC PREMIERE Filmmaker Maxim Pozdorovkin (Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer, Our New President) takes a provocative look at how new technology makes robots more human and humans more robotic. His film’s title comes from three recent incidents where robots have caused the death of humans. But Pozdorovkin also examines how robots are job killers, replacing […]
NYC PREMIERE For decades Christo and Jeanne-Claude dazzled art lovers with their epic installation projects, such as The Gates in Central Park. Seven years after the death of Jeanne-Claude, the larger-than-life Christo finally realizes a long-planned project, The Floating Piers. Mounted in 2016 on Italy’s Lake Iseo, the mammoth undertaking allows visitors to walk across […]
NYC PREMIERE In this winner of Best Film and Audience Award at Visions du Réel, filmmaker Jawad Rhalib documents diverse creative voices in the Muslim world—including his mother, a Moroccan dancer—who seek to free themselves from bonds of stereotypes and repression. The film forgoes conventional artist-profile tropes in favor of a weave of rehearsals, conversations, […]
History is made, for better or worse. The Happiness Machine (USA, 24 min., Rebecca B. Blumhagen) profiles philosopher, inventor and farmer, Carl, who grew up a sharecropper on 22 acres in rural Iowa which he now hopes to pass on to his children as a gift of place. Using entirely archival footage, In the Absence […]
Unexpected moments and unusual discoveries. The story of a fake news writer in a Macedonian town is a Fake News Fairytale (UK, 14 min., Kate Stonehill) for the post-truth era. The Traffic Separating Device (Sweden, 15 min., Johan Palmgren) is installed in downtown Stockholm to keep cars out of the path of buses. Tungrus (India, […]
Athletes, on and off the field. El Gallo (Mexico/USA, 14 min., Michael Medoway), one of Mexico’s most famous boxers, must overcome tremendous odds to regain lost glory. Climbing the Big Wall (Canada, 9 min., Jennifer Law-Smith) can be a meditative exercise of trust between climbers. Concussion Protocol (USA, 5 min. Josh Begley) tracks injuries sustained […]