The New School Documentary Media Studies program provides an opportunity to study the theory and practice of documentary filmmaking in a small, tightly focused program. The program culminates in an end-of-the year film festival, Truth Be Told, which is open to the public and features Q&As with student filmmakers and faculty. Graduates earn a certificate […]
SVA’s MFA Social Documentary Film program seeks curious, passionate storytellers to share diverse experiences and explore the world through documentary filmmaking. An active part of the most thriving documentary film community in the world, SocDoc students work directly with accomplished filmmakers — who are faculty, mentors, collaborators and guests — and benefit from their expertise. […]
NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE Vince Anderson made his way to New York to enter the seminary, but his true calling, music, changed his life forever. With his band, The Love Choir, Vince’s now-legendary weekly show became an institution in the Brooklyn music scene. Through powerful revival-style performance and social activism, Vince’s intimate journey of faith and […]
INTERNATIONAL PREMIERE Using the only known photo of his grandfather, filmmaker Sherman De Jesus illuminates the legacy of prolific photographer James Van Der Zee. Van Der Zee took historic and elegant portraits of the Black community during the Harlem Renaissance when images of Black joy were still rare. De Jesus’s single photograph unspools several proud […]
NYC PREMIERE Chock- full of rich archival footage of old Philadelphia and NYC, this everything-you-wanted-to-know-about-automats film is a lighthearted trip through the history of Horn & Hardart’s iconic and innovative eateries. Led by the irrepressible Mel Brooks, the film also features an impressive roster of celebrities (Colin Powell, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Carl Reiner, to name […]
NYC PREMIERE The Art of Making It explores the art-world ecosystem through the prism of young artists at pivotal moments in their careers, revealing the secret sauce that thrusts some into the stratosphere and leaves others struggling to survive. Why does it matter who we anoint to tell the stories of our time? Including the […]
WORLD PREMIERE A fifty-year-old clump of grass, a sweater that once belonged to a French actress, and a forty-year-old sugar egg have become emotional treasures for the unique characters in Vincent Liota’s endearing, entertaining, and existential film. An NPR correspondent, a literary author, and a graphic designer let us in on the secret life of […]
WORLD PREMIERE The style. The fashion. The moves. Saturday Night Fever left an indelible stamp on our cultural memory of the 1970s—and there was one man behind it all. Robert Stigwood, a producer impresario, best known for managing the Bee Gees, took the swagger of a Bay Ridge, Brooklyn disco, and brought it to the […]
US PREMIERE An experimental portrait of Ilhan Mimaroglu, the legendary Turkish pioneer of electronic music who passed away in 2012. Through a multilayered structure that mirrors Ilhan Mimaroglu’s music, the film also tells the story of his vibrant wife Güngör, who migrated to the USA from Turkey in the early 1960s and became an activist […]
WORLD PREMIERE If something of import has taken place in our lifetimes, chances are that Steve McCurry has photographed it, from the wars in the Arab world to the 9/11 attacks. Denis Delestrac’s documentary on the photographer charts McCurry’s journey through a restless life spent on constant move, chronicling our times and living with the […]