In the remote highlands of Montenegro, shepherd Gara and her daughter Nada live on their ancestral mountain, home of their Mother spirit. Meanwhile, the violence of men is never far from their door: Gara’s sister was murdered by her unstable husband years ago, and Gara had to fight for his conviction and imprisonment. When Montenegrin […]
Amy Goodman “believes that journalism put to its highest use can be the greatest force for good that the world has ever seen,” according to a former colleague in Steal This Story, Please! It’s the reason her show, Democracy Now! is revered for integrity and dauntlessness. DOC NYC alumni Tia Lessin and Carl Deal chase after Goodman […]
NYC PREMIERE Celebrated Iranian actor Pegah Ahangarani weaves together home movies and news broadcasts to construct a vivid portrait of Iran’s modern history in the four decades since the revolution. Now living in exile, Ahangarani clings to hope for the “people who didn’t give up, who rehearsed for the revolution.” This essayistic documentary skillfully fuses […]
Filmmakers Itab Azzam and Jack MacInnes began filming with the 11-year-old Syrian girl Israa in 2015 as her family was fleeing war and seeking refuge in Germany. They chronicled her family over the next ten years, tracking how life in exile created new pressures and opportunities, culminating in Israa’s return to Aleppo as a young […]
Filmmakers Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, half the team behind the Oscar-winning No Other Land, conduct revealing interviews with Israel Defense Forces members who participated in Gaza’s decimation. The interviewees candidly reflect on attitudes toward civilian casualties—known by an acronym for “collateral damage”: NAZA—and how they process the meaning of genocide. “It is the movie’s […]
DOC NYC’s 2026 Lifetime Achievement honoree Alex Gibney delivers his most epic work, profiling the world’s first trillionaire, Elon Musk. How did the tech bro shift from a clean energy champion into an international right-wing megafunder? Gibney examines the dark sides of Tesla, Twitter, SpaceX, Starlink, Grok, the Department of Government Efficiency, and other ventures, […]
This uplifting portrayal of resistance focuses on an incident from 2021, when immigration officers conducted a raid on Glasgow’s Kenmure Street. A local activist dove under a van to disrupt the detainment, and the street soon filled with protestors. Filmmaker Felipe Bustos Sierra (Nae Pasaran) reconstructs what happened with eyewitness footage and a clever reenactment […]
Veteran producer and journalist Poh Si Teng makes her directorial debut with the visceral, unflinching American Doctor, following three notable U.S. physicians as they provide in-person support at a Gaza hospital treating victims of mass-casualty events from the Israeli war campaign. Dr. Thaer Ahmad, Dr. Mark Perlmutter, and Dr. Feroze Sidhwa are of different cultural […]
Soraya Akhalaghi, a young Afghan woman living in Iran, is a ferociously talented artist working under the thumb of patriarchal tyranny. Despite multiple attempts at escaping Tehran, she endures years of oppression all the while channeling her emotions about her circumstances into sculpture, painting, writing, and cinematography. The screening will be followed by a pre-recodded […]
Ten years after her Oscar-nominated documentary 13th, filmmaker Ava DuVernay creates an equally powerful essay film exploring the legacy of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The post-Civil War law established birthright citizenship, due process, and equal protection, among other matters freshly contested today. DuVernay interviews a lively array of historians, politicians, and cultural […]