DOC NYC SELECTS SPECIAL SCREENING
Date: Tuesday, September, 15, 2026
Time: 7:00pm ET
Venue: IFC Center, 323 Sixth Ave, NYC
TRT: 100 minutes
DOC NYC SELECTS, the in-person, ongoing screening series that serves as an extension of DOC NYC’s annual fall festival, returns for a one-night-only final 2026 event on September 15th at IFC Center with the NYC PREMIERE of the Sundance-winning film SOUL PATROL.
Soul Patrol uncovers a hidden chapter of American military history by focusing on the Vietnam War’s first Black special ops team, an elite unit operating deep behind enemy lines. With unprecedented access to this once-secretive group of African-American veterans, director J.M. Harper reconstructs their journey with an immediacy rarely seen in Vietnam War storytelling, using raw Super 8 footage, photographs, and audio recordings from their personal archives. Opening on the war’s 50th anniversary, the surviving members reunite in a hotel that becomes a surreal liminal space, where memory, brotherhood, and unresolved trauma collide. As the men reflect on their experiences, the film interrogates the contradictions of fighting for freedom abroad while facing inequality at home. Winner of the Directing Award for U.S. Documentary at the Sundance Film Festival, Soul Patrol is not just a war story, but a reckoning – an intimate portrait of survival, memory, and the enduring cost of war on those asked to fight it.
The screening will be followed by an on-stage conversation with filmmaker J.M. Harper and protagonist/author Ed Emanuel.
Director: J.M. Harper
Producers: J.M. Harper, Sam Bisbee, Danielle Massie, Nasir Jones, Peter Bittenbender