From November 8–16 in theaters and online, with extended online screenings available across the U.S. through November 26, DOC NYC—the nation’s largest documentary film festival—returns. This year, more than 200 feature length and short films, 33 of which are world premieres and 29 are U.S. premieres, will screen both online and at the IFC Center, SVA Theatre, and Village East by Angelika.
According to the official release for this year’s festival, “We are beyond proud to be celebrating the international documentary community’s incredible work this year. These films reveal new insights into our interior lives and the world around us in complex, engaging, and often prescient ways.”
The festival opener on November 8 is “The Contestant,” chronicling one of the world’s first reality shows. It features the life of an aspiring Japanese comedian, unaware for almost a year and a half that he is being filmed in his apartment and is well-known to millions of viewers.
Closing the festival at the SVA Theater on November 16 is Sam Pollard and Llewellyn Smith’s “South to Black Power,” a fascinating study of popular New York Times columnist Charles Blow, famous for his outspokenness; his bestselling memoir “Fire Shut Up in My Bones,” which was adapted into a production at the Metropolitan Opera; and his Black liberation manifesto “The Devil You Know.”
Some of the most highly anticipated films are “American Symphony,” chronicling musician Jon Batiste and his partner’s fight against her returning cancer; “Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Story,” about the legendary poet; Raoul Peck’s “Silver Dollar Road,” an exposé about the way real estate developers work in blatant and subtle ways to divest Black families from inherited property; “Stamped From The Beginning,” based the work of anti-racist activist and author Ibram X. Kendi; “Lakota Nation vs. United States,” where the Lakota people try to get the U.S. government to honor its treaties with them; and “Little Richard: I am Everything,” which uses the life of the pioneering singer to out the Black, queer origins of rock ’n’ roll.
Also of note is director Beatriz Luengo’s “Patria Y Vida: The Power of Music,” which chronicles Cuban hip-hop musicians living in exile and recording a protest song calling for freedom of speech in Cuba that becomes a global phenomenon, making its New York Premiere.
“36 Seconds: Portrait of a Hate Crime” also makes its world premiere. The film follows a grieving Muslim community after the killing of three young Muslims in Charleston, S.C.
A production of PBS’s “The American Experience,” “The Riot Report” also makes its world premiere at this year’s festival. The doc explores the infamous 1968 Kerner Commission report, which explained that poverty and institutional racism were what led to the numerous riots of the inner cities in the ’60s. “White society is deeply implicated in the ghetto. White institutions created it, white institutions maintain it, and white society condones it,” the report famously stated.
A spate of intriguing films dots the International section this year, including “Al Djanat: The Original Paradise” by Chloé Aïcha Boro, which makes its world premiere. The film traces the conflict over a patriarch’s estate in Burkina Faso.
Putting the always timely issue of immigration to the fore, Núria Clavero and Aitor Palacios’ “The Caravan” makes its U.S. premiere. It follows a family as they risk everything to make it to the Mexican border and the further challenges they find when they get there.
Kim Longinotto and Franky Murray Brown’s “Dalton’s Dream” follows Jamaican singer Dalton James as he tries to make his way in the famously tough music industry.
Cyrielle Raingou’s “Le Spectre De Boko Haram” brings viewers a disturbingly up-close view of the terror group through the eyes of schoolchildren in Kolofata, Cameroon.
DOC NYC’s American Stories section brings a trove of films with a uniquely American focus, such as Peter Chelkowski and Jim Wickens’s “One With the Whale,” which trains its eye on an Indigenous family living in Alaska’s St. Lawrence Island as they grapple with how to hold onto their culture in a world often at odds with it.
There is also “Unseen” (also from PBS’s American Experience), which tracks the experiences of Pedro, a legally blind undocumented immigrant who, despite this, is determined to get his degree in social work with the ultimate goal of using it to help his community.
Veteran filmmaker Dawn Porter’s “The Lady Bird Diaries” takes a close look at one of America’s most iconic first ladies, Lady Bird Johnson.
In an era fraught with political strife from all corners of the country, it’s apt that DOC NYC has a section called Fight the Power, consisting of stories of political activism, such as Ella Glendining’s “Is There Anybody Out There?” The subject of the film is also the director and has stated in interviews that she became “more and more politicized as a disabled person” as she made the film.
Another interesting and always timely entry in this section is celebrated director Yoruba Richen, with “The Cost of Inheritance,” which analyzes the subject of reparations through the lens of families with a history steeped in slavery.
DOC NYC will also offer slates of movies focused on music and musicians, intimate portraits of extraordinary individuals, sports, Canadian film, and a varied selection of short films. For more information, visit www.docnyc.com.