As it happens, I am currently in Stockholm visiting my doc loving co-workers at Influence Film Club, but I would be remiss to share a mini memo that spreads the good word that DOC NYC has announced its complete 2017 lineup! Among the 111 feature length documentaries on offer this year, Guy Fiorita’s MOLE MAN and Julia Bacha’s NAILA AND THE UPRISING will have their world premieres as part of this year’s Viewfinders competition, while David Wexler’s VIGILANTE: THE INCREDIBLE TRUE STORY OF CURTIS SLIWA AND THE GUARDIAN ANGELS and Prudence Katze and William Lehman’s THE IRON TRIANGLE will world premiere in the Metropolis competition. Jessica Mach reported on the announcement for Realscreen, noting, “Over 350 filmmakers and special guests are scheduled to participate in panels or present their films.” Festival passes and individual screening tickets are now available for purchase.
Last week also saw the unveiling of IDFA‘s 2017 lineup, containing a mind-boggling “312 titles (from 3,886 submissions), of which 90 documentaries will have their world premieres during the festival.” The 30th edition of the festival will take place in Amsterdam from November 15 to 26. A boat load of brand new doc trailers are available at the festival’s YouTube page.
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Just as The Associated Press proclaimed, last Thursday the curtain went up on a documentary-rich New York Film Festival and much has been written thus far to celebrate. Richard Brody notes in The New Yorker, Travis Wilkerson’s new standalone feature version of DID YOU WONDER WHO FIRED THE GUN? as a festival highlight, along with Varda and JR’s FACES PLACES. In Manohla Dargis‘s preview of this year’s edition for The New York Times she notes, “One program to explore is the Spotlight on Documentary, which features several worthwhile offerings, including ARTHUR MILLER: WRITER and JOAN DIDION: THE CENTER WILL NOT HOLD, two views from the inside.” Questioning the merits and future possibilities of literary docs like these at LitHub, Craig Hubert writes with fervor, “A writer’s work, or the work of a publication, especially over a long career, is slippery and often contradictory, and demands a portrait that challenges this ambivalence. What we get usually is something that acts as a visual Wikipedia page, a series of bullet-point facts presented without a critical eye.” As has become customary, Basil Tsiokos gave a thorough preview of the new nonfiction offerings at the fest via What (not) To Doc, while at Criterion Cast, Joshua Brunsting listed five recommendations to catch, including a trio of docs that top the list.
Just two days after Esquire published Nick Schager’s list of the best documentaries of 2017 so far, DOC NYC announced its 15-film Short List of Oscar contenders along with its TIFF debuted opening-night selection, THE FINAL YEAR. Breaking the news at IndieWire, Anne Thompson pointed out that “Historically, most DOC NYC picks do land on the Academy’s official 15-film Oscar Short List. For the past four years, the Short List had nine to 10 titles overlap, with four or five titles going on to Oscar nominations. For the last six years, DOC NYC screened the documentary that went on to win the Oscar.”
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You may have noticed the lack of last week’s holiday styled memo, but this week we’ve returned with plenty of nonfiction news to get you up to speed. Up top we’ve got IndieWire’s Anne Thompson making her early predictions for what docs will be in the running for the 2018 Oscar for Best Documentary. Unsurprisingly, Matthew Heineman’s CITY OF GHOSTS (see this week’s slew of coverage on the film below), Agnès Varda’s FACES, PLACES, and Laura Poitras’ RISK are among the forerunners thus far.
In festival happenings, Ben Nicholson reported for Sight & Sound on this year’s edition of the Sheffield Doc/Fest, the first under its new chief programmer Luke Moody. At What (not) To Doc, Basil Tsiokos put forth his usual thorough overview of new nonfiction for the 35th edition of LA’s Outfest, noting a pair of centerpiece selections in Lori Kaye’s KEVIN AUCOIN: BEAUTY & THE BEAST IN ME and Katherine Fairfax Wright’s BEHIND THE CURTAIN: TODRICK HALL. Doc filmmakers should also take note that this coming Friday is DOC NYC‘s Extended Deadline for submissions for its 2017 edition.
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This past week, the folks over at The Guardian joined the growing chorus of critics proclaiming that we are currently in a golden age of documentaries with a solid list of examples to argue the point and filmmakers like Laura Poitras and Dawn Porter admitting that some of their favorites are fairly new films themselves. Even doc director Adam Curtis contributed his own spin on the conversation, though claiming that he believes SOUTH PARK to be the best ongoing documentary series. Though not directly, Gregg Kilday and Stephen Galloway‘s gathering of Ezra Edelman, Werner Herzog, Kirsten Johnson, Josh Kriegman, Raoul Peck and Roger Ross Williams for an extensive Hollywood Reporter round-table discussion seems to only help prove the point. Portions of this discussion can be read and partially watched at the link, but the full conversation is set to air on SundanceTV on February 19, 2017. Likewise, Chris O’Falt‘s piece at IndieWire on how recent docs like 13TH, TOWER, I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO and more re-purpose archival footage for artistic means and Diane Haithman‘s short take on a trio of recent docs that take aim at the gun debate at Hollywood Reporter both continue to add fuel to this raging golden age fire.
Legendary doc helmer Frederick Wiseman was one of four diverse recipients of an Honorary Oscar from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Governers Awards last week. As noted by Josh Rottenberg in The Los Angeles Times, “Wiseman was honored for his work illuminating various social, cultural and government institutions in renowned documentary films like TITICUT FOLLIES, HIGH SCHOOL, LAW AND ORDER, PUBLIC HOUSING and LA DANSE.” In Wiseman’s acceptance speech, which can be viewed in its entirety here, along with Rory Kennedy, Ben Kingsley and Don Cheadle‘s loving introductions, he stated matter of factly, “I think it’s as important to document kindness, civility and generosity of spirit as it is to show cruelty, banality and indifference.”
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In a week in which the US presidency was ceded to Donald Trump, little concern for anything but the future well being of the United States has rightly been put forth by news outlets this week. Yet, in her recent piece at Vox, Genevieve Koski recalled Roger Ebert’s belief that movies are “a machine that generates empathy” while reminding us that “In times like these, it can feel like entertainment doesn’t matter. It does.” Similarly, Dan Schoenbrun wrote a declaration of intent for Filmmaker Magazine, stating that “For the next four years (and long afterwards), every time someone leaves a movie theater feeling contented, feeling set in their values, feeling numbed and entertained and nothing else, that’s a problem.” On election day itself, Graham Winfrey reported at IndieWire on the massive election day doc production 11/8/16, which will serve as a follow-up to Jeff Deutchman’s 11/4/08 and feature contributions by 40 different filmmakers, including Alma Har’el, David Lowery, Eugene Jarecki and Yung Chang.
For most of us in the doc world, our light at the end of the tunnel this past week was DOC NYC, which kicked off Thursday night with a celebration of political righteousness in CITIZEN JANE: BATTLE FOR THE CITY and where “filmmakers expressed their commitment to shine a light on important truths and use the power of storytelling during Trump’s presidency” during the festival’s Visionaries Tribute luncheon, according to Winfrey. Tim Teeman wrote at length about CITIZEN JANE for The Daily Beast, while Daniel Eagan included it in his piece on the cream of the crop of DOC NYC for Film Journal International. A whole host of other curtain openers came in from the likes of Tom Roston at Doc Soup, Joshua Brunsting at Criterion Cast, and Daniel Walber of Nonfics. Likewise, Film Forward featured the festival’s many films centered around transgendered characters thanks to Phil Guie. And of the many, many press breaks coming through the wire from the fest, the seemingly countless interviews with female directors being published over at Women and Hollywood might be most worth your while. I could go on and on with additional links from the fest, but I suggest you head over to Keyframe where David Hudson has already done just that. If you aren’t able to make it to DOC NYC this year, you can at least head over to their YouTube channel where they are posting not only a ton of live Q&As, but many sessions taking place at DOC NYC PRO.
Montreal’s premiere doc festival RIDM (Rencontres internationales du documentaire de Montreal) also began on Thursday evening. Despite being in the midst of DOC NYC, Basil Tsiokos previewed the festival’s new offerings, while Robert Everett-Green of The Globe and Mail wrote an overview of the 128 entries selected for this year’s festival.
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