'Gunda,' 'Collective', 'MLK/FBI' Among Films to Make Prestigious DOC NYC Features Short List11/9/2020 Skye Fitzgerald's Hunger Ward, Geeta Gandbhir's Call Center Blues make festival's Short List: Shorts DOC NYC is weighing in with its choice of the year's leading documentaries. The festival, which opens Wednesday, announced its prestigious short lists today, singling out 15 features and a dozen shorts. Among the features recognized: I Am Greta, a profile of Swedish teenage climate change activist Greta Thunberg, directed by Nathan Grossman, and Gunda, directed by Victor Kossakovsky, a black-and-white doc that provides an intimate, and wordless, view of .life on a farm for a sow and her litter of piglets. The DOC NYC features short list brought welcome news for Dick Johnson Is Dead, Kirsten Johnson's innovative film on her beloved father as he begins to exhibit dementia. The highly-regarded documentary had been left off the IDA's short list announced just last week. In this disruptive year, many of these films lost festival opportunities, so taking the time to honor their achievements feels extra meaningful. The features short list also included 76 Days, a "suspenseful, immersive look at life under COVID-19 lockdown in Wuhan, China," and Collective, directed by Alexander Nanau, an intense exploration of the devastating aftermath of a fatal nightclub fire in Romania and its far-reaching political consequences. MLK/FBI, from director Sam Pollard, makes use of recently declassified files to expose FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover's "relentless campaign of surveillance and harassment against" the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. The DOC NYC features short list is packed with numerous films that premiered at Sundance, including the aforementioned Dick Johnson Is Dead. as well as Welcome to Chechnya (directed by David France), TIME (Garrett Bradley), The Truffle Hunters (Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw), Crip Camp (Nicole Newnham and Jim LeBrecht), Boys State (Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine), On the Record (Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering), The Fight (Elyse Steinberg, Josh Kriegman and Eli Despres), and The Social Dilemma (Jeff Orlowski). IDA Short List: TIME and Boys State make it, but at least two major docs left out NEON takes worldwide rights to The Painter and The Thief Crip Camp: the summer experience that changed everything Kirsten Johnson plots her father's demise in innovative, tender Dick Johnson Is Dead Among the films making the DOC NYC shorts short list is Hunger Ward, directed by Skye Fitzgerald, an unsparing look at famine caused by the war in Yemen, and Geeta Gandbhir's Call Center Blues, a film that touches on immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border, following four characters "linked by displacement and call center work in a country that's unfamiliar and frightening." [See the full list below].
DOC NYC also announced its Winner's Circle, recognizing an additional 12 feature documentaries that have won prizes around the world. "Winner’s Circle was inaugurated last year," DOC NYC noted, "to highlight films that have won major festival awards—in many cases, from Oscar-qualifying international festivals—but might fly below the radar of American audiences." Among the Winner's Circle films is The Painter and the Thief, directed by Benjamin Ree, the remarkable story of Czech artist Barbora Kysilkova who befriended a Norwegian man after he stole two of her paintings. The film has been nominated for two Critics Choice Documentary Awards, but surprisingly failed to make the IDA's short list of the year's best feature docs. [Full list below]. “Our Short Lists and Winner’s Circle offer a guide to some of the most exciting nonfiction filmmaking of the year,” Thom Powers, DOC NYC's artistic director, commented in a statement. “In this disruptive year, many of these films lost festival opportunities, so taking the time to honor their achievements feels extra meaningful.” According to DOC NYC, the festival's features short list was juried by filmmakers Heidi Ewing and Beth Levison, and editor Carla Gutierrez. The shorts short list was juried by filmmakers Carol Dysinger, Chiemi Karasawa and Bernardo Ruiz. A press release did not reveal a selection process for the Winner's Circle honorees, beyond noting that all of those films have previously won prizes at international festivals. For more on DOC NYC films and programs, click here. Below are the DOC NYC features short list, shorts short list and Winner's Circle films: Short List: Features 76 DAYS Dir: Hao Wu, Weixi Chen, Anonymous Prod: Hao Wu, Jean Tsien A suspenseful, immersive look at life under COVID-19 lockdown in Wuhan, China, focused on front-line hospital workers and their patients. (Courtesy of MTV Documentary Films) BOYS STATE Dir/Prod: Jesse Moss, Amanda McBaine An annual civics program reveals modern-day democracy in a microcosm as high school boys create a mock government in Austin, Texas. (Courtesy of Apple Original Films/A24) COLLECTIVE Dir/Prod: Alexander Nanau Prod: Bianca Oana, Bernard Michaux, Hanka Kastelicová This riveting investigative film follows a team of Romanian reporters as they doggedly uncover a deadly scandal that reaches the highest levels of government. (Courtesy of Magnolia Pictures/Participant) CRIP CAMP Dir/Prod: Nicole Newnham, Jim LeBrecht Prod: Sara Bolder A chronicle of America's disability rights movement and its origins in a liberating summer camp for disabled teens. (Courtesy of Netflix) DICK JOHNSON IS DEAD Dir/Prod: Kirsten Johnson Prod: Katy Chevigny, Marilyn Ness When the filmmaker's 86-year-old father begins to lose his memory, she enlists him in a playful project to confront his mortality with a sense of humor. (Courtesy of Netflix) THE FIGHT Dir/Prod: Elyse Steinberg, Josh Kriegman, Eli Despres Prod: Maya Seidler, Peggy Drexler, Kerry Washington This inspiring and vital film follows lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union as they battle the Trump administration over cases of immigration, abortion, LGBTQ+ equality, and voting rights. (Courtesy of Magnolia Pictures/Topic) GUNDA Dir: Victor Kossakovsky Prod: Anita Rehoff Larsen A cinema vérité immersion into the experiences of several animals on a farm, focused on a sow and her new litter of piglets. (Courtesy of NEON) I AM GRETA Dir: Nathan Grossman Prod: Cecilia Nessen, Fredrik Heinig A portrait of Greta Thunberg’s meteoric one-year rise from high-school climate strike organizer to inspiration for a global movement. (Courtesy of Hulu) MLK/FBI Dir: Sam Pollard Prod: Benjamin Hedin Using recently declassified files, MLK/FBI examines J. Edgar Hoover’s relentless campaign of surveillance and harassment against Martin Luther King, Jr. (Courtesy of IFC Films) ON THE RECORD Dir/Prod: Kirby Dick, Amy Ziering Prod: Jamie Rogers, Amy Herdy This groundbreaking investigation of sexual assault in the music industry explores the complex factors that make it difficult for Black women to speak out and be heard. (Courtesy of HBO Max) THE SOCIAL DILEMMA Dir: Jeff Orlowski Prod: Larissa Rhodes An exposé of the insidious hidden systems of control behind our increasingly networked world, as revealed by former tech world insiders. (Courtesy of Netflix) A THOUSAND CUTS Dir/Prod: Ramona S. Diaz Prod: Leah Marino, Julie Goldman, Christopher Clements, Carolyn Hepburn A chilling look at the assault on fundamental democratic freedoms in the Philippines through the persecution of courageous journalist Maria Ressa. (Courtesy of PBS Distribution/FRONTLINE) TIME Dir/Prod: Garrett Bradley Prod: Lauren Domino, Kellen Quinn A moving chronicle of a marriage and a family separated by incarceration, focused on Fox Rich, who has spent 21 years fighting for the release of her husband from a 60-year prison sentence. (Courtesy of Amazon Studios) THE TRUFFLE HUNTERS Dir/Prod: Michael Dweck, Gregory Kershaw Enter the secretive world of the only people–and dogs–who are able to find the elusive white Alba truffle, the most expensive ingredient in the world. (Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics) WELCOME TO CHECHNYA Dir/Prod: David France Prod: Alice Henty, Joy A. Tomchin, Askold Kurov A courageous team of Russian activists operate an underground railroad to help LGBTQ+ Chechens escape state-sanctioned persecution (Courtesy of HBO Documentary Films/Music Box Films) SHORT LIST: SHORTS Abortion Helpline, This Is Lisa Dir/Prod: Barbara Attie, Janet Goldwater, Mike Attie At a Philadelphia abortion helpline, counselors answer nonstop calls from women who are seeking to end a pregnancy, but can’t afford to do so. A revealing look at how economic stigma and cruel legislation determines who in America has access to abortion. (Courtesy of Topic/Women Make Movies) Ashes to Ashes Dir: Taylor Rees Prod: Shirley Whitaker Winfred Rembert, a survivor of an attempted lynching in 1967, a Star Wars fanatic, and leather artist, develops a friendship with Doctor Shirley Jackson Whitaker, who is on a mission to memorialize the forgotten 4,000 African Americans lynched during the Jim Crow era. (Courtesy of XTR) Call Center Blues Dir: Geeta Gandbhir Prod: Jessica Devaney A tale of migration and deportation, this film follows four characters as they struggle to make sense of their lives in Tijuana. Each with a different story, they're linked by displacement and call center work in a country that's unfamiliar and frightening, yet sometimes a ray of hope. (Courtesy of Topic) Do Not Split Dir/Prod: Anders Hammer Prod: Charlotte Cook In the fall of 2019, a proposed bill allowing the Chinese government to extradite criminal suspects to mainland China escalates protests throughout Hong Kong. Unfolding across a year, this film captures the determination and sacrifices of the protesters, the government’s backlash, and the passage of the new Beijing-backed national security law. (Courtesy of Field of Vision) Flower Punk Dir/Prod: Alison Klayman Japanese artist Azuma Makoto has sent his floral sculptures into space and sunk them to the bottom of the ocean, but, most of the time, he thinks about the life and death of flowers. (Courtesy of New Yorker) Hunger Ward Dir/Prod: Skye Fitzgerald Prod: Michael Scheuerman This unflinching look at the human-caused famine in Yemen follows health care workers Dr. Aida Alsadeeq and Nurse Mekkia Mahdi as they work to save the lives of hunger-stricken children in two therapeutic feeding centers, against the backdrop of a forgotten war. (Courtesy of RYOT/Vulcan) A Life Too Short Dir: Safyah Usmani Prod: Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy Social media superstar Qandeel Baloch pushed boundaries in conservative Pakistan like no other. In 2016, high on her newfound celebrity, Qandeel exposes a well-known Muslim cleric–with tragic results. (Courtesy of MTV Documentary Films) A Love Song for Latasha Dir/Prod: Sophia Nahli Allison Prod: Fam Udeorji The injustice surrounding the shooting death of 15-year-old Latasha Harlins at a South Central Los Angeles store became a flashpoint for the city’s 1992 civil uprising. Nearly three decades later, director Sophia Nahli Allison removes Latasha from the context of her death to craft a dreamlike portrait of a promising life lost. (Courtesy of Netflix) No Crying at the Dinner Table Dir/Prod: Carol Nguyen Prod: Aziz Zoromba Filmmaker Carol Nguyen interviews her family to craft a portrait of love, grief, and intergenerational trauma. (Courtesy of Travelling Distribution) Now Is the Time Dir: Christopher Auchter Prod: Selwyn Jacob On the 50th anniversary of the first new totem pole raising on British Columbia’s Haida Gwaii in almost a century, Haida filmmaker Christopher Auchter steps through history to revisit the day that would signal the rebirth of the Haida spirit. (Courtesy of New York Times Op-Docs / POV / National Film Board of Canada) Sing Me a Lullaby Dir/Prod: Tiffany Hsiung A daughter journeys to China seeking her adopted mother’s long lost mother, uncovering family secrets and connecting the generations. (Courtesy of CBC/POV) Then Comes the Evening Dir/Prod: Maja Novaković In the lush pastoral hills of Eastern Bosnia, two old women share solitude. The care they have for each other is not composed of words, but rather their daily conduct. They are in a conversation with the land, welcoming the voices of nature, and the songs of a memory that is dying out. WINNER’S CIRCLE ACASA, MY HOME Dir: Radu Ciorniciuc Prod: Monica Lăzurean-Gorgan Winner: Golden Horn for Best Documentary Film, Krakow Film Festival A large Roma clan who have lived off the grid in the wilderness for 20 years are forced to resettle in the unfamiliar city. (Courtesy of Zeitgeist Films in association with Kino Lorber) BEAUTIFUL SOMETHING LEFT BEHIND Dir: Katrine Philp Prod: Katrine A. Sahlstrøm Winner: Documentary Feature Competition Grand Jury Award, SXSW Film Festival An affectionate and intimate child’s eye view of New Jersey’s Good Grief counseling center, which offers a holistic approach to mourning the loss of loved ones. (Courtesy of ViacomCBS) INFLUENCE Dir: Richard Poplak, Diana Neille Prod: Bob Moore, Neil Brandt Winner: Best International Documentary Film, Durban International Film Festival This portrait of the founder of the infamous public relations firm Bell Pottinger explores the disturbing way our perceptions—and politics—are shaped by outside forces. MAYOR Dir/Prod: David Osit Winner: The Reva and David Logan Grand Jury Award, Full Frame Documentary Film Festival Musa Hadid, the Christian mayor of Ramallah, Palestine, navigates day-to-day civic responsibilities, but the darker realities of life under occupation are never too far away. (Courtesy of Film Movement) THE MOLE AGENT Dir: Maite Alberdi Prod: Marcela Santibáñez Winner: Audience Award for Best European Film, San Sebastian International Film Festival An 83-year-old man goes undercover in a Chilean retirement home in this stylish observational documentary spy film. (Courtesy of Gravitas Ventures) THE PAINTER AND THE THIEF Dir: Benjamin Ree Prod: Ingvil Giske Winner: Jury Award for Best International Documentary, Docville International Documentary Festival Belgium A dual portrait of an artist and the thief who stole her art—but who becomes her unlikely friend and artistic collaborator. (Courtesy of NEON) THE REASON I JUMP Dir: Jerry Rothwell Prod: Jeremy Dear, Stevie Lee, Al Morrow Winner: World Cinema Documentary Competition Audience Award, Sundance Film Festival Based on the groundbreaking book written by Naoki Higashida, this film explores the interior worlds and fascinating daily experiences of five nonverbal autistic young people. (Courtesy of Kino Lorber) SONGS OF REPRESSION Dir: Estephan Wagner, Marianne Hougen-Moraga Prod: Heidi Elise Christensen, Signe Byrge Sørensen Winner: DOX:Award, CPH:DOX (Copenhagen International Documentary Festival) Executive produced by Joshua Oppenheimer, this complex portrait reveals the dark truth behind Chile’s seemingly idyllic German colony, Colonia Dignidad, formerly led by a cruel cult leader. STRAY Dir/Prod: Elizabeth Lo Prod: Shane Boris Winner: Best International Feature Documentary Award, Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival A remarkable portrait of three dogs in Istanbul, where strays are an everyday part of the fabric of the community, belonging to no one and everyone at the same time. (Courtesy of Magnolia Pictures) THE WALRUS AND THE WHISTLEBLOWER Dir/Prod: Nathalie Bibeau Prod: Frederic Bohbot Winner: Audience Award, Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival An eccentric former marine animal park trainer wages a war via social media and the courts to save Smooshi, his beloved walrus, from deplorable conditions. (Courtesy of Gravitas Ventures) Five-part series now streaming on Hulu and on demand through National Geographic This year's presidential race demonstrates that no matter how messed up a country is someone will still want to run it. The same is true for municipalities. Take Chicago: The metropolitan area has been shedding population for the past 10 years or more and in 2017 it recorded more murders than any other U.S. city, almost twice as many as second place Baltimore. The number or murders this year has already surpassed 2017's total. Its racial divisions are depressingly chronic. The systematic mistreatment of African Americans in the city came into tragic focus in 2014 when a white police officer shot and killed African-American teenager Laquan McDonald. Police supervisors initially declared the killing justified, and the officer only faced murder charges after dash cam video was belatedly released that contradicted official accounts of what had happened. The incident prompted a U.S. Department of Justice investigation into Chicago policing, which concluded the CPD exhibited a culture of excessive violence against minorities. Despite these grave problems, no shortage of people came forward to run for mayor in 2018, including, initially, the incumbent Rahm Emanuel. It was at that stage that veteran documentary filmmaker Steve James began documenting the mayor's contest in the city he has long called home. "We thought it would be a really fascinating mayoral race," James tells Nonfictionfilm.com. "There were at one point 21 candidates, and 14 of which ultimately landed on the ballot." When it happened it certainly rocked Chicago in a huge way and it had huge ramifications politically in this town. James' five-part documentary series City So Real, produced by James and Zak Piper, is now available through the National Geographic Channel and is streaming on Hulu. Just a couple of months after the production got underway, Emanuel shocked the city by announcing he would not seek a third term as mayor. "He dropped out literally the day before the trial [of the officer charged with murdering McDonald] was to begin," James notes. "Though he had raised something like 10 million dollars for his reelection campaign at that point he decided, I think, he just wasn't up for the vitriol and the anger because he'd already had several years of that and now with the campaign imminent it would just get ramped up even more." Among those who announced their candidacy before Emanuel dropped out was Lori Lightfoot, a Chicago lawyer and chair of the Police Accountability Task Force created in response to the McDonald killing. But after Emanuel bailed, the field really got crowded. "It became a total free for all," James says, "and then of course that led to the entrance of certain more high powered potential frontrunners into the race once he dropped out." James and Piper gained remarkable access to a bunch of the candidates, including Lightfoot, businessman Willie Wilson, tech entrepreneur Neal Sáles-Griffin, activist Ja’Mal Green, community organizer Amara Enyia, former Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy, and Paul Vallas, the ex-chief of the Chicago public school system. Early episodes document how difficult it is just to gather enough signatures to get on the ballot and then stay on it. "Landing on the ballot is no small feat. The petition process in Chicago is Chicago politics at its most hardball," James comments. "The attempts to get people off the ballot or tie them up in ballot challenges is something that I think Chicago has raised to a fine art, if you will." The skirmishing by President Trump's legal team over ballot counting in the presidential election pales in comparison to the bloodsport in Chicago around qualifying to run for mayor. Sáles-Griffin was almost booted off the ballot after Wilson's people disputed every single one of the more than 12,000 signatures collected on behalf of Sáles-Griffin. "I hope one thing the series can help do is to change that process, because there should be a process by which candidates get on the ballot," Piper observes. "I don't think the process we have is necessarily a great process." City So Real goes almost ward by ward through Chicago's many neighborhoods, giving a sense of the lived experience of people in economically-challenged sections as well as the tony, affluent Gold Coast. One of the series' most startling revelations is how disconnected many white people are from minorities in other parts of the city, and how unsympathetic they are to protests over racial injustice and police violence. "I guess I'm just naive but I was a bit shocked at how divorced from the Laquan McDonald trial and mayoral politics even that a lot of people in this city were," notes James, "especially when you consider other people were so passionate and so engaged and so informed and had lots to say about it." Piper echoes that assessment. "The Laquan McDonald murder trial felt like the biggest thing, it just felt like a huge headline and to know that there were people who really knew nothing about it, barely knew that it was happening, they weren't even hard to find," Piper comments. "That was shocking." James and his cinematographers, including his son Jackson, captured how defunding police became an issue in Chicago in the midst of the unrest over McDonald's killing. This was before George Floyd's murder in Minneapolis made defunding police a subject of national debate. In so many ways an understanding of Chicago -- its history of racial division and seemingly intractable social problems -- sheds light on the political challenges facing cities across the U.S. "As often is said, Chicago is the quintessential American city. I think in part that's because of where it's located geographically and the sort of folks that make their way here or are born and raised here," Piper tells Nonfictionfilm.com. "What's happening in Chicago -- what's been happening for years, if not a generation, is really a microcosm of what is happening in the country. All of the issues the city is grappling with, in terms of the mayoral race, which is documented in the series, all come to bear in 2020 with the pandemic and then the social upheaval following the murder of George Floyd. The examination of Chicago, it is sort of a stand in for that of the country." Anyone who follows politics at all will know how the Chicago mayoral race turned out. Lori Lightfoot embarked on her campaign with very little support, but ended up earning the most votes in the February 2019 election, which put her into a runoff with second-place finisher Toni Preckwinkle. She defeated Preckwinkle easily in the runoff in April 2019, becoming the Windy City's first Black female mayor and first openly-gay mayor. So how is the city doing under her leadership so far?
"There were enormous problems to be overcome in Chicago before the pandemic and the [social] upheaval and that has only been exacerbated and there are much bigger budget deficits now than there were before and there's much more anger and a feeling that we want change now," James tells me. "I don't think Lori Lightfoot has been the perfect mayor by any stretch, but I do feel that she has a will and a determination to try and make things better for this city and make things better for the people in this city who have historically not been taken care of. So I believe in her intentions there. I don't think she's sometimes getting there in the right way and she's got a lot to learn as a politician in navigating all that, I think." James adds, "I'm hopeful for the city because I just think there's far too many smart, engaged, passionate people in this city for us to not figure it out." The IDA will announce final nominees for Best Feature and Best Short on November 24 The outlook for documentary awards season has come into sharper focus with the announcement of the IDA Documentary Awards shortlists. Thirty feature documentaries made the shortlist, including early favorites Crip Camp, Boys State (winner of the top prize for U.S. documentary at the Sundance Film Festival), and TIME, Garrett Bradley's film that won the directing prize at Sundance. Numerous documentaries with an international dimension made the shortlist, among them Collective, the story of a deadly nightclub fire in Bucharest, Romania and its equally tragic aftermath. Alexander Nanau's film has already won a slew of awards, including prizes at the Zurich Film Festival, Sofia International Film Festival and the One World International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival. Gunda, a film without dialogue that examines the routines of a sow and her piglets on a farm, made the list. The Norwegian production, directed by Viktor Kosakovskiy, is executive produced by actor and animal rights advocate Joaquin Phoenix. The range of stories and of makers is as diverse as we have ever had. Gianfranco Rosi's Notturno, The Truffle Hunters, The Mole Agent and Once Upon a Time in Venezuela are among the other films with an international focus to make the shortlist. So too did Softie, the first Kenyan film to be accepted at Sundance. Sam Soko's documentary centers on Boniface "Softie" Mwangi, a candidate for office in Kenya who is determined to change his country's political culture despite long odds and little money. “It is exciting to see the IDA Awards Shortlist include so many films from around the globe,” Simon Kilmurry, the IDA's executive director, noted in a statement. “The range of stories and of makers is as diverse as we have ever had. It reflects the broad range of approaches to documentary filmmaking and some of the most urgent issues of the day.” "I have many fears of losing him." Softie's Boniface Mwangi risks all to fight for better Kenya |
AuthorMatthew Carey is a documentary filmmaker and journalist. His work has appeared on Deadline.com, CNN, CNN.com, TheWrap.com, NBCNews.com and in Documentary magazine. |