DOC NYC 2024 is America’s largest documentary film festival, and one of the best in the world. The films a country makes say a lot about that country. To see another world with your own eyes is a great gift.
Like other New York film festivals, this is not only about seeing new films before everyone else does. It’s more about entering the conversation with actors, filmmakers, and film fans. There are lots of Q&As with filmmakers.
Filmmaking used to cost a lot of money, but now you can even make films from your phone. You just have to get started, and DOC NYC is a great place to find your vision.
15th DOC NYC 2024
The 15th DOC NYC 2024, America’s largest documentary film festival, screens over 300 films at SVA Theatre in Chelsea, Manhattan, IFC Center iin the West Village, and Village East by Angelika in the East Village; from Wednesday, November 13-21, 2024. It continues online until December 1. From $22. Passes available. 🇺🇸 🇦🇷 🇧🇷 🇨🇴 🇨🇺 🇩🇴 🇭🇹 🇮🇳 🇮🇱 🇳🇬 🇵🇸 🇸🇩
The Opening Night Film is the US Premiere of “Blue Road – The Edna O’Brien Story” by Sinead O’Shea. It is based on the diaries of the Irish author, which reveal the inner feelings of women and the challenges they face relating to men and society. This was planned months ago, but is very appropriate for the present moment. 🇮🇪
The Centerpiece Film is the World Premiere of “All God’s Children” by Ondi Timoner. It’s about a Brooklyn rabbi and Baptist pastor trying to find common ground as their own communities become antagonistic towards each other.
The Closing Night Film is the World Premiere of “Drop Dead City – New York on the Brink in 1975” by Peter Yost and Michael Rohatyn. 1977 was the bottom for New York City, a long climbdown from The City’s peak during World War II and the economic boom that followed in the 1950s. Haters think New York City is declining again, but New Yorkers are tough and New York City is a perpetual reinvention machine. It’s interesting to look back at how things were 50 years ago.
Latin Films
This season presents African American, American, Argentine, Brazilian, Colombian, Cuban, Dominican, Haitian, Indian, Indigenous, Jewish, Nigerian, Palestinian, and Sudanese films. There are many films about war and environmental degradation.
Latin films (at least in our concept) are spread across African/African-American, Caribbean, Indigenous/Native Americans/First Peoples, and Latinx/Latin-American (these links go to docnyc.net).
Some of the standout Latin films include:
“Balomania,” by Sissel Morell Dargis, is about Brazilian baloeiros, a secret subculture that builds and launches hot-air balloons. 🇧🇷
“Soul of the Desert,” by Mónica Taboada-Tapia, is about an Indigenous Wayúu transgender woman in her early seventies. The Wayúu are Indigenous people of the desert La Guajira peninsula at the northern tip of Colombia. She was probably shaman because they are usually gender-fluid. 🇨🇴
“The Fabulous Gold Harvesting Machine,” by Alfredo Pourailly De La Plaza, is about a Chilean gold miner’s son who builds a machine to free his father from the hard work. 🇨🇱
“The Falling Sky,” by Eryk Rocha and Gabriela Caneiro da Cunha, documents a sacred harvest ritual of the Yanomami Indigenous people of the Brazilian rainforest. 🇧🇷
“Gaucho Gaucho,” by Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw, is a portrait of Argentina’s iconic cowboys and cowgirls who preserve a proud way of life in the modern era. 🇦🇷
“Isla Familia,” by Abraham Jimenez Enoa and Claudia Calviño, explores a Cuban journalist and filmmaker’s hard decision to leave his homeland after constant government harassment. Cuba is currently lacking food and electricity. Over a million Cubans have emigrated in the last two or three years. That’s never an easy choice because you have to leave so much of yourself behind. 🇨🇺
“Mothers of Chibok,” by Joel “Kachi” Benson, tells the story of Nigerian mothers dealing with their daughters having been kidnapped by Boko Haram. 🇳🇬
“Standing Above the Clouds,” by Jalena Keane-Lee, tells how Hawaiian mothers and daughters are working together to protect their land and strengthen their communities. 🇺🇸
“Twice Into Oblivion,” by Pierre Michel Jean, is about an acting troupe that seeks healing by dramatizing The Parsley Massacre of 1937 in which Dominican dictator Trujillo used the Dominican Army to kill most of the Haitians living in the Cibao agricultural valley in the Dominican Republic’s northeast. [Kíko Keith: I’m writing this from the big city in the Cibao Valley, 100 miles from the Haitian border.] The test of life or death was whether you could pronounce “perejil,” Spanish for parsley. They even shot so many Haitians fleeing back to Haiti across the border on the Dajabón River, that the water turned red. The French name for the river is the “Massacre River,” from an earlier battle between the Spanish and French pirates. The great irony is that most Dominicans have at least some Haitian heritage, including Trujillo himself. He used to powder his face to look more white. This problem continues. In 2024, the Dominican Republic and Haiti are fighting over the river’s water, and the Dominican Republic is rounding up and deporting 10,000 Haitians a week. You can’t talk with Dominicans about this since the dictator Trujillo defined Dominican identity as White Catholic Spanish-speaking against Haiti’s Black Vodou (which is actually also Catholic) Kreyòl-speaking identity. If you speak of it, you get a long, unpleasant lecture. The whole thing is apocalyptic. Just imagine that one day your mother, father, or child don’t come home. Is this where we are headed in the United States in 2025? 🇩🇴 🇭🇹
DOC NYC 2023
DOC NYC 2023, America’s largest documentary film festival, is at IFC Center in the West Village, SVA Theatre in Chelsea, Village East by Angelika and Bar Veloce in the East Village; from Wednesday, November 8-26, 2023. From $20. Passes available. 🇺🇸 🇧🇷 🇨🇲 🇨🇺 🇯🇲 🇲🇽 🇪🇸 🇻🇪
The Opening Night film is the New York Premiere of “The Contestant.” Clair Titley directs the story of a Japanese comedian, known as Nasubi, whose reality TV challenge is to live alone in an apartment on only what he can win from magazine sweepstakes. He didn’t know he was being live streamed (in 1998), and eventually the isolation takes its toll. Screens at SVA Theatre in Chelsea; on Wednesday, November 8, 2023 at 6:45pm. $30. docnyc.net 🇯🇵
The Centerpiece film is the World Premiere of “Uncropped.” D.W. Young directs the story of New York photographer James Hamilton, whose iconic portraits of New York legends like Patti Smith, Liza Minnelli, Lou Reed, George Romero (Night of the Living Dead), and Wes Anderson (Grand Budapest Hotel) tell New York stories of the last fifty years. Screens at IFC Center in the West Village; on Saturday, November 11, 2023 at 6:30pm. $30. docnyc.net 🗽
The Closing Night Film is the World Premiere of “South to Black Power.” Sam Pollard and Llewellyn M. Smith direct this story based on New York Times opinion columnist Charles M. Blow’s calls for a reverse Great Migration back to the South as a means of reclaiming Black Power. Blow is a great writer. The value of his idea comes from unity which is the source of all human power. Screens at SVA Theatre in Chelsea; on Thursday, November 16, 2023 at 6:30pm. docnyc.net 🇺🇸
Latin Films
Latin films (at least in our concept) are spread across African/African-American, Caribbean, Indigenous/Native Americans/First Peoples, and Latinx/Latin-American (these links go to docnyc.net).
Native American Film
“One with the Whale” is the New York Premiere of Peter Chelkowski and Jim Wickens’ story of a teenage Native Alaskan hunter whose community survives on the whale hunt, but gets severely bullied on social media for his hunting prowess. Indigenous peoples live in a symbiotic (mutually beneficial) relationship with the land and the sea, and don’t take more than they need to survive. Screens with co-director Q&As on Wednesday, November 15, 2023 at 4:15pm. $20. docnyc.net 🇺🇸
Brazilian Bossa Nova Film
“They Shot the Piano Player” is the New York City Premiere of Spanish artists Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal’s (Chico & Rita), animated film about the origins of Brazilian bossa nova (samba jazz). It turns on the 1976 disappearance of piano virtuoso Francisco Tenório Júnior, one of the best pianists of his generation, during the Brazilian dictatorship. Screens at Village East by Angelika in the East Village; on Saturday, November 11, 2023 at 8pm. $20. docnyc.net 🇪🇸 🇧🇷
Cuban Film
“Patria y Vida: The Power of Music” is multiple Grammy winner Beatriz Luengo’s story about the San Isidro Movement, a group of Cuban artists, journalists, and academics whose protests against government censorship inspired a rap song “Patria y Vida” (Homeland and Life). The song’s title turns the Cuban revolutionary slogan “Patria o Muerte” into something positive. It went viral globally, inspired more protests in Cuba, and won the Latin Grammy for song of the year. One of the composers Maykel Osorbo (Michael Castillo), is rotting in a Cuban jail. These artists love their country. “Patria y Vida.” Screens with Q&A with the director and composer Yotuel Romero, at Village East by Angelika in the East Village; on Saturday, November 11, 2023 at 9pm. $20. docnyc.net 🇨🇺
Cameroonian Film
“Le Spectre de Boko Haram” (The Ghost of Boko Haram) is the U.S. Premiere of Cyrielle Raingou’s story about how three children live in fear of being kidnapped and forced to become child soldiers for Boko Haram in Kolofata, a small town in Northern Cameroon. Screens at Village East by Angelika in the East Village, on Saturday, November 11, 2023. $20. docnyc.net 🇨🇲
There are many more great documentaries. Regular screenings are $20 in-person and $13 online. Film passes are available from $49.
DOC NYC
DOC NYC was founded in 2010. It has grown into America’s largest documentary film festival.
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