The 15th annual DOC NYC festival unveiled the titles in its Short List sections, an early precursor lineup in advance of the Oscar nominations next January in the categories of Best Documentary Feature and Documentary Short.
America’s largest documentary festival, based in the Chelsea and Greenwich Village neighborhoods of New York City, launches on Nov. 13 with the opening night premiere of “Blue Road: The Edna O’Brien Story.”
The titles in the Short Lists include Benjamin Ree’s “The Remarkable Life of Ibelin,” Raoul Peck’s “Ernest Cole: Lost and Found,” Carla Gutiérrez’s “Frida,” Mati Diop’s “Dahomey” and “No Other Land,” directed by a four-person collective of Israeli and Palestinian artists.
Additional films, nearly all screening with filmmakers in person for Q&As, include “Will and Harper,” about the friendship between Will Ferrell and Harper Steele, “The Last of the Sea Women,” produced by Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai and Ibrahim Nash’at’s “Hollywoodgate,” a grim chronicle of the Taliban.
Per DOC NYC’s on Thursday statement, “For 11 of the last 12 years, DOC NYC has screened the documentary feature that went on to win the Academy Award, and the festival has screened 53 of the last 60 Oscar-nominated documentary features.”
See below for the full Short Lists:
SHORT LIST: FEATURES
THE BIBI FILES (World Premiere)
Director: Alexis Bloom
Producers: Alexis Bloom, Alex Gibney, Raviv Drucker, Kara Elverson, David Rahtz
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu went to court trying to block this film that reveals leaked video of his testimonies on corruption charges.
BLACK BOX DIARIES
Director: Shiori Ito
Producers: Shiori Ito, Hanna Aqvilin, Eric Nyari
A journalist upends Japan’s entrenched codes of silence when she brings sexual assault charges against a well-connected member of the Japanese media elite.
DAHOMEY
Director: Mati Diop
Producers: Mati Diop, Judith Lou Lévy, Eve Robin
The restitution of priceless artifacts, looted by the French, to their origins in Benin provides an occasion for momentous impact and debate.
DAUGHTERS
Directors: Natalie Rae, Angela Patton
Producers: Lisa Mazzotta, Natalie Rae, Justin Benoliel, James Cunningham, Mindy Goldberg, Sam Bisbee, Kathryn Everett, Laura Choi Raycroft
Young girls whose fathers are incarcerated join in a one-day dad/daughter dance inside prison, with deep emotional consequences on each side.
ERNEST COLE: LOST AND FOUND (NYC Premiere)
Director: Raoul Peck
Producers: Tamara Rosenberg, Raoul Peck
In this rousing, elegant documentary, Raoul Peck examines the life and works of a seminal artist of the 20th century, South African photographer Ernest Cole.
FRIDA
Director: Carla Gutiérrez
Producers: Katia Maguire, Sara Bernstein, Justin Wilkes, Loren Hammonds, Alexandra Johnes
Mixing lyrical animation of her influential works and expressive voice-over, Frida is a definitive film about the iconic twentieth-century Mexican artist Frida Kahlo.
MOUNTAIN QUEEN: THE SUMMITS OF LHAKPA SHERPA
Director: Lucy Walker
Producers: Charlie Corwin, Michael D. Ratner, Miranda Sherman, Dalia Burde,
Christopher Newman
Lhakpa Sherpa is the first Nepali woman to summit and descend Mount Everest, but how she navigates her life as a single mother and immigrant is an even more heroic tale.
NO OTHER LAND
Directors: Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor
Producers: Fabien Greenberg, Bård Kjøge Rønning
One of the most urgent films of the year and winner of multiple festival prizes, No Other Land offers an essential and unflinching look at Palestinian life under Israeli military occupation.
PORCELAIN WAR
Directors: Brendan Bellomo, Slava Leontyev
Producers: Aniela Sidorska, Paula DuPré Pesmen, Camilla Mazzaferro, Olivia Ahnemann
Three Ukrainian artists pick up arms when Russia invades their country, but refuse to put down their drive to create.
THE REMARKABLE LIFE OF IBELIN
Director: Benjamin Ree
Producer: Ingvil Giske
Inside a sophisticated online game, a young man suffering from a degenerative muscular disease creates a world where he can live, love, strive, and hope, to the greatest extent his soul can muster.
QUEENDOM
Director/Producer: Agniia Galdanova
Producer: Igor Myakotin
A genderqueer Russian artist/activist faces harassment and hostility in Putin’s Russia, but it is the universal ache of being cut off from one’s roots that proves to be her greatest existential threat.
SOUNDTRACK TO A COUP D’ETAT
Director: Johan Grimonprez
Producer: Rémi Grellety, Daan Milius
In a magnificent essay film, Johan Grimonprez explores the historical rollercoaster of Congo after its independence from colonial control, told through accounts from spies, mercenaries and jazz icons.
SUGARCANE
Directors: Julian Brave NoiseCat, Emily Kassie
Producers: Emily Kassie, Kellen Quinn
An investigation into the history of abuse and missing indigenous children at a Canadian residential school ignites a present-day reckoning on the nearby Sugarcane Reserve.
UNION
Director: Brett Story, Stephen Maing
Producers: Brett Story, Stephen Maing, Samantha Curley, Mars Verrone, Martin Dicicco
Against incredible odds and immense opposition, current and former Amazon workers form a labor union and petition the corporate behemoth for more dignified treatment of warehouse workers.
WILL & HARPER
Director: Josh Greenbaum
Producers: Rafael Marmor, Will Ferrell, Jessica Elbaum, Josh Greenbaum, Christopher Leggett
Former Saturday Night Live writer Harper Steele comes out as a woman and takes a road trip across the United States with her old friend Will Ferrell to explore transgender experience.
SHORT LIST: SHORTS
ALL THINGS METAL
Director: Motoki Otsuka
Producer: Lucy Sexton
Three brothers are united by their love of metal work, heavy metal rock, and movie-making.
DENIAL
Directors: Paul Moakley, Daniel Lombroso
Producer: Paul Moakley
Zoom in on Maricopa Country, Arizona, in 2020, where contested results of the Presidential election sow chaos, confusion and threats against the official overseeing the vote.
ETERNAL FATHER
Director: Ömer Sami
Producer: Alma Dyekjær Giese
One father deals with his mortality fears by stating his wish to be cryogenically frozen upon his
death, leaving his family to contemplate what this means for them when the time comes.
GOODBYE, MORGANZA
Director: Devon Blackwell
Producer: Daniel Lombroso
In this shadow of a long-ago betrayal, Devon Blackwell documents her family’s history and the property stolen from her great-grandmother. (The New Yorker)
I AM READY, WARDEN
Director: Smriti Mundhra
Producers: Keri Blakinger, Maya Gnyp, Keri Blakinger, Nina Anand Aujla, Smriti Mundhra
Sentenced to death, prisoner John Henry Ramirez spends his final days preparing a message for his victim’s son while saying goodbye to his own boy.
INCIDENT
Director/Producer: Bill Morrison
Producer: Jamie Kalven
Filmmaker Bill Morrison reconstructs a Chicago police shooting of an unarmed Black man, dissecting what some consider an accident and others a murder.
INSTRUMENTS OF A BEATING HEART
Director: Ema Ryan Yamazaki
Producer: Eric Nyari
In an annual musical performance for first graders, a young girl faces her fears with determination and becomes one of the lead percussionists.
JULIA’S STEPPING STONES
Directors: Julia Reichert, Steve Bognar, Jim Klein
Producer: Steve BognarBefore her death, activist/director Julia Reichert began filming her life story. Her partner, Steve Bognar, finishes the decorated filmmaker’s work, sharing it with the world.
MOTORCYCLE MARY
Director: Haley Watson
Producer: Rachel Greenwald
Meet Mary McGee, a decorated and courageous racer who shattered the glass ceiling for women in motorsports. (ESPN)
THE ONLY GIRL IN THE ORCHESTRA
Director/Producer: Molly O’Brien
Producer: Molly Lisa Remington
The spotlight shines on double bass player Orin O’Brien, the first woman to join the New York Philharmonic, in this brilliant film for classical music fans. (Netflix)
THE QUILTERS
Director/Producer: Jenifer McShane
Tasked with creating quilts for foster children in Missouri, the men in a maximum security facility stitch the dreams of future generations.
SEAT 31: ZOOEY ZEPHYR
Directors/Producer: Kimberly Reed
Banned from the Montana House of Representatives, Rep. Zooey Zephyr makes the bench outside the house her new “seat” as she fights for the rights of trans people in the state.
A SWIM LESSON
Directors: Rashida Jones, Will McCormack
Producers: Nicole Emanuele, Emily Arlook
A symphony of toddlers’ laughter, cries, and splashes can be heard in the backyard of Bill, an instructor committed to teaching little kids how to swim.
THE TURNAROUND
Directors: Kyle Thrash, Ben Proudfoot
Producers: Ben Proudfoot, Nicholas Ruff, Josh Rosenberg
After a superstar trade turned into a rough start with the Philadelphia Phillies, one devoted fan inspires others to turn their boos into cheers in hopes of changing the trajectory of the player’s season.
UNTIL HE’S BACK
Director/Producer: Jacqueline Baylon
As European countries ignore the refugee crisis on their shores, Faisal Bouhafs helps one Moroccan family repatriate their child after his unsuccessful journey across the Mediterranean.
WINNER’S CIRCLE
(Devoted to films that have won previous awards at film festivals)
HOLLYWOODGATE
Director: Ibrahim Nash’at
Producers: Talal Derki, Shane Boris, Odessa Rae
After foreign troops withdraw from Afghanistan in 2021, a journalist is given permission to follow and film two Taliban military men for a year.
THE LAST OF THE SEA WOMEN
Director: Sue Kim
Producers: Malala Yousafzai, Erika Kennair
Executive produced by Malala Yousafzai, The Last of the Sea Women explores the community of fisherwomen called the haenyeo on South Korea’s Jeju Island.
A NEW KIND OF WILDERNESS
Director: Silje Evensmo Jacobsen
Producer: Mari Bakke Riise
An endearing family devoted to living in harmony with nature faces difficult challenges when their matriarch unexpectedly passes away.
NOCTURNES
Directors: Anirban Dutta, Anupama Srinivasan
Producer: Anirban Dutta
In the dense forests of the Eastern Himalayas, two curious observers probe the dark of night to gain a greater understanding of one of nature’s most spellbinding creatures, the moth.
PATRICE: THE MOVIE
Director: Ted Passon
Producers: Kyla Harris, Innbo Shim, Emily Spivack
Patrice: The Movie plays like a romantic comedy, despite its serious subject matter about a couple fighting for disability rights.
