Washington, D.C., audiences benefited from living in the nation’s capital last week with the 11th annual AFI Docs Film Festival. This year’s festival offered a plate full of riveting documentaries that explore hard-hitting contemporary issues to jam packed audiences.
Among the 53 docs featured were a couple gala events focusing on political figures and themes. The opening night film, Bill Couturié’s “Letters to Jackie,” poignantly pictures the reading by famous actors of citizens’ letters to President John F. Kennedy’s widow after his assassination interspersed with nostalgic archival footage from the JFK administration.
Another gala evening featured Michael Stevens’ “Herblock-The Black and the White,” a loving film about how the Pulitzer prize-winning Washington Post editorial cartoonist covered politics for 55 years with wit and satire that spared no politicians.