Annual DOC NYC Opens November 10-28, 2021

Details: Category: Entertainment News; Published on Monday, 08 November 2021 19:45; Written by A&E Contributing Editor

DOC NYC, America's largest documentary festival, returns to theaters In NYC and runs in-person November 10-18 at IFC Center, SVA Theatre and Cinépolis Chelsea and screens online nationwide until November 28, 2021, featuring more than 200 films.

The 2021 festival includes more than 120 feature-length documentaries among over 200 films and dozens of events. Included are 32 World Premieres and 34 US premieres. Opening Night film is Penny Lane's Listening to Kenny G, Closing Night is Matthew Heineman's The First Wave and Centerpiece docs are Sam Pollard and Rex Miller's Citizen Ashe and Dave Wooley and David Heilbroner's Dionne Warwick: Don't Make Me Over.

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This year, the festival launches three new competitive sections for features: a U.S. Competition for new American nonfiction films, an International Competition for work from around the globe, and the Kaleidoscope Competition for new essayistic and formally adventurous documentaries. The festival's longstanding Metropolis Competition, showcasing New York stories, also continues. The festival also includes thematically organized sections that spotlight new films on music, sports, activism, the arts and more.

Among films making their world premieres, several are complex profiles of notable figures, including 14 Peaks on mountain climber Nirmal "Nims" Purja; Adrienne, a portrait of the late actress, director and screenwriter Adrienne Shelly; DMX: Don't Try To Understand; Dean Martin: King of Cool; Exposing Muybridge; The Invisible Shore, about the disappearance of Chinese sailor Guo Chuan; Kevin Garnett: Anything is Possible; Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck in Time; McCurry: The Pursuit of Color and Mr. Saturday Night, a look at the rise and fall of the producer behind Saturday Night Fever.

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The festival's popular Sonic Cinema section of music documentaries includes world premieres of The Job of Songs on Irish folk musicians; Omara, about Buena Vista Social Club singer Omara Portuondo; and Yung Punx: A Punk Parable on a group of tween rockers.

World premieres telling nuanced stories of families include Anonymous Sister and Be Our Guest, both dealing with addiction; Go Through the Dark, a profile of a blind boy talented in the ancient board game Go; Grandpa Was an Emperor, a personal tale of the family of Haile Selassie; and Let Me Be Me, about a child with severe autism who becomes a fashion designer.

Stories of mentoring youth are captured in the world premieres of two films about young hockey teams, The Cannons and Hockeyland; and in Young Plato about a visionary headmaster at an Irish school. Films about tactile things in a digital world include Objects about the meaning of possessions; and Grain about the love of film stock.

World premieres that bring trenchant explorations of hot topics include Black and Missing, about a quest for justice; Boycott, which looks at new U.S. laws against boycotts; The Business of Birth Control, about the controversial history of the Pill; End of the Line, a sharp-eyed look at New York's subways; InHospitable, on the ways that hospitals drive up health care costs; Messwood, about a high school football program that uncovers racial tension; Newtok, a portrait of a native community in Alaska suffering the effects of the climate crisis; Refuge, an exploration of healing from hatred; and A Tree of Life, which focuses on survivors of the deadly 2018 attack on a Pittsburgh synagogue.

Short-form content continues to be represented in the festival's Shorts Competition (70 films in 12 thematic programs) and DOC NYC U (39 films representing student work from seven NYC schools). Winners of the 2021 Grand Jury Prize in the U.S., Metropolis, and Shorts competitions will receive a deliverables package provided by PostWorks New York.
The winner of the 2021 Audience Award will receive a camera loan package provided by Sony, a leading manufacturer of digital cinema cameras to fit all levels of documentary production.

"After pivoting in 2020 to present a completely online festival, we're thrilled to be bringing films and filmmakers in person to New Yorkers again. But we're very happy that we'll also continue to serve our new audience across the country by once again presenting films online this year," said the festival's artistic director Thom Powers. "We're proud to showcase such a wide spectrum of documentary representing the diverse perspectives of our programming team."

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TICKETS AND PASSES:
Festival tickets and passes may be purchased at docnyc.net/tickets-and-passes.

The following is a breakdown of programming by section (for screening details visit www.docnyc.net):

SPECIAL EVENTS
Opening Night
LISTENING TO KENNY G (NYC Premiere)
Dir: Penny Lane
Prod: Gabriel Sedgwick
A witty and provocative profile of Grammy-winning saxophonist Kenny G that also asks a bigger question: what makes music good or bad?

Closing Night
THE FIRST WAVE (NYC Premiere)
Dir/Prod: Matthew Heineman
Prod: Jenna Millman, Leslie Norville
A powerful look at the doctors, nurses, and patients on the frontlines during the "first wave" of Covid-19 in New York City from March to June 2020.

Centerpiece Screening
CITIZEN ASHE (NYC Premiere)
Dir: Sam Pollard
Dir/Prod: Rex Miller
Prod: Beth Hubbard, Anna Godas, Steven Cantor, Jamie Schutz, Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe
This penetrating biography of the tennis legend Arthur Ashe charts how he navigated between a conservative sports culture and the activist politics of the Civil Rights movement.

Centerpiece Screening
DIONNE WARWICK: DON'T MAKE ME OVER (NYC Premiere)
Dir/Prod: Dave Wooley
Dir: David Heilbroner
In this career-spanning portrait, richly illustrated with vintage musical performances, Dionne Warwick is a marvelous raconteur sharing candid stories behind her hit songs.

14 PEAKS: NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE (World Premiere)
Dir/Prod: Torquil Jones
Prod: Drew Masters, Barry Smith, John McKenna, Catherine Quantschnigg
In 2019, Nepalese mountain climber Nirmal "Nims" Purja set out to do the unthinkable by climbing the world's fourteen highest summits in less than seven months.

THE AUTOMAT (NYC Premiere)
Dir/Prod: Lisa Hurwitz
Led by the irrepressible Mel Brooks, this lighthearted trip through the history of the iconic eateries features an impressive roster of celebrities (Colin Powell, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Carl Reiner, to name a few) waxing nostalgic on their experiences at the nickel-driven restaurants.

KEVIN GARNETT: ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE (World Premiere)
Dir/Prod: Daniel B. Levin, Eric W. Newman
Prod: Mike Marangu
Over the course of a Hall of Fame NBA career, Kevin Garnett transformed from a brash kid fresh off the prep circuit into a grizzled veteran lauded for his trademark passion for the game.

IN CONVERSATION WITH JOAN CHURCHILL
DOC NYC's 2021 Lifetime Achievement Award recipient reflects on a prodigious career, from her work as a cameraperson on Gimme Shelter through her collaborations with Nick Broomfield and beyond, and shares her new short documentary, Shoot from the Heart.