Spring 2023
Documentary’s Spring 2023 issue launches as the more industrial sides of our field continue to crater. This issue doesn’t offer clear solutions but spotlights some exemplary filmmakers, films, and projects that are intervening in how even the independent sectors of our field are sliding backwards. In addition, this issue features the launch of a new column, “The Preview,” which includes short blurbs giving more context about exciting new documentaries that might be otherwise overlooked amid all the commercial candy of murder, music, and celebrity-themed content—and will always open with a short narrative of the film festival's recent history, organizational structure and priorities, and programming reputation.
![Spring 2023](https://documentary.org/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/2023-06/Documentary%20Spring%202023%402x.png?itok=WxcqcmJZ)
Features
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![Still from 'Mãri Hi' showing a group of Yanomami walking through a dense forest.](/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/2023-06/Ma%CC%83ri%20Hi%20-%20Still%203_Morzaniel%20Iramari.png?itok=nWfBKUVF)
Morzaniel Ɨramari, an Indigenous documentary-maker...
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![Still from 'Users,' depicting an owl staring in the darkness. Courtesy of Icarus Films](/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/2023-06/USERS%203_Courtesy%20Icarus%20Films.jpg?itok=InoTadWO)
An Interview With Natalia Almada: For over two...
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![A man sits in a beige button up in a chair in front of greenery. In front of him hands and arms clasping, as if they are slating on a movie set.](/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/2023-06/The%20Silence%20of%20the%20Mole-6%20%281%29.jpeg?itok=pCYNW3z1)
Attending the Getting Real conference last year, I...
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![Still is from DC/DOX's Closing Night film 'The Space Race.' A Black man wearing glasses and a blue space suit with the American flag patch on the left arm, stands in front of a console on a space craft.](/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/2023-06/THESPACERACE_DCDOX.jpg?itok=se723Mv3)
A Conversation With Jamie Shor and Sky Sitney...
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A chance conversation with a friend in London...
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![A 1943 NYWTS photo of Frank Sinatra mobbed by fans, found in the Library of Congress. The photo's cutline reads: "It took all these Pasadena, Calif., policemen, if you can believe the story, to rescue singer Frank Sinatra from the hordes of fans that beseiged him when he got off his train at Pasadena. Looks like that old black magic is really taking hold in California."](/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/2023-05/Sinatra_LC_Bonnie_Photo.jpg?itok=Jfl-_cOU)
We who live in the Washington DC area have access...
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![Still from 'Searching for Onoda.' Ricardo Nunez, from the farming town of Burol, who survived an Onoda attack but came away from it with a permanent limp. Photo credit: Mia Stewart.](/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/2023-05/SFO_Old%20man%20red%20cap_from%20video%20onoda%20day03_1_2013-12-22_1518_C0006-1%20%281%29%20%281%29.png?itok=3O8R2kbC)
Mia Stewart’s upcoming 15-plus-years-in-the-making...
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![Still image from 'Pure Unknown,' depicting a pair of gloved hands cradling and gently wiping the hand of someone who is deceased.](/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/2023-05/Pure%20Unknown.jpg?itok=YTATnSff)
The new documentary by Italian directors Valentina...
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![Photo courtesy of CPH:DOX. Still from 'Theatre of Violence.' A person with dark skin, wearing a brown rimmed hat and a blue coat, holding a cellphone, stands in a green field with a dirt path.](/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/2023-04/836235_0.jpg?itok=YaJuXlw4)
The new Danish-German production Theatre of...
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![MoMI Curator of Film Eric Hynes introduces a Working on It session at First Look 2023. Photo credit: Thanassi Karageorgiou](/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/2023-04/MOMI_FIRST%20LOOK_SVA%20SCEENINGS-29_WEB.jpg?itok=E6W1IM4L)
First Look, the Museum of the Moving Image’s (MoMI...
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![Still from "The Tuba Thieves," directed by Alison O'Daniel, showing Nyke's hands in the moment right before she signs the film's title.](/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/2023-04/The%20Tuba%20Thieves%20-%20Still%201%20-%20Nyke%20Prince.jpeg?itok=skXrLYBk)
A caption in Alison O’Daniel’s film The Tuba...
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![Still from "On the Edge," directed by Nicolas Peduzzi. From overhead, a man in a white doctor's coat descends down a series of stairs.](/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/2023-03/865788.jpg?itok=4uFLxZdU)
Responding to the “permacrisis”—a 2022 “word of...
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![Conference room with yellow chairs, camera equipment and two people in the background wearing dark blue tops and gray bottoms. Sign on glass door in foreground with Conference Room schedule.](/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/2023-02/A7_05292.jpg?itok=WgZu1Ne6)
Last year, after a string of short-term contracts...
Columns
By GabriellaOrtega Ricketts