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documentary magazine

A Conversation With Jamie Shor and Sky Sitney Washington, DC, is getting its newest documentary showcase with the launch of DC/DOX Film Festival
Secure in its June slot, and without the gravitational balance of the Tribeca Film Institute’s artist support and funding programs, Tribeca Festival’s traditional coziness with corporate sponsors has proliferated in recent years (and surely must also be pandemic-related). The film selections mostly reflect this unfortunate industry-wide trend. But between the celebrity- and music-driven biodocs that stuff Tribeca’s lineup, the festival also boasts stateside premieres of hotly anticipated creative documentaries, exciting debuts from independent filmmakers, and one of the best-curated film festival immersive sections in the world. For this recommendations list, we pulled together a mix of nonfiction projects that we’re anticipating will become the festival’s discoveries.
A chance conversation with a friend in London about how we missed attending documentary film festivals resulted—some weeks and intensive planning
We who live in the Washington DC area have access to the world’s largest rights-free collections of film and photos, and they are usually available to
Mia Stewart’s upcoming 15-plus-years-in-the-making documentary, Searching for Onoda, deflates the heroic myth of Japanese holdout soldier Hiroo Onoda and tells the other side of the story. Both Arthur Harari’s 2021 Cannes-premiering narrative feature, 'Onoda: 10,000 Nights in the Jungle,' and Werner Herzog's debut 2022 novel, 'The Twilight World,' perpetuate the old myth.
First Look, the Museum of the Moving Image’s (MoMI) film festival, annually introduces New York audiences to new cinematic talent and audacious
A caption in Alison O’Daniel’s film The Tuba Thieves (2023) refers to “quiet air”—a description of sound but also of sensation and (shared) substance
During the height of the pandemic, I participated in SXSW virtually, which meant watching films online from my living room couch, which didn’t invite the same emotions I felt at festivals in person. Thankfully, I was able to go to Austin for the first time this March, and I hit the ground running. It was an experience full of remarkable films, brilliant filmmakers, delicious barbeque, and confident networking.
Responding to the “permacrisis”—a 2022 “word of the year” meaning “an extended period of instability and insecurity” and the title for one of the talks at this year’s CPH:DOX film festival and conference in Copenhagen—was a prevailing theme at this season’s March event.
Wesleyan University is a liberal arts college located in Middletown, Connecticut. Founded in 1831, Wesleyan is a school “where critical thinking and