DOC NYC 2023, America's Largest Documentary Film Festival, Returned With Oscar-Worthy Features And Shorts
For 2023 the DOC NYC festival embraced the remote model, allowing viewers at home to catch documentaries all month, while also offering in-person screenings in New York. There were 114 features and 129 shorts, which included 29 U.S, premieres and 33 world premieres, on subjects ranging from reproductive rights to a former First Lady to the U.S. housing crises to Indian fishermen.
Which DOC NYC 2023 Films Made The 2024 Oscars Shortlist?
Not only does DOC NYC give filmmakers the chance to have their work seen worldwide, but it’s also been particularly spot-on with its selections of what gets into the fest that then pick up nominations and awards throughout the season. In 10 of the last 11 years, DOC NYC has screened the documentary feature that ultimately won the Academy Award. Just last week, the Academy Of Motion Picture Arts And Sciences issued the 2024 Oscars shortlist, which includes the Documentary and Documentary Short categories. Among the documentaries that were part of the fest and are now on the Oscar list are American Symphony (Netflix); Bobi Wine: The People’s President (National Geographic); Going To Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project (HBO Documentary Films); and 20 Days In Mariupol (PBS). Seven of the Documentary Shorts are on the Oscar shortlist, including The Barber Of Little Rock; Black Girls Play: The Story Of Hand Games (ESPN Films); and Camp Courage (Netflix).
This may be the first time that a filmmaker pair - Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson - are shortlisted for both a feature (Going to Mars) and a short (Black Girls Play).
What Should You Know About The DOC NYC 2023 Films On The 2024 Oscars Shortlist?
American Symphony
Director
Matthew Heineman
What Makes This Documentary Special?
Musician Jon Batiste was riding high in 2022 with 11 Grammy nominations and a planned event at Carnegie Hall to present a new composition called American Symphony. But the year grows more complex when his life partner Suleika Jaouad, a writer and musician, learns that her cancer has returned after a decade in remission. Oscar-nominated filmmaker Matthew Heineman (Cartel Land) follows the couple as they experience the best and worst of what life has to offer.
*Watch AMERICAN SYMPHONY on Netflix
Apolonia, Apolonia
Director
Lea Glob
What Makes This Documentary Special?
For a class assignment in 2009, film student Lea Glob begins documenting a young bohemian painter from France. The assignment blossoms into something deeper, that spans 13 years in the life of a talented artist and her circle, from Paris to New York and Los Angeles and back again. Lea finds in Apolonia Sokol a story of a new generation of female artists still painfully navigating patriarchy.
Beyond Utopia
Director
Madeleine Gavin
What Makes This Documentary Special?
Intertwining two nail-biting stories of dangerous escape attempts from North Korea, Beyond Utopia shows us the reality of life in one of the most repressive totalitarian countries on Earth. Filmmaker Madeleine Gavin takes us on a harrowing journey, crosscutting between jaw-dropping cellphone video, and anguished cellphone audio, as she examines the high-stakes operation of an underground network that is the only hope of Koreans desperate to escape persecution and reunite with family.
Bobi Wine: The People's President
Directors
Moses Bwayo and Christopher Sharp
What Makes This Documentary Special?
Bobi Wine, a popular Afrobeats musician, directs his charisma to politics as he runs for office as Uganda’s presidential opposition candidate, challenging longtime leader Yoweri Museveni. The film unfolds like a thriller as Wine faces a brutal pushback.
*National Geographic has made the documentary available for free on YouTube. Watch it here.
The Eternal Memory
Director
Maite Alberdi
What Makes This Documentary Special?
Journalist Augusto Góngora and actress Paulina Urrutia form the unforgettable couple at the heart of this film about love, politics, and loss. Oscar-nominated filmmaker Maite Alberdi (The Mole Agent) profiles the pair as Góngora copes with Alzheimer’s disease and Urrutia adapts to this new phase of their relationship with resilience.
Four Daughters
Director
Kaouther Ben Hania
What Makes This Documentary Special?
The Tunisian mother Olfa Hamrouni gained prominence in 2016 when two of her four daughters ran away to join the Islamic State in Libya. She grew outspoken in the hope of preventing other mothers from suffering her loss. Now filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania takes a novel approach to telling this story by casting two actors to portray the missing daughters alongside Hamrouni and her other daughters.
Going To Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project
Directors
Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson
What Makes This Documentary Special?
Nikki Giovanni is a trailblazing poet who rose to be a key figure in the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and remains just as vibrant today. Filmmakers Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson capture her artistry and spiky personality in this warm portrait.
In The Rearview
Director
Maciek Hamela
What Makes This Documentary Special?
When Russia escalated its war against Ukraine in 2022, Polish director Maciek Hamela bought a van and volunteered to drive Ukrainian refugees – mostly women and children – on their quest to escape. From his passenger seat we meet the vanloads of people forced to leave everything behind. Today, as the war stretches on, it’s inevitable for outsiders to feel fatigue, but this poignant film makes a quietly eloquent case to keep our eyes on the road ahead.
Stamped From The Beginning
Director
Roger Ross Williams
What Makes This Documentary Special?
In his book Stamped From the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, author Dr. Ibram X. Kendi explored the history of anti-Black racist ideas and their impact on the United States. Oscar-winning filmmaker Roger Ross Williams takes inspiration from Kendi’s work to explore those themes with an array of powerful film techniques. Music and visual sampling are injected to create vivid storytelling with a hip hop sensibility.
*Watch STAMPED FROM THE BEGINNING on Netflix
20 Days In Mariupol
Director
Mstyslav Chernov
What Makes This Documentary Special?
Pulitzer Prize-winning Ukrainian journalist Mstyslav Chernov arrives at the strategically key city of Mariupol, Ukraine just as Russian forces begin assaulting the city on the first day of their full-scale invasion. Sending dispatches to AP, Chernov and his team bear witness as the beautiful city is ravaged with death, bombings, and disintegration, one devastating day at a time. Refusing to leave until the last possible moment, Chernov and his team capture defining images that galvanize the West to rally to his country’s defense.
*PBS has made the documentary available for free at pbs.org. Watch it here.
The Barber Of Little Rock
Directors
John Hoffman and Christine Turner
What Makes This Documentary Special?
The barbershop is the heart of the Black community, and in Little Rock, Arkansas, now the starting place of a new community lending program.
Bear
Director
Morgane Frund
What Makes This Documentary Special?
A student helps a filmmaker with his nature doc, and confronts him with the unexpected footage she discovers in his archive.
Between Earth And Sky
Director
Andrew Nadkarni
What Makes This Documentary Special?
The story of one professor’s career researching the rainforest canopy, where she was hurt, and where she also healed.
*PBS has made the documentary available for free at pbs.org. Watch it here.
Black Girls Play: The Story Of Hand Games
Directors
Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson
What Makes This Documentary Special?
Learn about the impactful and joyful hand games played by Black girls from generation to generation.
Camp Courage
Director
Max Lowe
What Makes This Documentary Special?
A profile of a young girl, her grandmother, and the camp that builds confidence for children going through big changes.
*Watch CAMP COURAGE on Netflix
Deciding Vote
Watch the full documentary:
Directors
Jeremy Workman and Robert Lyons
What Makes This Documentary Special?
The decision to legalize abortion in the state of New York came down to one person. This is his story.
How We Get Free
Directors
Geeta Gandbhir and Samantha Knowles
What Makes This Documentary Special?
Formerly incarcerated Elisabeth Epps works to eradicate cash bail in Colorado and now answers the call from her community to run for state representative.
If Dreams Were Lightning: Rural Healthcare Crisis
Director
Ramin Bahrani
What Makes This Documentary Special?
Appalachian locals share their experiences with limited healthcare resources, and thoughts about how to address the crises.
The Last Repair Shop
Directors
Ben Proudfoot and Kris Bowers
What Makes This Documentary Special?
One warehouse in the Los Angeles area devotes their time and energy to repairing 80,000 beloved instruments in the Los Angeles area.
*The Los Angeles Times has made the documentary available for free on YouTube. Watch it here, and ask filmmaker Kris Bowers questions in the comments.
Last Song From Kabul
Directors
Kevin Macdonald and Ruhi Hamid
What Makes This Documentary Special?
The heroic story of young orphaned girls whose music school was closed after the Taliban took over Afghanistan. They escape to Portugal to try and rebuild their fractured lives and begin to play music again.
*Watch LAST SONG FROM KABUL on Paramount Plus
Nǎi Nai & Wài Pó
Director
Sean Wang
What Makes This Documentary Special?
A tale of two grandmothers who pass the time dancing, stretching, and being best friends.
*Watch a clip from the documentary here.
Honeysuckle Highlights From DOC NYC 2023
However, whether or not films end up part of the awards circuit, DOC NYC does a brilliant job of curating films that are fascinating, engrossing and memorable. Here’s a sample of my favorites.
Uncropped
Director
D.W. Young
What Makes This Documentary Special?
Uncropped, directed by D.W. Young, is exactly that: a rich portrait of an artist – photographer James Hamilton – who stumbled into his craft, but over the course of a half century, became one of the key documenters of every day New York City as a photographer for The Village Voice and The New York Observer. Having never owned a camera before, Hamilton apprenticed with a fashion photographer and shot his first roll of film in 1968 at Coney Island. With a darkroom in his kitchen, Hamilton broke through with rock magazine Crawdaddy after forging a press pass to get into the Texas International Pop Festival and photographing close ups of Janis Joplin, B.B. King, and more.
While spending the 70s and 80s on staff with the Voice, chronicling the AIDS crisis, Tiananmen Square and the war in Ethiopia, Hamilton became an on-set photographer for filmmakers such as Milos Foreman and George Romero. While at the Observer, he met Wes Anderson (a producer on Uncropped), and has been part of Anderson’s whimsical world since The Royal Tenenbaums.
Hamilton’s pictorial POV was so respected that, as per the title, no one ever dared or needed to crop his photos. Hamilton and Uncropped are a testament to the kind of shoe leather journalism (and the place of reverence The Voice had in New York until its unceremonious shuttering) that was once commonplace but is steadily disappearing. And we’re clearly the worse for it.
Lucha: A Wrestling Tale
Director
Marco Ricci
What Makes This Documentary Special?
Lucha: A Wrestling Tale (winner of the Grand Jury Prize, Metropolis Competition) features an entirely different New York as its backdrop, specifically the South Bronx, a section of the city with a reputation that has long preceded it. Filmed over two years, Lucha’s director Marco Ricci takes us inside Taft High School, a school notable for being the first in the country to have metal detectors. He follows the athletes of the school’s female wrestling team and their pumped coaches, who are happy there’s a team even if it means practicing in the cafeteria.
The love the girls have for the sport and each other comes through in members such as Nyasia (who is so excited to wrestle but is academically in trouble), Alba (an immigrant from the Dominican Republic) and the she-ro of the documentary, Shirley, who is essentially homeless after her mother kicks her out. Shirley literally dreams of getting out of the Bronx to go to college. She can carry all her worldly possessions in one bag, and her most prized one is her gold school wrestling medal. As Ricci turns his lens on the girls and their home life, it’s easy to become as invested as they are in not being defined by their surroundings or circumstances.
Mediha
Director
Hasan Oswald
What Makes This Documentary Special?
But most of all, fests like DOC NYC really exist to give a voice to those without one, those struggling to find theirs, and to those who demand we pay attention. Hasan Oswald’s Mediha, (winner of the U.S. Competition Grand Jury Prize), which is about a girl who is taken from her family by ISIS and trafficked, is all three. The documentary will have audiences infuriated at everyone, from the United Nations, to the Iraqi government, to the news media for ignoring the plight of the Yazidis (an entho-religious minority seen as infidels and persecuted for centuries) – everyone except Mediha Ibrahim Alhamed and her family.
Collaborating with director Oswald, Mediha starts filming herself, her family and her community in Northern Iraq and talking about being a survivor as a form of therapy for her, as she tries to find her childhood again, one stolen from her when she and the rest of the family were captured by ISIS in 2014 and then separated. At age 10, she was sold for $500, and then sold three more times before being rescued when she was 13. Her three younger brothers were forced into becoming child soldiers. Her uncle was able to negotiate for her release and her two oldest brothers.
Mediha is one of the “lucky” ones, able to receive help for her PTSD and ongoing trauma. What about all the girls and boys who don’t get any mental health services, you’ll be asking yourself, the children who are told to pretend nothing happened? Mediha is a remarkable, powerful girl whose story is heartbreaking but also ultimately, offers the buds of inspiration. Hopefully with the spotlight that comes from having actress Emma Thompson as a producer, it will mean prosecution of the man who bought a child, give Mediha justice and aid in the rescue of the nearly 3,000 Yazidi women and children still in captivity and trafficked by ISIS nearly a decade after the genocide of their people.
For more about DOC NYC’s offerings, visit docnyc.net.
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Written By:
Shani R. Friedman
@shanestress (Twitter)
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Featured image: A young LL Cool J as captured by photographer James Hamilton. Hamilton's life story is told in the documentary UNCROPPED (C) DOC NYC