Now in its eleventh year, the Documentary Fortnight is MoMA’s annual exhibition of recent non-fiction from around the world. Running February 16-28, the program aims to expand the consideration of what constitutes documentary in contemporary filmmaking and art, reflected in an eclectic and innovative line-up as well as two guided tours of Web-based interactive non-fiction storytelling.
The festival opens with two feature-length docs: Tatiana Huezo Sanchez’s THE TINIEST PLACE (EL LUGAR MÁS PEQUEÑO), which has screened extensively at festivals, garnering numerous awards, including recognition from Abu Dhabi, DOCSDF, Visions du Reel, and the Cinema Eye Honors; and Jim Hubbard’s UNITED IN ANGER: A HISTORY OF ACT UP (pictured), which has its world premiere here. I’ve been wanting to see Sanchez’s celebrated film on the rebirth of a decimated El Salvadorian village for months now, and have been eagerly anticipating Hubbard’s film on the influential AIDS activist group since he showed me clips about a year ago.
I’ve already seen just a few of the films in the line-up. Of these, I responded best to Željka Suková’s hybrid doc MARIJA’S OWN, a semi-absurdist celebration of the filmmaker’s deceased grandmother. I wrote about the film out of Karlovy Vary for Indiewire here.
Among the rest of the feature-length offerings I’m most interested in are a number of portraits of siblings or other family members, including a retrospective showing of documentary legend DA Pennebaker’s rarely screened 1965 portrait of two sisters, ELIZABETH AND MARY; Ji Dan’s WHEN THE BOUGH BREAKS (pictured), about two sisters’ tense relationship with their parents; and Wojciech Staroń’s ARGENTINIAN LESSON, where the coming of age of the director’s son coincides with the family’s relocation to Argentina.
Two additional films have intriguing main subjects: Thomas Østbye’s IMAGINING EMANUEL, which I managed to miss at both Hot Docs and Nordisk Panorama, focuses on the question of identity via an alleged Liberian stowaway to Norway; while Orri Jónsson, Kristín Björk Kristjánsdóttir, and Ingibjörg Birgisdóttir’s GRANDMA LO-FI: THE BASEMENT TAPES OF SIGRIDUR NIELSDOTTIR (pictured), a look at an unusually prolific musician who began her career at the age of 70.
The final four films I’m most drawn to are described as more lyrical or even experimental. The most unusual and promising might be Matt McCormick’s THE GREAT NORTHWEST (pictured), an immersive present-day re-creation of a 1958 journey through the Pacific Northwest. Daniel Rosas’ EL FIELD, which paints a picture of life and industry in a California desert border town. I missed Victor Kossakovsky’s poetic exploration of global opposites, ¡VIVAN LAS ANTIPODAS! at IDFA, and hope to catch it at MoMA. Finally, INTO ETERNITY‘s Michael Madsen offers an inquiry into the representation of a place and its residents in THE AVERAGE OF AVERAGES – in 3D.
what (not) to doc 