The 16th edition of Durham NC’s acclaimed non-fiction showcase, the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, opens this Thursday, April 4, with Dawn Porter’s Sundance award-winning GIDEON’S ARMY, and continues through Sunday, April 6, presenting nearly a hundred programs of new and retrospective films, as well as panels and other events. Among the special series this year are a tribute to filmmaker Jessica Yu, which includes screenings of her past notable work, as well as the world premiere of her new short about sustainability in Mozambique, THE GUIDE; and “Stories About Stories,” a thematic sidebar of films exploring truth and storytelling in documentaries, including classics like Orson Welles’ F FOR FAKE, Amir Bar-Lev’s MY KID COULD PAINT THAT, and even Larry Charles’ BORAT, as well as Sarah Polley’s recent STORIES WE TELL.
Director of Programming Sadie Tillery and her team have curated a typically impressive lineup of recent non-fiction titles, many which I’ve covered out of other festivals like Toronto, IDFA, Sundance, and SXSW over the past several months. Beyond these films, Full Frame is presenting several docs which are making their debuts here, which I’ll spotlight below:
Seven feature docs will have their world premieres in Durham this weekend, including Patrick Creadon’s IF YOU BUILD IT, a profile of an innovative program that brings design-based thinking into a rural NC high school classroom; Jeff Reichert and Farihah Zaman’s REMOTE AREA MEDICAL, a look at a temporary clinic set up during a NASCAR event to provide attendees with free healthcare; Marco Williams’ THE UNDOCUMENTED, which explores the human consequences of the US’s immigration policy; Amy Browne, Jeremy Kaplan, Tony Hale, and Brian Wilson’s A WILL FOR THE WOODS (pictured), an insightful look at the green burial movement through one man’s personal story; Elisabeth Haviland James’ IN SO MANY WORDS, a thoughtful, stylized biography of a best-selling novelist and psychotherapist; Amit Virmani’s MENSTRUAL MAN, which follows the efforts of an entrepreneur to curb gynecological diseases in rural India; and Martin M Clark and Walter E Campbell’s THE EDITOR AND THE DRAGON: HORACE CARTER FIGHTS THE KLAN, about a Pulitzer Prize-winning NC newspaper man who faces off against the KKK.
North American premieres at Full Frame include Jane Gillooly’s SUITCASE OF LOVE AND SHAME (pictured), an experimental reconstruction of an affair, recorded on tapes in the 1960s; and Patrick Reed’s FIGHT LIKE SOLDIERS, DIE LIKE CHILDREN, which follows humanitarian and retired general Roméo Dallaire in his struggle against the use of children as soldiers across Africa.
The fest’s US premieres include Tomasz Wolski’s THE PALACE, an observational portrait of Warsaw’s Soviet era Palace of Culture and Science; and Willemiek Kluijfhout’s MUSSELS IN LOVE (pictured), an ode to the mollusk and to a variety of individuals who profess their admiration to it.
Other films screening at Full Frame include Marco Bonfanti’s THE LAST SHEPHERD (pictured), a charming and beautifully composed look at a fading profession; Joseph Levy’s SPINNING PLATES, which celebrates the experience of eating out with a look at three unique restaurants; and Christine Turner’s HOMEGOINGS, about African-American funeral traditions, as represented by a Harlem funeral director.
what (not) to doc 