Long a welcome respite from NYC in the early Fall for film industry and cinephiles, the Hamptons International Film Festival holds its 22nd edition beginning this Thursday, October 9 and running through Monday, October 13. In addition to numerous conversations and special events, the event presents more than sixty features, with nonfiction making up nearly half that number. Some highlights are noted below:
The festival’s signature Golden Starfish Competition singles out just five films each in narrative and documentary feature and shorts categories. This year’s documentary feature selections include titles that have made a splash elsewhere on the festival circuit this past year but have not yet made it to New York, or, in some cases, America until now: Tamara Erde’s look at contrasting history class education in Israeli and Palestinian schools, THIS IS MY LAND (pictured); Pavol Pekarčík, Ivan Ostrochovský, and Peter Kerekes’ exploration of Czechoslovakian resistance, VELVET TERRORISTS; Carlo Zoratti’s portrait of friendship and the sexual life of the differently abled, THE SPECIAL NEED; Jaap Van Hoewijk’s countdown to an execution, KILLING TIME; and Margaret Brown’s reckoning with the Deepwater Horizon disaster, THE GREAT INVISIBLE.
A panorama of some of this year’s most notable nonfiction filmmaking appears in World Cinema Documentary. Included in this section are such offerings as: Chris Moukarbel’s BANKSY DOES NEW YORK (pictured), a chronicle of the street artist’s month-long residency in NYC last October; Cheryl Furjanic’s BACK ON BOARD: GREG LOUGANIS, a portrait of the acclaimed Olympic diver; Gracie Otto’s THE LAST IMPRESARIO, about the most famous theatre and film producer you’ve never heard of; Keva Rosenfeld’s ALL AMERICAN HIGH REVISITED, a look back at 1980s high school life; Geeta V. Patel and Ravi Patel’s MEET THE PATELS, a South Asian search for love; Gabe Polsky’s RED ARMY, a look back at Cold War politics through the Soviet hockey team; Wim Wenders and Juliano Ribeiro Salgado’s THE SALT OF THE EARTH, a focus on photographer Sebastião Salgado’s work; and Amir Bar-Lev’s HAPPY VALLEY, a look at the local impact of the Penn State scandal.
Other documentary programming includes the festival’s significant Films of Conflict & Resolution sidebar, which features Joshua Oppenheimer’s follow up to THE ACT OF KILLING, THE LOOK OF SILENCE; Orlando Von Einsiedel’s Congo national park doc, VIRUNGA (pictured); and Ross Kauffman and Katy Chevigny’s Human Rights Watch focused E-TEAM.
what (not) to doc 