Category Archives: Overviews

The 22nd Los Angeles Film Festival, beginning a week earlier than last year, launches tomorrow, Wednesday, June 1. More than 70 features will screen at the event before it wraps up on Thursday, June 9, including 17 documentaries, a number of which are highlighted below: Continue reading →

Tonight, Thursday, May 19 sees the kick-off of the three-week-long Seattle International Film Festival. The 42nd edition of the popular event will wrap on Sunday, June 12 after presenting scores of new and retrospective films, including approximately 75 feature documentaries. In addition to several competitive and thematic strands, organizers have grouped the lineup according to eight “Moods,” several of which are covered below: Continue reading →

Ecuador’s largest nonfiction event, EDOC – Encuentros del Otro Cine – celebrates its 15th edition starting today, Wednesday, May 18, with screenings through Sunday, May 29 in Quito, and through Thursday, June 2 in Guayaquil. This year’s lineup includes over 100 features and shorts, organized thematically, with some highlights noted below: Continue reading →

The 69th edition of the Cannes Film Festival kicks off tonight, Wednesday, May 11. As is typical for the event, nonfiction is given shortshrift here, relegated to sidebars in the official fest selection, and were it not for one higher-profile selection, barely registering in the independent events, Directors’ Fortnight and International Critics’ Week: Continue reading →

Tomorrow, Thursday, May 5 sees the launch of DOK.fest Munich. The 31st edition of the event runs through Sunday, May 15, and screens more than 100 nonfiction features. Selections from the various competitions and other sections are noted below: Continue reading →

Tomorrow, Thursday, April 28 sees the kick off of North America’s biggest nonfiction event, Toronto’s Hot Docs. Running through Sunday, May 8, this year’s 23rd edition will present approximately 150 new and recent feature documentaries, as well as retrospective programming, shorts, special talks, and the concurrent industry-focused Hot Docs Forum. Notably, this year is the first event under new Director of Programming Shane Smith, a well-liked veteran programmer whose past experience includes Toronto, Sundance, Inside Out, and the Worldwide Short film fests. I’m looking forward to heading north this weekend and checking out several of his selections, including the overview below: Continue reading →

The San Francisco International Film Festival, the nation’s longest-running film festival, celebrates its 59th year starting tonight, Thursday, April 21. Almost 100 new feature films, among them approximately 40 documentaries, will be presented before the event wraps on Thursday, May 5 with a screening of Jesse Moss’ THE BANDIT, a love letter to Burt Reynolds’ SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT. Other nonfiction on offer follows: Continue reading →

Switzerland’s Visions du Réel holds its 47th annual edition beginning tomorrow, Friday, April 15 through Sunday, April 23. The Nyon-based documentary event will screen nearly 100 new and recent features in addition to retrospective and shorts programming. Highlights from various sections are noted below: Continue reading →

The 15th annual Tribeca Film Festival begins this Wednesday, April 13, kicking off with an opening night screening of Andrew Rossi’s FIRST MONDAY IN MAY, a behind-the-scenes look at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Gala. By the time the event wraps on Sunday, April 24, the festival will have showcased nearly 60 additional nonfiction features, including fellow Gala title THE BOMB, Kevin Ford, Smriti Keshari, and Eric Schlosser’s immersive 360 degree meditation on nuclear weapons, and other highlights noted below: Continue reading →

The Film Society of Lincoln Center’s nonfiction and hybrid showcase, Art of the Real returns for the third year starting tomorrow, Friday, April 8 and runs through Thursday, April 21. In addition to presenting twenty new features, this year’s series offers two programs of short films as well as a five-program retrospective of the work of experimental filmmaker Bruce Baillie. Two films open Art of the Real – the world premiere of Ben Rivers’ WHAT MEANS SOMETHING (pictured), a quiet portrait of artist Rose Wylie; and Roberto Minervini’s THE OTHER SIDE, a look at outsiders’ lives in the Louisiana bayou – while Jumana Manna’s ethnomusicological portrait of Palestine, A MAGICAL SUBSTANCE FLOWS INTO ME, brings the series to a close.

Additional programming includes the US premiere of José Luis Guerín’s ACADEMY OF THE MUSES, a romantic comedy crossed with a philosophical meditation on love and art, partly based on reality; Federico Lodoli and Carlo Gabriele Tribbioli’s FRAGMENT 53, an exploration of extremism through the confessions of perpetrators in Liberia’s civil war; Andrea Bussmann and Nicolás Pereda’s TALES OF TWO WHO DREAMT, in which a real Roma family seeking asylum in Canada inspires self-mythologizing stories; and Thom Andersen’s THE THOUGHTS THAT ONCE WE HAD (pictured), a Deleuzian jaunt through film history.