Greta Thunberg became famous for her viral videos confronting UN leaders over climate change. Swedish filmmaker Nathan Grossman offers a unique view of Greta’s personal history starting in August 2018 when she was 15 years old and scarcely known. As her notoriety rises, we watch Greta adapt to being both flattered and scorned by world […]
2020 SHORT LIST: EDITING AWARD This eye-opening look at American democracy and political division follows a group of high school boys as they create a mock government at an annual civics program hosted by the American Legion in Austin, Texas. Separated into two fictional political parties, the charismatic young subjects have a week to nominate candidates, […]
Journalist Maria Ressa of the Philippines was named one of Time magazine’s Persons of the Year. Her online news site, Rappler combines the words “rap” and “ripple” for its truth seeking under the authoritarian regime of President Rodrigo Duterte. Filmmaker Ramona Diaz profiles Ressa as she faces government persecution in a series of legal actions […]
Filmmaker Dror Moreh proved himself an expert navigator of powerful figures in his Oscar®-nominated film The Gatekeepers, about the leaders of Israel’s Shin Bet security agency. Now he employs his talents to probe the American-led negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians in 2000. The main insiders on camera are six top American diplomats who testify to […]
2020 SHORT LIST: SPECIAL JURY RECOGNITION FOR TRUTH TO POWER Journalism’s role of exposing corruption has rarely been as dramatically portrayed as in Collective. Filmmaker Alexander Nanau follows a team of Romanian reporters in real time as they doggedly uncover a deadly scandal that reaches the highest levels of government. Like a real-life version of […]
Runner Up: Audience Award DOC NYC 2020 WORLD PREMIERE | How can we bring accountability over the climate crisis? This inspiring story of youth activism documents 21 activists from across the nation as they file a groundbreaking lawsuit against the United States. The case reveals evidence that the government has endangered their constitutional rights to life, […]
Oscar-winning filmmaker Bryan Fogel (Icarus,DOC NYC 2017) investigates the 2018 murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. The film breaks new ground with access to key sources including Khashoggi’s fiancée Hatice Cengiz, Turkish police and prosecutors, and the young Saudi dissident with whom Khashoggi was working. Revealing that this […]
MLK/FBI performs the vital task of examining FBI director J. Edgar Hoover’s relentless campaign of surveillance and harassment against Martin Luther King, Jr. Today, when King is celebrated across political spectrums as a moral hero, it’s jolting to confront the years when federal agents targeted him as a villain. Inspired by the work of historian […]
Oscar-winning filmmaker Errol Morris is drawn to larger-than-life characters, but Joanna Harcourt-Smith soars above them all. She’s a Scheherazade of sexual escapades and psychedelic tripping as she describes her life with the High Priest of LSD Timothy Leary through his period as an escaped convict who was recaptured in her company. Did she betray him […]
2020 METROPOLIS GRAND JURY PRIZE After making the dangerous journey from his native Guatemala to New York City, 15-year-old Luis struggles to balance attending school and finding work to support his family back home. Meanwhile, Judy, a Cuban-American ICE agent, faces her own internal conflict with the shifting enforcement priorities of her longtime career, from […]