Raul achieved the American Dream while still in his twenties. But then, years later, it unexpectedly fell from his grasp. As his daughter points the camera in his direction, she asks him to reflect on the pursuit of dreams, and seeks his advice about her own.
A young man who is incarcerated at the Shelby County Division of Corrections shares his story. He was transferred to criminal court at the age of 15, and he has spent the past four years in adult detention centers as a youthful offender.
A Georgia doctor helps execute inmates by lethal injection despite the medical profession’s ban of physician involvement in executions. Personally against capital punishment, he sees his work as providing end of life care to the condemned.
2017 SHORT DOCUMENTARY WINNER Traffic Stop tells the story of Breaion King, a 26 year-old African-American school teacher from Austin, Texas who is stopped for a routine traffic violation that escalates into a dramatic arrest. Caught on police dashcams, Breaion is pulled from her car by the arresting officer, repeatedly thrown to the ground, and handcuffed. En route […]
NYC PREMIERE With a career spanning several decades, Jon Alpert is a past recipient of DOC NYC’s Lifetime Achievement Award. Now he delivers a film that draws upon footage he shot in Cuba for over 40 years. Starting in the 1970s, Alpert’s pioneering work as an independent video journalist won the attention of Fidel Castro, […]
NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE With his signature coif, extremist views against Islam and positioning as a populist candidate, politician Geert Wilders has been called the Dutch Donald Trump. With unprecedented access to the controversial figure, who has lived under armed guard for the past dozen years due to death threats against him, EuroTrump charts Wilders’ rise […]
NYC PREMIERE Executive produced by Dan Rather, Fail State explores the dark side of higher education in America, focusing on the rise of for-profit colleges. Echoing the subprime mortgage crisis, these private institutions target lower-income and minority students, who become saddled with student loan debt and, often, worthless degrees. Director Alex Shebanow traces the historical […]
NYC PREMIERE During 2016, filmmaker Greg Barker gained access to key members of outgoing US President Barack Obama’s administration Secretary of State John Kerry, Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power, confidant and speechwriter Ben Rhodes and others for an unprecedented look at the shaping of US foreign policy. While TV shows from The West […]
Director and cinematographer Peter Nicks (The Waiting Room) embeds with the Oakland police force for two years during a time of upheaval. The film covers officers on patrol as well as the chief tasked with overhauling a criticized and demoralized force. We witness the difficult work both on the ground and in the upper echelons […]
Filmmaker Bryan Fogel, an avid cyclist, decides to investigate and chronicle the effects of performance-enhancing drugs by using them on his own body. In the course of this experiment, Fogel meets and befriends Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov, a Russian scientist with intimate knowledge of his country’s Olympic program. From there, this Sundance Film Festival special jury […]