Submissions

Launched in 2010, DOC NYC quickly became America’s largest documentary film festival. The festival audience continued to grow through the pandemic years as DOC NYC maintained its impressive size and expanded its dates and capacity to include online screenings. The 2025 edition will continue DOC NYC’s hybrid format, welcoming filmmakers and audiences back into New York theaters from November 12 – 20, and then continuing online through November 30. The festival has hosted hundreds of world premieres over the years including “Yalla Parkour”, “The Bibi Files”, “David Holmes: The Boy Who Lived”, “Making a Murderer,” “Amazing Grace,” “Far From the Tree,” “Dean Martin: King of Cool,” and “Adrienne.” Click here to see 2024 Festival Award Winners.

The festival annually attracts a Who’s Who of documentary filmmakers. Past attendees include Barbara Kopple, Werner Herzog, Laura Poitras, Raoul Peck, Agnes Varda, Wim Wenders, Stanley Nelson, Errol Morris, Daniel Roher, Mstyslav Chernov, Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, Julia Reichart & Steven Bognar, Amy Berg, Morgan Neville, Jesse Moss & Amanda McBaine, Brett Morgen, Matthew Heineman, Davis Guggenheim, Margaret Brown, Lucy Walker, Maite Alberdi, Asif Kapadia, Michael Moore, Dawn Porter, Ondi Timoner, Ramin Bahrani, E. Chai Vasarhelyi, Jimmy Chin, Shaunak Sen, Sara Dosa, David France and many more. 

Additionally, the location of New York City creates unique opportunities for special guest appearances. Past DOC NYC guests include Martin Scorsese, Whoopi Goldberg, Rashida Jones, Daniel Radcliffe, Sarah Jessica Parker, Peter Sarsgaard, Steve Madden, Dan Rather, Ethan Hawke, Susan Sarandon, Danny DeVito, Olympia Dukakis, Jim Carrey, Sarah Polley, Reverend Al Sharpton, Ricki Lake, Sonja Sohn, Jonathan Franzen, Dick Cavett, Harvey Fierstein, Alfre Woodard, Omar Epps, Sonia Sanchez, Jonathan Lethem, Greil Marcus, Mariska Hargitay, Jim Jarmusch, Billie Jean King, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Ramy Yousef, Kenneth Cole, Thom Browne, Ronan Farrow, and many more.

Music films have always thrived at the festival in the Sonic Cinema section and other categories. Special guests over the years include Dionne Warwick, Kenny G, Itzhak Perlman, David Byrne, Janis Ian, Kathleen Hanna, Anohni, Bela Fleck, J Cole, Jakob Dylan, Ronnie Spector, Steven Van Zandt, Cissy Houston, Fanny, Spandau Ballet, Idina Menzel, Wynton Marsalis and The Mekons.

DOC NYC 2024 grand jury prize winners included “Yalla Parkour,” “Stone Mountain” and “Art Spiegelman: Disaster is My Muse,” with the audience award presented to “Slumlord Millionaire.”

Episodics are welcome and programmed within existing categories.

PREMIERE STATUS REQUIREMENTS: 
DOC NYC gives strong programming priority to World or U.S. premieres for feature films, but the minimum status to participate in the festival for both features and shorts is a New York City (5 Boroughs) premiere. The only exceptions to the NYC premiere policy are for films playing in the Short List or Winner’s Circle sections- these do not require any type of premiere status.

Episodics are welcome and programmed within existing categories.

COMPETITION SECTIONS:

DOC NYC has five competition sections:

U.S. Competition – A spectrum of high quality documentaries produced in the U.S. Of the 8 films selected in 2024, three were World premieres including “All God’s Children,” “Death & Taxes,” and “The People’s Way.”

International Competition – A spectrum of high quality documentaries produced outside the U.S. Of the 8 films selected in 2024, all were International or U.S. premieres including “Yalla Parkour,” “Sudan, Remember Us,” and “Soul of the Desert.”

Kaleidoscope Competition – Documentaries that tend toward the poetic and essayistic. Of the five films chosen in 2024 three were North American premieres, including “Afterwar” and “Under a Blue Sun.”

Metropolis – Established in the festival’s first year (2010), this section focuses on stories and personalities rooted in New York City. Past titles include World premieres of “Slumlord Millionaire”, “Art Spiegelman: Disaster is My Muse”, “Anxiety Club”, “Roberta”, “End of the Line,” “Mr. Saturday Night,” “Wojnarowicz,” “Moments Like This Never Last,” “Lydia Lunch – The War Is Never Over,” and “Decade of Fire;” and U.S. premieres of “Hold Your Fire,” “The Photography,” “Antonio Lopez 1970: Sex Fashion & Disco,” “Winter at Westbeth,” and “The Sarnos – A Life in Dirty Pictures.”

Shorts – Selections of nonfiction shorts, organized thematically. Past titles include Seung-jun Yi’s “In the Absence,” Kate Davis’ “Traffic Stop”, Darius Clark Monroe’s “Black 14,” Rishi Chadna’s “Tungrus,” Lydia Cornett’s “Yves & Variation,” Alison Klayman’s “Flower Punk,” and Laura Poitras and Henrik Moltke’s “Project X”.

Note: The DOC NYC Short Film Grand Jury Prize Winner qualifies in the Documentary Short Subject category of the annual Academy Awards® without the standard theatrical run, provided the film otherwise complies with the Academy rules. Additionally, all United Kingdom short films that are programmed in this category will be qualified for BAFTA’s British Short Film category.

NON-COMPETITION SECTIONS:

Special Events – High-profile events and guests. Past titles include the World premieres of “June”, “David Holmes: The Boy Who Lived”, “Uncropped”, “Kevin Garnett: Anything is Possible” (featuring the NBA star in person), the new season of IFC TV’s “Documentary Now!” (with Seth Meyers, John Mulaney, Renee Elise Goldsberry, and Richard Kind in person), “City of Joy” (with Eve Ensler and Thandiwe Newton in person), the Bruce Springsteen concert doc “Darkness on the Edge of Town” (with Max Weinberg and Thom Zimny in person), “Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy?” (with Noam Chomsky and Michel Gondry in person), Amy Berg’s “An Open Secret;” and U.S. premieres of “Finding Vivian Maier,” “Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and the Band” (with Robbie Robertson in person), “Sing Me The Songs That Say I Love You” (with Rufus Wainwright in person), and “Charlotte Rampling: The Look” (with Charlotte Rampling in person).

In addition, DOC NYC annually presents several thematic strands, which can change from year to year. Among these have been Sonic Cinema on music films; Game Face Cinema covering the sports world; Fight the Power on activist stories; Photography & Film on stories of image making; and Portraits that encompass biographical work.

SHORT LISTS AND WINNER’S CIRCLE

DOC NYC has separate sections designed to showcase films that are leading contenders for the Oscars and other awards. For these sections, it does not matter if the film has already been screened in New York City or is currently in release.

Submissions for these three sections will open up separately in Spring 2025. To be eligible for these sections, films must have fulfilled Oscar-qualification requirements by the 2025 Academy deadline. For more information about DOC NYC’s Short List and Winner’s Circle program and how to submit your feature for consideration, please visit: https://filmfreeway.com/DOCNYCShortListsandWinnersCircle. NOTE: Films that are submitted for Short List or Winner’s Circle consideration will not be considered for DOC NYC’s main slate programs.

Short List: Features – This section, launched in 2011, curates 15 features and has been a leading predictor of future Oscar nominees and winners.

Short List: Shorts – This section, first launched in 2018, curates 15 shorts and has quickly established a strong track record for anticipating future Oscar nominees.

Winner’s Circle – This section, introduced in 2019, highlights films that have won major festival awards but might fly below the radar of American audiences. Past films shown in Winner’s Circle that went on to make the Oscars’ Short List for Documentary Feature include “Hollywoodgate”, “Writing with Fire,” “The Mole Agent,” “Bad Axe,” “A House Made of Splinters,” “Apolonia, Apolonia”, “Beyond Utopia”, “In the Rearview”, “Midnight Family,” and “Advocate”. 

ACCESSIBILITY AT THE FESTIVAL

DOC NYC is committed to working with filmmakers to continually improve accessibility for all audiences.

For online exhibition, we strongly encourage all filmmakers to provide their films with closed captioning via VTT file so all home audience members have the option of watching with captions.

For theatrical play, we strongly encourage all filmmakers to submit their films with closed captioning and descriptive audio. We also welcome open caption versions.