2018 Festival Films
2018 Festival Highlights
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In partnership with SVA School of Social Documentary
PRODUCERS: Sasha Friedlander, Tracie Holder, Matthew Syrett, Cynthia Wade
EDITOR: Sasha Friedlander
CINEMATOGRAPHERS: Axel Baumann, Boaz Freund, Alex Ginting, Peter Mychalcewycz
Grit is the story of a huge, toxic mudflow in Indonesia widely believed to be caused by shoddy drilling practices. The mud volcano has been erupting violently for the past eight years, burying 17 villages and permanently displacing 60,000 people. The film follows ordinary Indonesians, including one determined teenager, seeking justice for this disaster during a national election where one presidential candidate has promised restitution — and the other has not.
Cynthia Wade’s previous film, Freeheld, won 16 film awards, including an Academy Award; she is currently a producer on the fictionalized version starring Julianne Moore and Ellen Page. In 2013, Cynthia received her second Oscar nomination for her documentary Mondays at Racine.
Sasha Friedlander previously directed Where Heaven Meets Hell, a feature-length documentary set in East Java, Indonesia. The film won Best Feature Documentary Film at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival and Hawaii International Film Festival, and a Special Mention for Outstanding Cinematography at the LAAPFF.
PRODUCERS: Richard Miron, Jeffrey Star, Holly Meehl
EDITORS: Richard Miron, Jeffrey Star
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Richard Miron
In this surprising film, we follow an unusual woman named Kathy who lives with 200 pet chickens, ducks, geese and turkeys. What starts as a story seemingly about Kathy’s battle with local animal advocacy groups slowly transforms into an intimate drama about her relationship with her husband Gary, and the toll the birds have taken on their marriage and her well-being. Filmed over the course of five years, this sensitive tale of one woman’s world is ultimately one of hope about the possibility of regaining one’s life.
Richard Miron assistant edited Academy Award-nominated Life, Animated, as well as Art and Craft (Tribeca 2014, Academy Award shortlist). He was the lead editor for the recent feature documentary The Surrounding Game. He received his B.A. in Art from Yale University, where he won the Howard Lamar Prize, Yale’s top film award. He received the Marcie Bloom Fellowship in Film and was a fellow in the 2016 IFP Documentary Labs.
PRODUCERS: Davis Coombe, Sakheni Dlamini, Daniel Junge, Aaron Kopp, Amanda Kopp
EDITORS: Davis Coombe, Aaron Kopp
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Aaron Kopp
Under the guidance of acclaimed South African storyteller, Gcina Mhlophe, five orphaned children from Swaziland collaborate to craft a collective fairytale drawn from their darkest memories and brightest dreams. Their fictional character, Liyana, is brought to life in innovative animated artwork as she embarks on a perilous quest to rescue her young twin brothers. The children’s real and imagined worlds begin to converge, and they must choose what kind of story they will tell – in fiction and in their own lives.
Aaron Kopp is an award-winning filmmaker and Emmy-nominated cinematographer. He shot and co-produced the Academy Award-winning documentary, Saving Face about acid attacks in Pakistan. He was cinematographer for the Sundance Audience Award-winning and Academy Award-nominated film, The Hunting Ground, about sexual assault on college campuses. Aaron and Amanda make their feature directorial debut with Liyana.
Amanda Kopp is an award-winning filmmaker, photographer and artist. She was producer and cinematographer for the short film, Likhaya, which won a Golden Palm, People’s Choice, and Best Documentary awards at international festivals. She was the recipient of the 2018 Emerging Female Filmmaker Award from the Oxford Film Festival.
PRODUCERS: Jeff Kaufman, Marcia Ross
EDITOR: Asher Bingham
CINEMATOGRAPHERS: Jordan Black, Autumn Eakin, Anthony Lucido
OPENING NIGHT FILM
This film pays loving tribute to Terrence McNally, the four-time Tony winning playwright and ardent fighter for LGBTQ rights at a time when that was not the norm. The son of an alcoholic beer distributor in southern Texas, Terrence traveled the world as tutor to John Steinbeck's children; suffered an infamous Broadway flop in 1965 at age 24; and went on to write dozens of groundbreaking plays and musicals about sexuality, homophobia, faith, the power of art, and finding meaning in every moment of life. At 80 he is currently working on three new plays.
Jeff Kaufman produced, directed, and wrote the documentaries The State of Marriage; Father Joseph; The Savoy King: Chick Webb and the Music That Changed America; Brush With Life: The Art of Being Edward Biberman; and Education Under Fire, plus programs for The Discovery Channel and The History Channel, and a half-dozen short films for Amnesty International. He also contributed cartoons to The New Yorker, and illustrations to The Los Angeles Times and The New York Times.
Song of Bethlehem - 30 min
DIRECTOR: Ken Goldstein
The true meaning of "Make America Great" is explored in this investigative music documentary that juxtaposes a 30-year-old "Song of America" against the rebirth of the town it was written about and its inspirational 20-year journey to becoming a global icon of redevelopment.
Unwelcome - 15 min
DIRECTOR: Ida Theresa Myklebost
This film takes an unusual approach in covering the Syrian war by giving the microphone to a six-year-old refugee boy and letting him narrate the film himself.
Dr. Trash - 25 min
DIRECTOR: Ethiraj Gabriel Dattatreyan
Dr. Trash knows treasure from the detritus that surrounds it. Some of the treasure he seeks lines his pockets, materialized in the thousands of dollars worth of textbooks, technology, and clothes that he salvages every year when students move out of a large university on the East coast of the U.S.
30% Sun, 100% Fun - 5 min
DIRECTOR: Deirdre O’Connor
Children at Robert Moses Beach on Long Island enthusiastically share their perspectives and observations on the 2017 Solar Eclipse.
My Paintbrush Bites - 16 min
DIRECTORS: Joel Pincosy, Joe Egender
Q/A with Joel Pincosy, Joe Egender
A man battling reclusion and a racehorse on the brink of death save each other in unexpected ways.
PRODUCER: Susie Rivo
EDITOR: Iftach Shavit
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Lynn Weissman
Tired of being silenced, underrepresented and sexually harassed, women today are speaking up on social media and at the polling booth. But almost 50 years ago, women’s protests took another form. Left on Pearl depicts a highly significant, but little-known event that took place on March 6, 1971 as International Women's Day marchers turned left on Pearl Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts, seizing a Harvard University building and declaring it a Women's Center. Hundreds of women, veterans of the antiwar and civil rights movements, demanded that Harvard provide affordable housing for the Riverside community being displaced by the University’s expansion. The ten-day occupation that ensued embodied within it many of the hopes, triumphs, conflicts and tensions of Second Wave feminism.
Susie Rivo holds an MFA in Cinema Production from San Francisco State University. Her award-winning short film, Amy screened at numerous film festivals, including Sundance and SXSW and was broadcast on several PBS stations. She received a Massachusetts Cultural Council finalist award for filmmaking.
PRODUCERS: Cristina Costantini, Darren Foster, Jeff Plunkett
EDITORS: Tom Maroney, Alejandro Valdes-Rochin
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Peter Alton
Science Fair follows nine high school students from around the globe as they navigate rivalries, setbacks and, of course, hormones, on their journey to compete at The International Science and Engineering Fair. As 1,700 of the smartest, quirkiest teens from 78 different countries face off, including one from Jericho High School, only one will be named Best in Fair. The film offers a front seat to the victories, defeats and motivations of an incredible group of young men and women who are on a path to change their lives, and the world, through science. The film was the winner of the first-ever Festival Favorite Award at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival and the Festival Favorite Award at 2018 SXSW.
Cristina Costantini has reported and produced for the New Haven Independent, The Huffington Post, ABC News, Univision, and Fusion. Her first TV documentary, which looked at sex trafficking in Mexico, was nominated for two Emmys and her reporting on immigration has won awards from GLAAD and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.
Darren Foster is a DuPont and Peabody Award-winning documentary filmmaker. He was the series director of the critically acclaimed Borderland series and is the co-creator and series producer of Inside: Secret America, an investigative documentary series airing on the National Geographic Channel.
PRODUCER: Matthew Kaplowitz
EDITOR: Matthew Kaplowitz
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Matthew Kaplowitz
HECTOR LEONARDI ART & INSPIRATION AWARD
This award goes to a film that embraces the vibrancy of an artist to whom art and life are one and the same. This award is named in honor of Hector Leonardi who has been communicating the joy of painting through art and color for over 50 years.
This film represents two years in the life of Hank Virgona, an 88-year-old painter and great uncle of Director Matthew Kaplowitz. Hank treks four hours each day from his home in Woodhaven, Queens to his studio in Union Square. He has been doing this religiously since 1960, originally using his studio to create illustrations for commercial clients and later focusing his efforts on his own pursuit of art and what it means to him. Despite dealing with poor health, prostate cancer, obscurity, and a rapidly dwindling bank account, Hank sojourns on, doing what he loves to do, creating art solely for the purpose of making it.
Matthew Kaplowitz previously directed, produced and edited Girl Fight: A Muay Thai Story. The documentary was selected in ten film festivals, and won the award for best editing at the 2015 Rahway International Film Festival. In a joint production with Breakfall Studios, he made Concrete & Crashpads: Stunts in New York, a short that was selected in ten film festivals. He was also a Top 12 Finalist in the Fusion Five Day Documentary challenge with his entry, En Pointe.
and legendary guitarist GE Smith
PRODUCER: Ron Mann
EDITOR: Robert Kennedy
CINEMATOGRAPHERS: Becky Parsons, John M. Tran
FRIDAY NIGHT SPOTLIGHT: CO-PRESENTED WITH THE SAG HARBOR CINEMA ARTS CENTER
Once the center of the New York Bohemia, Greenwich Village is now home to posh restaurants and buzzer-door clothing stores. But one shop in the heart of the Village remains resilient to the encroaching gentrification: Carmine Street Guitars. There, custom guitar maker Rick Kelly and his young apprentice Cindy Hulej, build handcrafted guitars out of reclaimed wood. Nothing looks or sounds quite like a Rick Kelly guitar, which is the reason they are embraced by the likes of Bob Dylan and Lou Reed, just to name two. Featuring a cast of prominent musicians and artists, the film captures five days in the life of Carmine Street Guitars, while examining an all-too-quickly vanishing way of life.
Toronto filmmaker Ron Mann established his international reputation while in his twenties with a series of award-winning theatrical documentaries, including Imagine the Sound (1981), Poetry in Motion (1982), Comic Book Confidential (1988), Twist (1992), and Grass (1999). Ron’s other films include Go Further (2003), Tales of the Rat Fink (2006), Know Your Mushrooms (2008), In the Wake of the Flood (2010) and Altman (2014).
PRODUCERS: James William Theres, Elizabeth Cobbs
EDITOR: Adam Kilburn
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Malcholm Reese
In 1918 the U.S. Army Signal Corps sent 223 women to France as telephone operators to help win the Great War. They wore Army uniforms and swore Army oaths. By war’s end, these women, known affectionately as the Hello Girls, had connected over 26 million calls. The last of the Hello Girls returned home in 1920, only to be told they were never soldiers after all. For 60 years, these women fought the U.S. government for recognition. Told through 100-year-old letters, photos, rare archival footage, the only known audio of a real Hello Girl, and interviews with family and historians, the Hello Girls brings to life a story that was stuck in the nooks and crannies of American history.
James William Theres is an award-winning Public Affairs Officer and Speechwriter at the Department of Veterans Affairs in Washington D.C. His first film, The 30th of May was based on his graduate research project of the same name. The documentary received 25 awards and appeared on Mississippi Public Television in May 2017. Hello Girls is his second documentary.
PRODUCERS: Steven Cantor, Dani Drusin, Jannat Gargi, Victoria Morris, Tiler Peck, Jamie Schutz
EDITORS: Anna Pinchuk, Federico Rosenzvit
CINEMATOGRAPHERS: Paul Dokuchitz, Casey Regan, Johnny Saint-Ours
The film follows Tiler Peck, New York City Ballet's Prima Ballerina, the first woman to be asked to curate The Music Center's famed BalletNOW program, as she tries to execute her groundbreaking vision of mashing together the worlds of tap, hip-hop, ballet and even clown artistry. With less than a week to pull it all off, Tiler faces the mounting pressures of not only dancing in multiple pieces but also producing and directing this high-profile event.
Steven Cantor is best known as the director of Dancer (2017), Chasing Tyson (2015), loudQUIETloud: A Film About Pixies (2011), and What Remains (2007). He is also the producer of such films as STEP (2017), Devil's Playground (2002), Reporter (2011), and Unraveled (2012). He is the founder of New York-based Stick Figure Productions.
PRODUCER: Sally Rosenthal
EDITOR: Steven Wechsler
CINEMATOGRAPHERS: Mead Hunt, Allan Palmer
FILMMAKERS’ CHOICE AWARD
Our annual Filmmakers’ Choice Award honors an outstanding documentarian nominated by previous filmmakers. The 2018 award is sponsored by documentary filmmaker Lana Jokel.
An insightful and entertaining portrait of the African-American member of the Rat Pack who broke barriers and shook up representations of race in film and television. The film charts Sammy’s career from his breakout role alongside Ethel Waters in the 1933 short film Rufus Jones for President to his mature years as a musical and movie star. Director Pollard amasses an impressive range of interviewees including Whoopi Goldberg, Jerry Lewis and Billy Crystal to recall the life and work of the iconoclastic star. The film illustrates Sammy’s significance in advancing opportunities for Black Americans in film, music and television, but the doc also smartly includes the heavy price that Sammy paid for breaking through the racist walls of the industry.
Samuel Pollard’s professional accomplishments span almost 30 years, beginning in 1989 as a producer on Eyes on the Prize II: America at the Racial Crossroads – for one of the episodes in the series he received an Emmy. Eight years later, he received The George Peabody Award as Co-Executive Producer/Producer of the documentary series I'lMake Me A World: Stories of African-American Artists and Community. Pollard also edited a number of Spike Lee's films: Mo' Better Blues, Jungle Fever, Girl 6, Clockers and Bamboozled.
PRODUCERS: Karen Goodman, Kirk Simon
EDITOR: Nancy Baker
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Buddy Squires
SLOANE SHELTON HUMAN RIGHTS AWARD is named for Sloane Shelton, the great American actor whose many roles were created from the depths of her honesty and humanity, goes to a documentary film that celebrates courage in the face of social injustice.
In the heart of Tel Aviv, there is an exceptional school where children from 48 different countries and diverse backgrounds come together to learn. Many of the students arrive at Bialik-Rogozin School fleeing poverty, political adversity and even genocide. The film follows several students who struggle to acclimate to life in a new land while slowly opening up to share their stories of hardship and tragedy. “It’s like its own model United Nations,” Kirk Simon told The New York Times in 2011. “The children have figured out how to get along with children from all other countries.”
Kirk Simon and Karen Goodman are award-winning documentary filmmakers. They won an Oscar in 2011 for Best Documentary, Short Subjects for Strangers No More; a Primetime Emmy in 2015 for Outstanding Children's Program for Masterclass, an HBO series, for an episode about Alan Alda; and an Emmy in 1990 for Outstanding Informational, Cultural, or Historical Programming forChimps: So Like Us. Kirk and Karen were married in 1987 and formed the Simon and Goodman Picture Company in 1990. They divorced in 2011. Kirk died in April 2018.
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Triangle: Remembering the Fire
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Sheila Nevins
DIRECTOR: Daphne Pinkerson
PRODUCERS: Marc Levin, Daphne Pinkerson
EDITORS: Richard Lowe, Steve Pequignot, Christopher K. Walker
CINEMATOGRAPHER: John Hazard
On March 25, 1911, a catastrophic fire broke out at the Triangle Waist Company in New York City. Trapped inside the upper floors of a ten-story building, 146 workers - mostly young immigrant women and teenage girls - were burned alive or forced to jump to their deaths. It was the worst disaster at a workplace in New York State until 9/11. The tragedy changed the course of history, paving the way for government to represent working people, not just business, for the first time.
Daphne Pinkerson has worked on a range of award-winning social and political documentaries for HBO, PBS, Bill Moyers, and NBC, among others. Her last HBO documentary, Hard Times: Lost on Long Island, was nominated for an Emmy and Triangle won the prestigious DuPont-Columbia Award.
The Number on Great Grandpa’s Arm
SAT, 12/1, 9:45pm, 19 min
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Sheila Nevins
DIRECTOR: Amy Schatz
PRODUCERS: Lynn Sadofsky, Amy Schatz
EDITOR: Tom Patterson
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Alex Rappoport
A conversation between a boy and his great-grandfather, an Auschwitz survivor, is woven with historical footage and animation to tell a heartbreaking story of Jewish life in Eastern Europe, sharing lessons from the Holocaust with a new generation. The film won a Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Individual in Animation.
Amy Schatz is an award-winning director and producer of children's shows and documentaries. Amy’s work -- a mix of storytelling, celebrity performances, music videos, animation, and heartfelt interviews with kids -- has earned eight Emmy Awards, five Directors Guild of America Awards, three Peabody Awards, Parents' Choice Awards, and others.
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Sheila Nevins may not be a household name, but she is a legend in the documentary film world. She is an executive producer and former President of HBO Documentary Films – a division she’s presided over since 1979. During that time, she oversaw the development and production of over 1,500 programs for HBO, HBO2 and Cinemax.
As an executive producer or producer, she has received 33 Primetime Emmy Awards, 36 News and Documentary Emmys and 42 George Foster Peabody Awards. During her tenure, HBO’s critically acclaimed documentaries have gone on to win 26 Academy Awards for films, including: A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness; Citizenfour (2015); Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1 (2015); Saving Face (2012); Strangers No More (2011); Music By Prudence (2010); Smile Pinki (2009); The Blood of Yingzhou District (2007); Born Into Brothels (2005); Chernobyl Heart (2004); Murder on a Sunday Morning (2002); King Gimp (2000); One Survivor Remembers (1996); I Am a Promise (1994); Educating Peter (1993); and You Don’t Have To Die (1989).
Sheila got her initial job as head of the cable network’s documentary division because, as she explains it in a recent Hollywood Reporter article, “No one else would do it. No man in his right mind would’ve worked for my starting salary.” What made her tenure as the Dominatrix of Docs (as she is fondly known) so unique and changed the way people looked at documentaries, was her belief in the power of one person’s story. According to Sheila, “Docs used to be about politics or history…it didn’t mean the woman next door who had cancer and three children. It was about politics, not human things…The purpose of documentaries at their highest form is to really champion the people that don’t have it…that don’t have the access. And that somehow by giving them access, you’ve made them visible, valuable and you’ve created empathy. Which is probably the greatest human emotion, next to love.”
Sheila’s driving mission was to seek out and find “the sorry and the pain of anyone’s existence.” She also looked for stories that reflected society’s zeitgeist, which meant the films she financed and produced were not only vividly emotional, but also highly relevant and topical. As Maureen Dowd at the The New York Times wrote in her 2017 profile, “…the profane, glamorous and gloriously inappropriate Sheila Nevins has a storytelling style that grabs viewers by the throat.”
Having stepped back from her role as President and Executive Producer at HBO in Spring 2018, she is, as she puts it, “too energetic and ambitious to retire.” She has taken several HBO projects with her to finish at home, and has also found the time to write a New York Times best seller, You Don’t Look Your Age … and Other Fairy Tales.
Sheila is a member of the Writers Guild of America, the Producers Guild of America and The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. She holds a BA from Barnard College and an MFA from Yale University School of Drama in Directing.
Marc Levin, an award-winning filmmaker whose work Sheila has championed, will interview Sheila. Marc tells powerful, real stories in a unique, authentic style. He has won three Emmys, four duPont-Columbia awards, the Peabody Award, the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance and the Camera d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, among others.
PRODUCERS: Robert Anderson Clift, Hillary Demmon
EDITOR: Hillary Demmon
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Robert Anderson Clift
The late Montgomery Clift left a legacy that will endure for generations. Star of such films as The Misfits and A Place in the Sun, the life of the gay actor often created a media spectacle. This film seeks the truth behind the sensationalized coverage he often generated. The late actor's nephew, Robert Clift and wife, Hillary Demmon direct a documentary of Monty's life, including interviews with family and loved ones, as well as other unseen archival materials. It seeks to depict the truth about the man who was so often characterized with labels like “tragically self-destructive” and “tormented.”
Robert Clift’s first film, Stealing Home: The Case of Contemporary Cuban Baseball (PBS, 2001) addressed the tension Cuban players felt playing in the U.S. Major Leagues. His second film, Blacking Up: Hip-Hop’s Remix of Race and Identity (PBS, 2010) was named by the American Library Association as one of the most notable non-fiction films of the year. Robert’s third film, Road Comics: Big Work on Small Stages, directed with Hillary Demmon, focuses on three comedians who travel the comedy circuit in Middle America.
PRODUCERS: Grace Hughes-Hallett, Becky Read
EDITOR: Michael Harte
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Tim Cragg
BREAKOUT DIRECTOR AWARD
Three strangers are reunited by astonishing coincidence after being born identical triplets on Long Island, separated at birth, and adopted by three different families. Their jaw-dropping, feel-good story instantly becomes a global sensation complete with fame and celebrity. However, the fairy-tale reunion sets in motion a series of events that unearth an unimaginable secret –– a secret with radical repercussions for us all. The film was the winner of Sundance Film Festival’s 2018 Special Jury Award.
Tim Wardle is a BAFTA-nominated documentary director and Executive Producer at award-winning production company Raw. He also directed One Killer Punch (NBC), a documentary exploring the far-reaching repercussions of a single act of violence and Lifers (NBC), an observational study of murderers at Europe's largest prison for life-sentenced prisoners. Tim has also worked as head of development for a number of leading UK production companies.
Photo of Tim Wardle by Mark Maziarz https://maziarzpeople.com
PRODUCERS: Susan Lacy, Jessica Levin, Emma Pildes
EDITOR: Benjamin Gray
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Samuel Painter
Jane Fonda has been vilified as Hanoi Jane, lusted after as Barbarella, and heralded as a beacon of the women’s movement. This film goes to the heart of who she really is, a blend of deep vulnerability, magnetism, naiveté and bravery, revealing a life transformed over time. Featuring interviews with Robert Redford, Lily Tomlin, producer Paula Weinstein and former spouses Tom Hayden and Ted Turner, among others, the first four acts of Fonda’s life are named after the four men who shared her personal and professional ambitions. The fifth act is named after Fonda herself, as she finally confronts her demons, reconnects with her family and resumes a successful career as both an actress and an activist, entirely on her own terms.
Susan Lacy is the creator and former executive producer of the celebrated series American Masters. She has won countless awards, including 13 Emmys and the Hamptons Doc Fest’s Lumiere Career Achievement Award in 2012. In 2013 she founded Pentimento Productions, with offices in both New York and Los Angeles.
PRODUCERS: Mikael Södersten, Cornelia Ravenal, Wendy Sax
EDITORS: Rob Fruchtman and Mikael Södersten
CINEMATOGRAPHERS: Lex Fletcher, Shakeb Ahmed
Six dancers from an acclaimed New York dance company travel the world, working with youth who’ve experienced war, poverty, sexual exploitation, extreme prejudice and severe trauma as refugees. In India, they work with girls rescued from gender violence; in Romania, with Roma kids from one of Europe's worst slums; in South Korea, with North Korean escapees; and in Iraq, a gifted young dancer fighting to survive. Incredibly, they have just one week to take kids who may be enemies, who may have been abused, who may be suspicious and fearful, to the point where they not only express themselves through dance, but choreograph pieces that they perform onstage.
Rob Fruchtman is a Sundance and Emmy award-winning director, producer and editor. He won the Documentary Director award at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival for his feature film, Sister Helen (co-directed with Rebecca Cammisa) and has won three Emmys and several nominations for his work with PBS and HBO. He has also created series with the BBC, Showtime and Reader’s Digest/Disney Channel.
PRODUCERS: Donna Zaccaro, Paula Heredia
EDITOR: Paula Heredia
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Jim Sicile
SUNDAY NIGHT SPOTLIGHT FILM
Octogenarian Edie Windsor and her attorney, Roberta Kaplan are unlikely heroes on a quest for justice. Edie had been forced to pay a huge estate tax bill upon the death of her spouse because the federal government denied federal benefits to same-sex couples – and Edie’s spouse was a woman. Deeply offended by this lack of recognition of her more than 40-year relationship with the love of her life, Edie decided to sue the United States government.
Donna Zaccaro is Founder and President of Dazzling Media, a New York-based media production company and is also Geraldine Ferraro’s daughter. Donna served as the director and producer for Geraldine Ferraro: Paving the Way. Previously, she was a longtime, award-winning producer for the Today show. She has also worked in politics, public affairs marketing and communications, and investment banking.
PRODUCER: Steve Wystrach
EDITOR: Steve Armstrong
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Johnny Wu
In 1965, newspaper editor Robert Manry was a happily married family man in Cleveland, Ohio. His colleagues at the Plain Dealer were shocked to learn he had set sail on a solo voyage across the Atlantic in his 13½-foot sloop, Tinkerbelle. By the time his 78-day odyssey ended, Robert had become the target of a wild, cat-and-mouse news media chase and had become a hero to his countrymen and to dreamers everywhere.
Steve Wystrach is a film editor, restoration archivist and sailor. He has practiced the art and science of motion picture post-production for over four decades. In Los Angeles, Steve began work as a freelance editor before opening his own post-production studio, Anchor Editorial, where his work garnered international awards. He has had a long involvement with archival practice and has personally rescued many millions of feet of priceless archival film from destruction. Manry at Sea is his first feature-length documentary film.
PRODUCERS: Don Hardy Jr., Dana Nachman
EDITORS: Don Hardy Jr., Dana Nachman, Jacob Stein
CINEMATOGRAPHERS: Don Hardy Jr., Kurt Kuenne, Steve Pitre, Jacob Stein, Naomi Ture
Pick of the Litter follows a litter of puppies from the moment they're born and begin their quest to become Guide Dogs for the Blind, the ultimate canine career. Cameras follow these pups through a two-year odyssey as they train to become dogs whose ultimate responsibility is to protect their blind partners from harm. Along the way, the dogs meet a community of dedicated individuals who train them to do amazing, life-changing things in the service of their human. The stakes are high and not every dog can make the cut. Only the best of the best. The pick of the litter.
Don Hardy and Dana Nachman formed KTF Films in 2006, an independent production company making films that move people to action. Over the years, Don has won numerous awards for his films, photography, and editing, including six Emmys, three Edward R. Murrow Awards, seven Associated Press Awards, the prestigious San Francisco Bay Area Photographer of the Year Award and more than 15 National Press Photographer Association Awards. Dana has won three regional Emmy Awards, Edward R. Murrow Award, and more than a dozen Jury and Audience Awards at film festivals.
PRODUCERS: Michael Dweck, Gregory Kershaw
EDITOR: Charlotte Munch Bengtsen
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Gregory Kershaw
The Last Race is a cinematic portrait of a Riverhead, Long Island stock car race track as its 87-year-old owners Barbara and Jim Cromarty struggle to maintain an American racing tradition in the face of a real estate development boom. The film merges image and sound in a unique narrative form to bring the audience into the world of grassroots racing culture and explore a story that subtly grapples with questions of blue collar American identity that have taken on a profound relevance in the current political era.
Michael Dweck is an award-winning American filmmaker and contemporary visual artist. Best recognized for his evocative narrative photography, Dweck artistically investigates the ongoing struggles between identity and adaptation found within endangered societal enclaves. Dweck's works have been featured in solo and group exhibitions at museums and galleries worldwide, and are part of prestigious international art collections, including the archive of the Department of Film at The Museum of Modern Art in New York, where two of his long-form television pieces reside.
PRODUCERS: Jennifer DeSane, John DeSane, Thomas O’Donoghue
EDITOR: John Brandeis
CINEMATOGRAPHER: John Brandeis
Paddlers for Humanity is an all-volunteer, non-profit organization founded in East Hampton that has spent the past decade dedicated to bettering the lives of local children. The programs they support focus on early intervention outreach, resiliency, anti-bullying, and changing behavior through a focus on the positive. The film depicts the journey taken by members of the organization as they prepare for the annual Block Island Challenge, an 18-mile open ocean paddle.
John Brandeis is a writer and producer, known for Dissonance and Harmony: Arabic Music Goes West. John De Sane is a director and actor, known for Mulligan Farm.
CLOSING NIGHT FILM
PRODUCERS: Jimmy Chin, Shannon Dill, Evan Hayes, Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi
EDITOR: Bob Eisenhardt
CINEMATOGRAPHERS: Jimmy Chin, Clair Popkin, Mikey Schaefer
Free Solo is a stunning, intimate and unflinching portrait of the free soloist climber Alex Honnold, as he prepares to achieve his lifelong dream: climbing the face of the world’s most famous rock – the 3,000-foot El Capitan in Yosemite National Park – without a rope. Celebrated as one of the greatest athletic feats of any kind, Honnold’s climb set the ultimate standard: perfection or death.
Jimmy Chin is a professional climber, skier, mountaineer, 18-year member of The North Face Athlete Team and National Geographic Explorer. Consistently over the past 20 years, he has led or participated in cutting-edge climbing and ski mountaineering expeditions to all seven continents and made the first and only American ski descent from the summit of Mount Everest. Chin has worked with many of the greatest explorers, adventurers and athletes of our time, documenting their exploits in the most challenging conditions and locations in the world.
The 2015 documentary Meru, co-directed by Chin and Vasarhelyi, won the Audience Award at Sundance, was nominated for best documentary by the DGA and PGA, and was shortlisted for an Oscar. Vasarhelyi’s films as a director also include Incorruptible; Youssou N'Dour: I Bring What I Love; A Normal Life; and Touba.
CLOSING NIGHT FILM
PRODUCERS: Jimmy Chin, Shannon Dill, Evan Hayes, Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi
EDITOR: Bob Eisenhardt
CINEMATOGRAPHERS: Jimmy Chin, Clair Popkin, Mikey Schaefer
Free Solo is a stunning, intimate and unflinching portrait of the free soloist climber Alex Honnold, as he prepares to achieve his lifelong dream: climbing the face of the world’s most famous rock – the 3,000-foot El Capitan in Yosemite National Park – without a rope. Celebrated as one of the greatest athletic feats of any kind, Honnold’s climb set the ultimate standard: perfection or death.
Jimmy Chin is a professional climber, skier, mountaineer, 18-year member of The North Face Athlete Team and National Geographic Explorer. Consistently over the past 20 years, he has led or participated in cutting-edge climbing and ski mountaineering expeditions to all seven continents and made the first and only American ski descent from the summit of Mount Everest. Chin has worked with many of the greatest explorers, adventurers and athletes of our time, documenting their exploits in the most challenging conditions and locations in the world.
The 2015 documentary Meru, co-directed by Chin and Vasarhelyi, won the Audience Award at Sundance, was nominated for best documentary by the DGA and PGA, and was shortlisted for an Oscar. Vasarhelyi’s films as a director also include Incorruptible; Youssou N'Dour: I Bring What I Love; A Normal Life; and Touba.
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ONLY OPEN TO STUDENTS, FACULTY & FAMILY
The Hamptons Doc Fest highlights a special program dedicated exclusively to our community youth. The program bonus: Megan Kiefer, the founder of Take Two Film Academy, conducts a lively workshop on how to use film to create impact and change.
MIDDLE SCHOOL PROGRAM
30% Sun, 100% Fun
Children at Robert Moses Beach on Long Island enthusiastically share their perspectives and observations of the 2017 Solar Eclipse. Although the kids’ brains are in summer vacation mode, they do their best to determine how old they will be when the next big eclipse occurs in 2024. Directed by Deirdre O’Connor.
My Paintbrush Bites
A man battling reclusion and a racehorse on the brink of death save each other in unexpected ways. Directed by Joel Pincosy and Joe Egender.
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HIGH SCHOOL PROGRAM
Science Fair
DIRECTORS: Cristina Costantini, Darren Foster
PRODUCERS: Cristina Costantini, Darren Foster, Jeff Plunkett
EDITORS: Tom Maroney, Alejandro Valdes-Rochin
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Peter Alton
Science Fair follows nine high school students from around the globe as they navigate rivalries, setbacks and, of course, hormones, on their journey to compete at The International Science and Engineering Fair. As 1,700 of the smartest, quirkiest teens from 78 different countries face off, including one from Jericho High School, only one will be named Best in Fair. The film offers a front seat to the victories, defeats and motivations of an incredible group of young men and women who are on a path to change their lives, and the world, through science. The film was the winner of the first-ever Festival Favorite Award at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival and the Festival Favorite Award at 2018 SXSW.
Cristina Costantini has reported and produced for the New Haven Independent, The Huffington Post, ABC News, Univision, and Fusion. Her first TV documentary, which looked at sex trafficking in Mexico, was nominated for two Emmys and her reporting on immigration has won awards from GLAAD and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.
Darren Foster is a DuPont and Peabody Award-winning documentary filmmaker. He was the series director of the critically acclaimed Borderland series and is the co-creator and series producer of Inside: Secret America, an investigative documentary series airing on the National Geographic Channel.