2019 Festival
Photography by c.b. grubb. Click to enlarge & view details
Photography by c.b. grubb. Click to enlarge & view details
PRODUCERS: Christopher Clements, Julie Goldman, Carolyn Hepburn, Christoph Jorg, Nanfu Wang, Jialing Zhang
EDITORS: Nanfu Wang, Jialing Zhang
CINEMATOGRAPHERS: Yuanchen Liu, Nanfu Wang
An unflinching look at China’s one-child policy and its effect on its citizens, especially its women. Nanfu Wang serves as both director and narrator, using her own history to bring us into the film and to illuminate the policy and its draconian enforcement that led many families to take brutal steps in order to comply with the unbending regulations. The images can be disturbing, but the film’s focus on personal stories keeps you fully engaged.
Nanfu Wang’s debut film, Hooligan Sparrow, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2016 and was shortlisted for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2017. Her second film, I Am Another You, premiered at SXSW Film Festival in 2017 and won two special jury awards. One Child Nation, won the Grand Jury Prize for Documentary Feature at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival.
Jialing Zhang is an independent filmmaker based in Beijing. She is Co-Director and Editor of Complicit, which follows a benzene-poisoned Chinese migrant worker who takes on the global electronic manufacturing industry.
PRODUCERS: Davina Pardo, Deborah Shaffer, Amy Sultan
EDITOR: Rachel Reichman CINEMATOGRAPHER: Elizabeth Nichols
At 88 years-old, Audrey Flack holds a unique place in the history of contemporary art in America. She has been a trailblazer, from her early days as an Abstract Expressionist in the 50’s, to her successful career as the sole female Photorealist in the 70’s, to her monumental public sculptures of recent decades. Queen of Hearts follows Flack as she takes her work in a brand new direction and reveals her long-term struggles as the mother of a child with autism.
Deborah Shaffer has been making social issue documentaries since the early 1970’s. In the 1980s, she directed Witness to War, which won an Academy Award; Fire From The Mountain, which received an Emmy nomination; and Dance of Hope, which received the Prix d'Or at the International Festival of Audiovisual Programming. She directed and wrote Secrets Underground for the WGBH series “Discovering Women” in 1994. In 2001 she directed two shows for the PBS series “Art 21: Art in the 21st Century,” which was nominated for an Emmy. Rwanda: Ladies First, which she co-directed and wrote for WNET’s “Wide Angle,” was awarded an Emmy in 2004. Her most recent film, To Be Heard, won awards at numerous festivals and aired on PBS in 2012.
Rachel Reichman has edited scores of prize-winning documentaries, including Hitchcock/Truffaut (Directed by Kent Jones), A Letter to Elia (Directed by Kent Jones and Martin Scorsese), and Women, War and Peace (Directed by Gini Reticker). She directed the independent feature films The Work, starring Sonja Sohn, which premiered at MoMA in New Directors/New Films in 1996, and The Riverbed, which premiered at the Rotterdam International Film Festival in 1986.
Festival and award photography by c.b. grubb
PRODUCERS: Jill Campbell, Gregory Gerhard, Veronique Bernard
EDITORS: Jill Campbell
CINEMATOGRAPHERS: Gregory Gerhard, Dejan Pavlovic
Pan Am flight 103 exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland on December 21, 1988. All 259 people on board were killed; 35 of the passengers were Syracuse University students returning home from a semester abroad. Montauk resident Suse Lowenstein, a mother whose son Alex was on board, comes to terms with her grief by leaning on her art, creating a prolific and controversial sculpture garden that reminds people what hate can do to us.
Jill Campbell began her career running lines with Morgan Freeman at the Public Theatre. She produced and wrote for the theater before transitioning to film. She’s produced, directed and edited numerous documentaries including the award-winning “Mr. Chibbs” that premiered at DOC NYC and theatrically at IFC, NYC.
PRODUCER: Danielle Beverly
EDITOR: Kris Liem
The Martha Graham Dance Company commissions famed choreographer Andonis Foniadakis to create Echo, a new piece for the 2013-2014 season. But when Foniadakis’s fluid, improvisational style collides with Graham’s traditional structure, drama ensues. An impossibly tight production schedule, injuries and artistic temperaments only add to the tension. Will the dance be ready in time for the world premiere?
Marco Williams is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and professor at Northwestern University in the Department of Radio/Television/Film.
He has been nominated three times for the Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize.
Q/A with Ken Dorph
PRODUCERS: Rupert Maconick, Paul Haggis, Dan Krauss, Brendan Gaul, Guru Gowrappan, Hayley Pappas
EDITOR: Christopher Dillon
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Andrew Eckmann
5B is the inspirational story of everyday heroes, nurses and caregivers who took extraordinary action to comfort, protect and care for the patients of the first AIDS ward unit in the United States. 5B is stirringly told through first-person testimony of these nurses and caregivers who built Ward 5B in 1983 at San Francisco General Hospital, their patients, loved ones, and staff who volunteered to create care practices based in humanity and holistic well-being during a time of great uncertainty.
Dan Krauss is best known for his two Oscar nominated documentary films The Death of Kevin Carter (2005) and Extremis (2016). In 2014 he directed the feature documentary The Kill Team, winner of the Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary at the Tribeca Film Festival and Truer than Fiction Independent Spirit Award.
Paul Haggis is a Canadian screenwriter, film producer and director of film and television. He is best known as the screenwriter and producer for consecutive Best Picture Oscar winners: Million Dollar Baby (2004) and Crash (2005), the latter of which he also directed. He is also a two-time Emmy Award winner and seven-time Gemini Award winner.
PRODUCERS: Sarah Kerruish, Matt Maude
EDITORS: Claire Ferguson, Anna Meller
CINEMATOGRAPHERS: Matt Maude, Jay Maude
Spun out from Apple in 1990 to create the “next big thing,” General Magic was behind many of the revolutionary ideas that now dominate the tech landscape. The company shipped the first handheld wireless personal communicator in 1994, but the world was not quite ready to hold the world in its hands.
Sarah Kerruish had the good fortune to work with a documentary crew filming the team at General Magic in 1993. This gave her unparalleled access to the subjects of the film. Her previous films have garnered a Peabody Award and an Emmy nomination. In 2017, Sarah and Matt Maude made a short film about the last week of the Obama White House. Matt is an award-winning filmmaker and was named by a U.K. regional screen agency as one of eight young filmmakers to watch.
PRODUCERS: John Battsek, George Chignell, Erin Edeiken, Alex Gibney, P.J. van Sandwijk
EDITOR: Michael J. Palmer
CINEMATOGRAPHERS: Mark Garrett, Denis Sinyakov
Citizen K represents a deep dive into the strange case of one-time oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, once believed to be the wealthiest man in Russia, who rocketed to prosperity and prominence in the 1990s, served a decade in prison, and became an unlikely leader of the anti-Putin movement. Narrated by Alex Gibney and brimming with insightful interviews with various Russian journalists, businesspeople, and legal experts, Citizen K plays like a political thriller, while providing insight into how power works in Russia.
Alex Gibney has nearly 50 film credits to his name, including this year’s The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley, a portrait of disgraced Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes. Some of his award-winning or nominated films include: Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief, the winner of three Emmys in 2015; Taxi to the Dark Side, winner of the 2007 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature; and Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, nominated in 2005 for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. In 2016, Hamptons Doc Fest honored Gibney with our Career Achievement Award.
PRODUCERS: Avi Belkin, Rafael Marmor, John Battsek, Peggy Drexler, Christopher Leggett
EDITOR: Billy McMillin
For over fifty years, “60 Minutes”' fearsome newsman Mike Wallace went head-to-head with the 20th century's most influential figures. Relying exclusively on archival footage, Mike Wallace Is Here interrogates the interrogator, tracking Mike's storied career and troubled personal life while unpacking how broadcast journalism evolved to today's precarious tipping point.
Raised in Tel Aviv, Avi Belkin is a hands-on filmmaker working across documentary and fiction as a director, writer, editor and producer. His debut film Days, a short narrative story of a routine day in the life of a holocaust survivor, played in the official selection of Israel’s International Film Festival Ashdod in 2007. That same year, his short documentary Tunnel was shortlisted for the Oberhausen International Film Festival. He followed up with 2008’s Elephant Graveyard, winning Best Short Fiction Film at Los Angeles’ Jewish Film Festival. His documentary feature Winding, won Best Documentary Feature at the International Movie Film Festival in Haifa. Mike Wallace is Here is his debut English-language feature.
PRODUCERS: Bud Johnston, Jesse Moss
EDITOR: Jeff Gilbert
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Adam Hobbs
In response to a wave of discriminatory anti-LGBTQ laws and the divisive 2016 election, the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus embarks on a tour of the American Deep South. Led by Gay Chorus Conductor Dr. Tim Seelig and joined by The Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir, the tour brings a message of music, love and acceptance to communities and individuals confronting intolerance. The journey also challenges Tim and other Chorus members who fled the South to confront their own fears, pain and prejudices on a journey towards reconciliation.
David Charles Rodrigues is a Greek-American-Brazilian filmmaker and equal rights activist. He's a Sundance New Frontier and Doc lab fellow. His work leverages art, music and cinematic narratives to bring challenging messages to a wide audience. Rodrigues' short films and commercials have garnered over 1 billion views online and were featured at MOCA Los Angeles, MOCA Tei Pei, The San Jose New Media Biennial, Skirball Cultural Center, The Art Directors Club, Cannes Lions and Art Basel Miami. Gay Chorus Deep South is his feature documentary debut.
PRODUCERS: Barbara Kopple, David Cassidy, Eric Forman
EDITORS: Francisco Bello, Fabian Caballero
CINEMATOGRAPHERS: Asad Faruqi, Gary Griffen, Tom Kaufman, Gelareh Kiazand
Legendary documentary filmmaker Barbara Kopple revisits the 1979-1981 Iranian hostage crisis with several key players guiding us through the events of the secret rescue mission, aided by previously unreleased audio tapes of privileged conversations between President Jimmy Carter and some of his top aides. Kopple also secured a 20-minute sit-down with the President that offers rare insight into the former president’s mindset during the crisis.
Kopple has won two Academy Awards, the first in 1976 for Harlan County, USA, about a Kentucky miners' strike and the second in 1991 for American Dream, the story of the Hormel Foods strike in Austin, Minnesota in 1985-86. She also directed Bearing Witness, a 2005 documentary about five women journalists stationed in combat zones during the Iraq War. She is known for her work with artists, including A Conversation With Gregory Peck as well as documentaries on Mike Tyson, Woody Allen and Mariel Hemingway. She was on tour with the Dixie Chicks when lead singer Natalie Maines criticized the Iraq War. The film, Shut Up and Sing, debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival and went on to win a Special Jury Prize at the Chicago International Film Festival and two Audience awards (Sydney Film Festival and Aspen Film Fest).
PRODUCERS: David Ullich, Steven Ungerleider
In 2016, USA Gymnastics was rocked by the shocking revelation that national team doctor Larry Nassar had been abusing young athletes for decades. At The Heart of Gold: Inside the USA Gymnastics Scandal reveals a dangerous system that prioritized winning over everything else, including protecting young female athletes. A New York Times reviewer said the film is a “chilling reminder that real predators rarely look and act like movie monsters.” A review in Esquire dubbed the film, “One of the 15 best HBO documentaries of all time.”
Erin Lee Carr is best known for Thought Crimes: The Case of the Cannibal Cop, Mommy Dead and Dearestand the HBO documentary I Love You, Now Die: The Commonwealth vs. Michelle Carter. She is also the author of All That You Leave Behind: A Memoir. Carr is the daughter of the late The New York Times media columnist David Carr.
This screening is part of the Courage First program from The Foundation for Global Sports Development
PRODUCER: Liran Atzmor
EDITORS: Neta Dvorkis, Dan Shadur
This film tells the remarkable, timely and controversial story of Benjamin Netanyahu’s rise to power, reflected through four decades of public appearances that changed Israel forever. “Bibi,” as he is known, evolved from Israel's great political hope, to a controversial figure whom some perceive as Israel's savior, and others as a cynical politician who will stop at nothing to retain his power. According to Director Dan Shadur, it is Bibi’s obsession with his reputation that threatens his rule.
Dan Shadur is an Israeli filmmaker and writer, a graduate of the Tel Aviv University Steve Tisch School of Film and Television. His debut documentary Before The Revolution premiered in Hotdocs 2013 and was featured in dozens of other international festivals. It was the first ever Israeli documentary to be broadcast inside Iran. Shadur also directed short films, music videos and commercials. His articles and stories have been featured in Israel’s leading newspapers and magazines.
PRODUCERS: R.J. Cutler Wendy Ettinger Frazer Pennebaker
EDITORS: Chris Hegedus, Erez Laufer, D.A. Pennebaker
CINEMATOGRAPHERS: Nick Doob, D.A. Pennebaker
In 1992 Pennebaker and Hegedus requested permission from the Bill Clinton campaign to film the campaign’s progress as they raced towards the hoped for presidency prize. They got the nod to film from Communications Director George Stephanopoulos and lead strategist James Carville, with limited access to Bill Clinton. Pennebaker told The New York Times in 2003 that Clinton didn’t even know they were there. “If Clinton had known I think we would have been asked to get the hell out. There was no press allowed in the War Room. You can’t sell access. If they want you to be there, you can do anything.” Actually the filmmaking duo weren’t even sure they had a good subject. “It was just two of us with dinky cameras. George Stephanopoulos O.K.’d us being there, but we weren’t sure we wanted to do the movie until we ran into James Carville. He was like someone’s drunken uncle. He said, ‘George Bush is an old calendar,’ and we knew we had something.” The film covers the New Hampshire Democratic primary, where Clinton came in second, and the campaign run out of Clinton headquarters in Little Rock, Arkansas.
War Room spans a period of four months, but Pennebaker and Hegedus only shot about 35 hours of film during that time; proving yet again that quality far outweighs quantity.
PRODUCERS: Roger Sherman, Jamie Peebles
EDITOR: Roger Sherman
CINEMATOGRAPHERS: Roger Sherman, Jamie Peebles
The Second Life of Jamie P is the story of Jamie Peebles, who always thought she was a man. But at age 63 she realized "like a bolt of lightning" that she's a woman. We follow her excruciating and wonderful transition for a year. This feature documentary is Jamie's personal, revelatory, hilarious, sometimes joyful, and always poignant story told through video diaries and intimate, cinema verité confessions to Roger, her friend of 40 years.
Roger M. Sherman is a founder of Florentine Films. His most widely recognized documentaries are Alexander Calder (1998), Richard Rogers: The Sweetest Sounds (2001), Don't Divorce the Children (1989), Medal of Honor (2008), The Restaurateur (2010), Zapruder and Stolley: Witness to an Assassination (2011), In Search of Israeli Cuisine (2016), The Rhythm of My Soul (2006), and The American Brew (2007). His films have won an Emmy Award, a Peabody Award, and two Academy Award nominations, among other honors.
He’s reserved and quietly driven; she’s energetic and outspoken. Together they explore the mystery and power of everyday objects by changing their sizes, shapes and textures in surprising and unsettling ways. Claes Oldenburg--widely recognized as the father of Pop art--and his wife and artistic collaborator, Coosje van Bruggen, have created many projects carried out in collaboration with the American architect Frank Gehry. The film shows various works from conception to installation including “Spoonbridge and Cherry” in Minneapolis, “Dropped Bowl with Scattered Slices and Peels” in Miami, “Knifeship” at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, and “Binocular Building” in Venice, California.
Lana Jokel was born in Shanghai, China, grew up in Brazil and was educated in France and the U.S. Her documentary film career began at Leacock-Pennebaker in New York City. Jokel has created intimate films about many of the great contemporary artists of our time, including Andy Warhol, Larry Rivers, Lee Krasner and Strong-Cuevas.
PRODUCERS: Susan Lacy, Emma Pildes, Jessica Levin
EDITOR: Kris Liem
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Don Lenzer
With an uncanny ability to turn his dreams into reality, Ralph Lauren has built a multi-billion-dollar, global powerhouse out of his aspirations, becoming a living embodiment of the American Dream. For more than 50 years, he has celebrated the iconography of America and defined American style. In Very Ralph, as he enters his sixth decade in business, Lauren reflects on his journey from a boy from the Bronx who didn’t know what a fashion designer was, to becoming the emblem of American style all around the world. The film features archives from 50 years of his fashion brand, as well as revealing interviews with Lauren’s family, colleagues, and a who’s who of American fashion leaders.
Susan Lacy is the creator and former executive producer of the celebrated WNET series American Masters and the founder of Pentimento Productions in 2013. She has won countless Emmy, Peabody and other industry awards, and has produced and directed a broad library of acclaimed films exploring the lives of America’s most enduring cultural icons. Her previous HBO documentaries include the Emmy-nominee Spielberg, which debuted in 2017 and Jane Fonda in Five Acts, which debuted in 2018.
PRODUCERS: Mirra Bank, Richard Brockman
EDITOR: Maxwell Anderson
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Mirra Bank
Shot over two years in Zambia’s Kafue National Park -- one of the largest intact wilderness areas in the world -- No Fear No Favor illuminates the wrenching choices faced by impoverished Africans who live where community meets wilderness, on the front lines of Africa's poaching crisis. Left unchecked, the internationally fueled poaching that decimates Africa's wildlife will destroy the future of human inhabitants as well.
Mirra Bank is a multi-award winning documentary filmmaker, whose groundbreaking films have reached wide audiences. A selection of her previous films include: The Only Real Game, Best Documentary at the NY Indian Film Festival; Last Dance, short-listed for an Academy Award; Nobody’s Girls, a PBS prime-time special; and Enormous Changes, premiered at Sundance and Toronto. Bank is a member of the Academy of Motion Pictures, a lifetime member of the Actors Studio, a MacDowell Fellow and film panelist, a member of New Day Films, serves on the Board of Directors of the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures, and is a past president of NY Women in Film and Television and currently serves on their Advisory Board.
PRODUCERS: Christopher Clements, Julie Goldman, Carolyn Hepburn, Ivy Meeropol
EDITORS: Anne Alvergue, Adam Kurnitz
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Daniel B. Gold
Bully. Coward. Victim. The Story of Roy Cohn offers a uniquely personal look at one of the most ruinous figures of the 20th century. From a young age, Director Ivy Meeropol was taught that Cohn, as the assistant prosecutor responsible for the executions of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, was the man who effectively murdered her grandparents. This film is not merely a depiction of a brutal, ideologically diseased man—it’s an interrogatory work in search of the true character behind an icon of the political right in a deeply troubled America.
Ivy Meeropol was the senior story producer for the 2017 CNN Films documentaryThe End: The Final Days Inside the Obama White House.In 2016, she produced and directed two short films for the Emmy Award-winning climate change documentary seriesYears of Living Dangerously. She also directed and producedIndian Point,which won Best Documentary at the Key West Film Festival and received the 2016 Frontline Award for Journalism in a Documentary Film. Other television credits includeThe Hill,a six-part series she created, directed and produced. Meeropol’s documentary feature debut wasHeir To An Execution,which explored the legacy of her grandparents.
PRODUCER: Jennifer Tiexiera
EDITOR: Jennifer Tiexiera
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Zachary Shields
Nine year old Emmanuel began filming himself and his family with a home video camera in 1999, capturing his Washington D.C. neighborhood through the eyes of an innocent child. Growing up just 17 blocks from the U.S. Capitol, however, proved more difficult than one might expect. Director Davy Rothbart began filming the members of the Sanford-Durant family after he met Emmanuel and his older brother in 1999 at a local basketball court and befriended them as they continued to document their daily life over two decades in a city plagued by poverty, addiction and gun violence.
Davy Rothbart is a journalist, best-selling author, Emmy Award-winning filmmaker, creator of Found Magazine, and contributor to public radio's This American Life. His latest documentary, Medora, aired on PBS and won a 2015 Emmy News & Documentary Award. He's the founder of Washington To Washington, an annual hiking trip for city kids.
PRODUCER: André Schäfer
EDITOR: Fritz Busse
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Andy Lehmann
Hollywood’s Second World War tells the story of four Hollywood directors of European origin, who returned to the “Old World” during World War II to make propaganda documentaries for the U.S. Army at the front: William Wyler from Alsace, Frank Capra from Italy, Anatole Litvak from Ukraine and, in post-war Germany, Billy Wilder from Austria. The four men, three of whom came from Jewish families, risked their lives at times for their new homeland and returned to the U.S. with serious physical and psychological injuries. Their films are unique, long-forgotten documentaries dealing with the front line in Italy and the bombardment of Germany through to the liberation of Dachau.
Jascha Hannover studied filmmaking and philosophy at Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz. During college he created six short movies while working as a film critic. He directed and wrote Never Be Boring: Billy Wilderand was Co-Director with Andre Schafer of The Great Literary Tour: John Steinbeck’s USA.
PRODUCER: Filippo Macelloni
EDITOR: Valentina Cicogna
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Beniamino Barrrese
Benedetta wants to disappear. An iconic fashion model in the 1960s, she became a muse to Warhol, Dali, Penn and Avedon. As a radical feminist in the 1970s, she fought for the rights and emancipation of women. But at the age of 75, she becomes fed up with all the roles that life has imposed upon her and decides to leave everything and everybody behind, to disappear to a place as far as possible from the world she knows. Hiding behind the camera, her son Beniamino witnesses her journey.
Beniamino Barrese is a director and cinematographer known for his camera work on Sodom (2017), Departure(2015), and Old Times (2011).
PRODUCERS: Alice Henty
EDITOR: Steve Heffner
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Nelson Hume
Called a maverick, a miracle-worker, and a quack, Dr. Marty Goldstein is a pioneer of integrative veterinary medicine. By holistically treating animals after other vets have given up, Dr. Marty provides a last hope for pet owners with nothing left to lose. His deeply empathetic philosophy offers a vital example of how improving overall health rather than merely treating disease can be transformative for all living beings.
Cindy Meehl is the founder of Cedar Creek Productions. She is the director and executive producer of the 2011 Sundance Audience Award-winning Buck. She is also the executive producer for Trapped, Unbranded, Dogs on the Inside, The River and The Wall, For the Birds, and Rewind (also being shown at the Hamptons Doc Fest on Monday at noon).
PRODUCERS: Thomas Winston, Cindy Meehl
CINEMATOGRAPHERS: Jeff Dougherty, Rick Smith
Digging through the vast collection of his father’s home videos, Sasha Joseph Neulinger reconstructs the unthinkable story of his boyhood and exposes vile abuse passed through generations. This courageous documentary builds beautifully and captures the cyclical nature of child sexual abuse.
Sasha Joseph Neulinger is the head of production at Step 1 Films. After finishing film school in Montana at age 23, he discovered the raw materials that would propel him to tell the story of his life. An autobiographical film years in the making, Rewind is his directorial debut.
PRODUCER: Daria Price
EDITOR: Daria Price
CINEMATOGRAPHERS: Peter Sova, Daria Price, Martin Himmel, Peter Cayer, Palu Abadia
Driven to Abstraction unravels a tale of greed and fraud--the $80 million forgery scandal that rocked the art world and brought down Knoedler, New York City’s oldest and most venerable gallery. Was the gallery’s esteemed director the victim of a con artist who showed up with an endless treasure trove of previously unseen abstract expressionist masterpieces? Or did she eventually suspect they were fakes, yet continue to sell them for many millions of dollars for fifteen years?
Daria Price works in both documentary and fiction films. Her first feature documentary Out On a Limb won Best Documentary at the 2013 Boston International Film Festival. Driven to Abstraction is her second feature documentary. Daria also wrote, produced, directed, and edited the award-winning Survival of the Fittest, a satirical mystery that lampoons America's obsession with youth and beauty, featured on Comcast’s On Demand Cutting Edge series.
PRODUCERS: Cameron Crowe, Michele Farinola, Greg Mariotti
EDITORS: Elisa Bonora, Veronica Pinkham
CINEMATOGRAPHERS: Ian Coad, Edd Lukas
David Crosby of the famed music groups Crosby, Stills and Nash and the Byrds is a complicated figure--both charming and boorish, arrogant and narcissistic. A.J. Eaton’s film gives us a man who, in his late 70s, is reflective enough to be his own harshest critic. He honestly admits that not one musician he has played with during his long career will even speak to him. The film is built on a series of brutally honest interviews, some conducted by Eaton, others by producer Cameron Crowe, who was 16 when he first interviewed Crosby for Rolling Stone and has built a bond with the musician based on trust over the ensuing years.
A.J. Eaton comes from a musical family. He is the son of singer-songwriter Steve Eaton and as a child watched his dad work in his recording studio, often composing songs for films. His brother Marcus became a guitarist, but A.J. was more intrigued by the process of filmmaking. “Music and movies together are in my DNA,” says A.J.
PRODUCER: Elena Andreicheva
EDITOR: Mary Manhardt
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Lisa Rinzler
Learning to Skateboard in a War Zone (If You’re A Girl) is the story of young Afghan girls learning to read, write and skateboard in Kabul. Skateistan recruits kids from impoverished neighborhoods and teaches them education and life skills, so they can return to, or join, the public school system and get a fair start in life. For girls, the chance to skateboard presents a unique experience -- to compete, to play, to learn their strengths and to gain courage.
Carol Dysinger is a filmmaker, writer, artist, and educator, whose contemporary work offers a counter-narrative to traditional stories of conflict. She is in the midst of a trilogy on Afghanistan and America post 9/11. Her previous films are Camp Victory (2010), Afghanistan (2010), American Gambit (1989), and Rain (2001).
PRODUCER: Jane Martin
EDITORS: Jane Martin, Alex Mankiewicz
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Nate Best
Love is a word we all use, but rarely stop and try to define. What Is Love? asks this question of 90 people from all walks of life, ages, sexualities and cultures. Everyone brings unique stories of love–love lost, love won–perspectives both personal and universal. They speak from the depths of years of experience, from the freshness of youth, from the battlegrounds and successes of love.
Jane Martin is an award-winning film director and multimedia artist who resides in East Hampton. After film studies at New York University, she worked extensively in the film and television industry in New York and Paris. Her first documentary Silent Sentries, an ode to New York City, was broadcast on four PBS stations nationally and premiered at several festivals in Europe and the U.S.
Martin and Co-Editor Alex Mankiewicz are working on expanding What Is Love? into an in-depth series.
PRODUCER: John Breen
EDITORS: Shannon Kennedy, Mark Becker (consulting)
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Jojo Pennebaker
Imagine the defining moment of your life. Then imagine never talking about it with anyone. This sets the stage for the documentary film 3 Days 2 Nights. In 1974, Mark and Andy Godfrey went on a family ski vacation to Aspen, Colorado. Tragically, the plane they were traveling on crashed. Mark and Andy, who were 11 and 8, survived three days and two nights in the frigid mountains of Colorado. For nearly 40 years they rarely discussed the crash even between themselves. Their story is one of cathartic discovery in hopes of reconciling such a tragedy.
John Breen is an actor and writer, known for Untraceable (2008), Something Wicked (2014) and Time Bike (2007). He studied filmmaking at New York Film Academy and Film Video Arts.
CAPTIONS Top to bottom: Chris Hegedus, Nancy Buirski, Lana Jokel with Chris, the Pennebaker family, D A Pennebaker. Festival and Award photography by c.b. grubb.
To D A Pennebaker and his pioneering career in documentary film,
we awarded Pennebaker Hegedus Films with the inaugural Pennebaker.
A special recognition was made by filmmaker Lana Jokel to Chris Hegedus.
Filmmaker Nancy Buirski made the tribute to the legendary documentarian.
Bay Street Theater
Thurs, 12/5, 4:00pm, 70 min
DIRECTORS: Olga Lvoff
Q&A with Olga Lvoff
PRODUCER: Victor Ilyukhin
EDITORS: Olga Lvoff, Victor Ilyukhin
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Justin Ervin
Karen Marshall’s body, mind, and heart do not belong to her alone. She shares them with over a dozen other personalities. Her official diagnosis is Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), formerly known as Multiple Personality Disorder. By following five women in group therapy living with the disorder, the film delves deeply into DID, a condition that both fascinates and puzzles modern psychiatry.
Olga Lvoff is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and a graduate of SVA SocDoc. Her recent full-length documentary film, When People Die They Sing Songs, was nominated for a Student Oscar in 2014, won a CINE Golden Eagle Award, and participated in many festivals including DOC NYC.