26.2 TO LIFE

← Go to Film Program

26.2 TO LIFE

MON, 12/4, 12:00pm, 90 min BAY STREET THEATER

Director Christine Yoo in attendance for Q&A

Director: Christine Yoo
Producers: Christine Yoo, Carolyn Mao, Sara Sluke, Hella Winston, Zahava Hirsch
Editor: Marcos Moro
Cinematographer: Cliff Traiman

“From prison dramas like HBO’s “Oz” to “The Shawshank Redemption” and “Escape from Alcatraz,” Hollywood has been obsessed with life behind bars and the lurid backstories of the incarcerated. However, “26.2 to Life,” a polished, engrossing documentary offers a nuanced, radically different perspective.” SF Arts

Set at San Quentin, California’s oldest prison, 26.2 to Life explores the crisis of over incarceration through the stories of three men living out life sentences. As they work to better themselves and be productive despite surviving behind bars, the men train for the most unique marathon in the world - 105 laps around an uneven dirt and concrete path that loops the prison’s crowded Lower Yard. This unique program helps them confront the challenges of aging, finding purpose and maintaining family relationships behind bars, all while grappling with the reality that they may never again see life on the outside.

Christine Yoo is a director, producer, writer, volunteer at San Quentin State Prison and co-founder of the San Quentin Film Festival. Yoo directed and produced the documentary short, A Conversation At Claudia’s, a special project for the Museum of Modern Art, co-wrote the cult anime series Afro Samurai, starring Samuel L. Jackson, and directed, produced and co-wrote the award-winning Korean-American rom-com Wedding Palace. 26.2 to Life is Yoo’s first feature documentary.

Film Sponsored by Perillo Hill LLP

999: THE FORGOTTEN GIRLS OF THE HOLOCAUST

← Go to Film Program

2023 HUMAN RIGHTS AWARD

999: THE FORGOTTEN GIRLS OF THE HOLOCAUST

TUES, 12/5, 8:00pm, 99 min BAY STREET THEATER

Director Heather Dune Macadam in attendance for Q/A

Director: Heather Dune Macadam
Producers: Heather Dune Macadam, Jane Schonberger, Beatriz M Calleja, Jay Heit, Stephen Hopkins, David Kaufman
Editor: Beatriz M Calleja
Cinematographer: Stephen Hopkins

The first official Jewish prisoners in Auschwitz were all young women, but for 80 years their story was overlooked by historians. In the spring of 1942, the Nazis ordered the Slovak government to send a slave labor force and received 999 teenage, Jewish girls. Their government paid the Nazis 500RM, the equivalent of $4,000 per girl today. Their railway ticket was a one-way trip to Auschwitz. The bonds between these women were unbreakable. It kept them alive. This untold story is important both to Holocaust history and to women’s history.

Award-winning author of 999: The Extraordinary Young Women of the First Official Transport to Auschwitz, Heather Dune Macadam is the foremost U.S. scholar on the first Jewish Transport to Auschwitz. Her critically acclaimed book was a Pen Award Finalist for Biography. This documentary is based on that book, and the result of eleven years of research and interviews, which she filmed.

Film is sponsored by Leslie & Andrew Siben

ANSELM

← Go to Film Program

CO-PRESENTED WITH THE SAG HARBOR CINEMA

ANSELM

SUN, 12/3, 4:00pm, 93 min SAG HARBOR CINEMA

Director: Wim Wenders
Producer: Karsten Brünig
Editor: Maxine Goedicke
Cinematographer: Franz Lustig

This immersive 3D documentary chronicles the art of German innovative painter and sculptor Anselm Kiefer. The film illuminates his work, life journey, creative process, and the artist’s fascination with myth and history. Director Wenders called the film “a labor of love.”

Wim Wenders is a major figure in New German Cinema. Among many honors, he has received three nominations for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature for Buena Vista Social Club (1999), Pina (2011), and The Salt of the Earth (2014). He is the former President of the European Film Academy, and is also a member of the advisory board of World Cinema Foundation, founded by Martin Scorsese, that aims to find and reconstruct world cinema films that have been neglected.

AMERICAN SYMPHONY

← Go to Film Program

AMERICAN SYMPHONY

SAT, 12/2, 100 min, follows the Pennebaker Award presentation BAY STREET THEATER

Director: Matthew Heineman
Producers: Lauren Domino, Joedan Okun
Editors: Sammy Dane, Matthew Heineman, JIm Hession, Fernando Villegas
Cinematographers: Tony Hardmon, Matthew Heineman, Clair Popkin, Thorsten Thielow

Matt Heineman’s latest film, AmericanSymphony, takes him in new directions. His focus? Jon Batiste, a well-known former bandleader and musical director for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, with an infectious personality that wins over fans. Batiste formed the band Stay Human in the mid-’00s, which brought their brand of R&B and jazz to the streets of NYC. Batiste has played in concert halls, won an Oscar for his score to PIxar’s Soul, and his album We Are received 11 Grammy nominations and won Album of the Year in 2022. But there’s another side to his life that is not joyful. Last year his wife, writer Suleika Jaouad, discovered her rare form of leukemia had returned after 10 years in remission. American Symphony follows Batiste as he prepares his original musical composition for its premiere at Carnegie Hall and as he supports Jaouad as she undergoes medical treatment. In September 2023, the film was acquired by Netflix and the Obamas’ production company Higher Ground. Barack and Michelle Obama said of the documentary, “Jon and Suleika’s journey of grace and strength echoes the experience of so many families who are forced to navigate the complications that surface when dreams meet adversity.” And Clayton Davis of Variety hailed the film as “quite possibly one of the best love stories seen on film in over two decades.”

A COOLER CLIMATE

← Go to Film Program

A COOLER CLIMATE

SAT, 12/2, 1:00pm, 75 min SAG HARBOR CINEMA

Director James Ivory in attendance for Q&A

Directors: James Ivory, Giles Gardner
Producer: Bertrand Faivre
Editor: Giles Gardner
Cinematographer: Giles Gardner

In 1960, Oscar-winning filmmaker James Ivory made a trip to Afghanistan to shoot scenes for a documentary. The film was never completed and the footage stayed in a box unseen for 60 years. In 2022, aged 94, he decided to revisit this unique material as a means to look back at his younger self and to unravel how this unlikely journey far from his hometown in Oregon helped form the celebrated filmmaker he was to become.

James Ivory is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. For many years, he worked extensively with Indian-born film producer Ismail Merchant, his domestic as well as professional partner, and with screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. All three were principals in Merchant Ivory Productions, whose films have won seven Academy Awards. Ivory himself has been nominated for four Oscars, winning one in 2018 for Best Adapted Screenplay for Call Me by Your Name at the age of 89, making him the oldest recipient of an Oscar.

CALL ME DANCER

← Go to Film Program

2023 ART & INSPIRATION AWARD

Sponsored by the Tee & Charles Addams Foundation

CALL ME DANCER

THURS, 11/30, 5:30pm, 84 min SAG HARBOR CINEMA

Director Leslie Shampaine in attendance for a Q&A

Directors: Pip Gilmour, Leslie Shampaine
Producers: Cynthia Kane, Leslie Shampaine
Editor: Jennifer Beman
Cinematographers: Neil Barrett, Abhijit Datta

Manish, a young and talented street dancer from Mumbai, struggles against his parents’ insistence that he follow a traditional path that will enable their only son to support them. When he secretly attends an inner- city dance school and accidentally walks into a ballet class, he meets Yehuda, a curmudgeonly 70-year-old Israeli teacher, and a hunger develops within him. Ambitious and passionate, Manish is determined to make it as a professional dancer, but the odds are stacked against him.

Pip Gilmour is a seasoned director, producer and writer. Her work has garnered awards and top ratings. Leslie Shampaine has been telling stories her whole life–first on stage as a professional ballet dancer– and later on the screen where she produced award-winning programs for PBS, Discovery Channel, A&E, CBS and Al Jazeera.

Film is sponsored by the Silvercrest Asset Management Group

DEEP RISING

← Go to Film Program

2023 ENVIRONMENTAL AWARD

DEEP RISING

WED, 12/6, 4:30pm, 93 min BAY STREET THEATER

Director: Matthieu Rytz
Producer: Matthieu Rytz
Editor: Elisa Bonora

A gripping tale of geopolitical, scientific, and corporate intrigue that exposes the machinations of the International Seabed Authority, a secretive organization empowered to greenlight massive extraction of metals from the deep sea floor that are deemed essential to the electric battery revolution. The film examines humanity’s destructive pattern of extracting materials from this last pristine environment for profit.

Matthieu Rytz is a producer, curator, photographer, and award-winning film director, and is also the producer of the World Press Photo event in Montreal. A visual anthropologist by training, for ten years his passion for photography and ethnology has led him across the globe to photograph cultural and human diversity. His first documentary, Anote's Ark, about the realities of climate change, was globally acclaimed.

DUSTY & STONES

← Go to Film Program

DUSTY & STONES

TUES, 12/5, 5:30pm, 83 min BAY STREET THEATER

Director Jesse Rudoy via Zoom for Q&A

Director: Jesse Rudoy
Producers: Melissa Adeyemo, Jesse Rudoy
Editors: Jesse Rudoy, Loulwa Khoury
Cinematographer: Michael Koshkin

Dusty & Stones is a continent-crossing hero’s journey story told through country music. The film intimately chronicles the remarkable ride of cousins Gazi “Dusty” Simelane and Linda “Stones” Msibi, a determined duo of struggling country singers from the tiny African Kingdom of Eswatini (known as Swaziland) who long for their big break. They embark on their pilgrimage in order to compete in a Texas battle of the bands.

Jesse Rudoy is a filmmaker, musician, and born-again country fan based in Brooklyn. Rudoy has composed original music for brands like Adidas and National Geographic and released music on the record label Let’s Play House. He is also the co- founder of White Label Yerba Mate Soda, a beverage brand served at nightclubs and raves throughout New York City. Dusty & Stones is his first feature film.

GALA HONORING MATTHEW HEINEMAN

← Go to Film Program

HAMPTONS DOC FEST HONORS MATTHEW HEINEMAN
WITH THE 2023 PENNEBAKER CAREER ACHIEVEMENT AWARD

GALA EVENING HONORING MATTHEW HEINEMAN

SATURDAY, DEC 2, BAY STREET THEATER

6:30PM Cocktail/Buffet Reception

8:00PM Pennebaker Award and Interview by former Pennebaker Awardee Liz Garbus with Matthew Heineman

Followed by screening of American Symphony

Tackling difficult and often hard-to- access subjects while addressing great social truths.

It’s impossible to not be charmed by documentary filmmaker Matthew Heineman. Despite his many cinematic accomplishments at a young age (he’s now only 40), the Academy Award-nominated and nine- time Emmy Award-winning filmmaker remains unaffected by what he has pulled off–getting access to many subjects that were often off-limits to outsiders while traveling to hot spots throughout the world.

He didn’t start out with a desire to be a gutsy filmmaker. His fascination with American history led him to seek a career as a teacher, but after being rejected by Teach for America, he went on a road trip with his three best friends after graduating from Dartmouth College. As he shot roll after roll of the young people he met during their journey–150 hours of film over three months–he fell in love with the process of filmmaking. Eventually the finished film (Our Time) was sent to HBO and, while they didn’t accept it, they ended up hiring him for the Alzheimer’s Project, where he helped produce one of several films on the subject.

Throughout his illustrious career, Heineman takes on large amorphous subjects and tries to understand them, humanize them, and attempt to make the world care about the topics he picks to explore. He doesn’t select easy or safe subjects; consider that he’s made films about the war in Afghanistan (Retrograde), the drug war in Mexico (Cartel Land), Isis in Syria (City of Ghosts), COVID (The First Wave), and the problems with healthcare (Escape Fire: The Fight to Rescue American Healthcare), to name a few. Heineman says, you can “speak great social truths through the power of the documentary film.”

Cartel Land, about the Mexican Drug War, was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2016. He won the Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Documentary award from the Director’s Guild of America for the often-brutal film and also the 2015 Courage Under Fire Award by the International Documentary Association.

City of Ghosts came out two years later and took a hard-hitting look at the atrocities in Syria. The Guardian gave the film five stars and called it “the definitive contemporary documentary about the tragedy of Syria.” Moreover, Heineman won the Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Documentary award from the Director’s Guild of America again, becoming one of only three people to win the prestigious honor twice.

Heineman’s films often take time, both to get access and then to make them. When he starts a new film, Heineman doesn’t know exactly where the story will take him. Retrograde tells the story of the war in Afghanistan, but when he started this project, he didn’t know he’d end up being in Afghanistan as

the U.S. military pulled out. When he was 21, a mentor told him: If you end up with the story you started with, then you weren’t listening along the way. That lesson has stayed with him, and he always goes where the story takes him.

The fact that he has often been in hazardous war zones for his films doesn’t mean he’s a thrill seeker. He says he doesn’t get off on being in dangerous situations and was often scared during the filming of Retrograde. “It was scary getting in a Black Hawk helicopter when you knew there was a chance of getting shot at by a rocket from the Taliban,” he admits. To calm his nerves, he would focus on his camera. “If I’m risking my life,” he added, “I sure as hell better cover it well.”

HIDDEN MASTER: THE LEGACY OF GEORGE PLATT LYNES

← Go to Film Program

HIDDEN MASTER: THE LEGACY OF GEORGE PLATT LYNES

SUN, 12/3, 7:00pm, 96 min SAG HARBOR CINEMA

Director Sam Shahid in attendance for Q&A

Director: Sam Shahid
Producers: Sam Shahid, Matthew Kraus, Nando de Carvalho, John MacConnell
Editor: Conor McBride
Cinematographer: Matthew Kraus

Hidden Master features a stunning collection of photography from the 1930s-50s, uncovering the less-known life of celebrity photographer George Platt Lynes: his gifted eye for the male form, his long-term friendships with Gertrude Stein and Alfred Kinsey, and his lasting influence as one of the first openly gay American artists.

Sam Shahid has been leaving his mark on the world of fashion and advertising for four decades and counting. He has helped many brands become internationally recognized, including Calvin Klein in the 1980s, Banana Republic in the 1990s, and later Versace, Perry Ellis, Gucci, and Valentino.

IN THE COMPANY OF ROSE

← Go to Film Program

OPENING NIGHT FILM

IN THE COMPANY OF ROSE

THURS, 11/30, 8:00pm, 85 min SAG HARBOR CINEMA

Director James Lapine in attendance for Q&A, Rose Styron by Zoom

Cocktail reception to follow

Director: James Lapine
Producers: James Lapine, Jack Shear, Grace Sin, Miky Wolf
Editor: Miky Wolf
Cinematographer: James Lapine

On Martha’s Vineyard, Tony-winning playwright and director James Lapine meets Rose Styron, the widow of the great American novelist William Styron. Over six years of periodic meetings, 95-year old Rose shares the fascinating story of her complex life as a poet, journalist, human rights activist, and life partner to William. During their 53-year marriage the Styrons befriended and hosted the political and literary luminaries of their time at their Martha’s Vineyard home, including President Kennedy and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Leonard Bernstein, Truman Capote, Philip Roth, Arthur Miller, James Baldwin and Jerzy Kosinski, to name a few.

James Lapine is an American stage director, playwright, screenwriter, and librettist. He has won the Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical three times, for Into the Woods, Falsettos, and Passion. He has frequently collaborated with Stephen Sondheim and William Finn. Lapine wrote the book and directed Sunday in the Park with George, while Sondheim created the music and lyrics. Lapine’s HBO documentary about Sondheim, Six by Sondheim, won a Peabody Award and an Emmy nomination for his direction.

Opening Night film is sponsored by EPIC

INVISIBLE BEAUTY

← Go to Film Program

INVISIBLE BEAUTY

SAT, 12/2, 3:00pm, 115 min SAG HARBOR CINEMA

Director Frederic Tcheng in attendance for Q/A

Directors: Bethann Hardison, Frédéric Tcheng
Producer: Lisa Cortés
Editors: Chris McNabb, Frédéric Tcheng
Cinematographers: MiaCioffiHenry,FrédéricTcheng

Fashion revolutionary and model turned agent and activist Bethann Hardison knew that Black is Beautiful well before the fashion industry acknowledged the truth. From walking runway shows alongside Iman to discovering supermodels like Tyson Beckford and mentoring icons like Naomi Campbell, Hardison has been at the epicenter of major representational shifts in fashion. Catalyzing change requires continuous championing, and as the next generation takes the reins, Hardison reflects on her personal journey and the cost of being a pioneer.

Frédéric Tcheng is a French-born filmmaker based in Brooklyn. He co- directed Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel, and his award-winning directorial debut, Dior and I, premiered at Tribeca in 2014. Halston, with CNN Films and Amazon Studios as executive producers, premiered at Sundance in 2019. Bethann Hardison has gone from working in New York City’s Garment District to founding her namesake agency, where she guided the careers of some of the most prominent models in the world. She has received many awards for her advocacy work.

Film is sponsored by Sarah Cuyler

LA SINGLA

← Go to Film Program

LA SINGLA

FRI, 12/1, 2:30pm, 94 min BAY STREET THEATER

Director Paloma Zapata via Zoom

Director: Paloma Zapata
Producers: Paloma Zapata, Nadja Smith, Paola Sainz de Baranda
Editor: Paloma Zapata
Cinematographers: Iñaki Gorraiz, Dani Mauri

Antonia Singla was once considered the best flamenco dancer in the world. Born deaf in the slums of Barcelona and unable to speak until she was a teenager, dance became the language through which she expressed herself. La Singla’s striking movements—and intense gaze—were seared with passion and revolutionized the art form. Then, suddenly, at the height of her fame, she vanished without a trace.

Paloma Zapata is known for La Singla (2023), Casamance: La banda sonora de un viaje (2016) and Peret: My Name is Rumba (2018).

MOURNING IN LOD

← Go to Film Program

MOURNING IN LOD

TUES, 12/5, 3:00pm, 73 min BAY STREET THEATER

Director Hilla Medalia via Zoom, Executive Producer Sheila Nevins in attedance for Q/A

Director: Hilla Medalia
Producer: Hilla Medalia
Editors: Erez Laufer, Doron Djerassi
Cinematographers: Avner Shahaf, Hanna Abu Saada

In this film, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is retold through three people whose fates become inextricably linked in a vicious cycle of violence. Lod is a “mixed” city inhabited by Arabs and Jews who live side by side in a strained coexistence. The outpouring of love, anger, and forgiveness that unfolds when the two cultures collide following a tragedy offers a glimpse of morning light to offset a collective state of seemingly endless mourning.

Hilla Medalia is a Peabody-winning and Emmy-nominated director/ producer with over 20 years of experience in the documentary field. She is the founder of award- winning Medalia Productions whose films have been aired by the leading broadcasters in the world, including MTV, HBO, Arte, Netflix, Paramount, and BBC and screened at the Venice Biennale, Cannes, Berlinale and Sundance festivals among others.

OBSESSED WITH LIGHT

← Go to Film Program

2023 IMPACT AWARD to ARTEMIS RISING FOUNDATION, REGINA K. SCULLY, FOUNDER

CO-PRESENTED WITH NEW YORK WOMEN IN FILM & TELEVISION (NYWIFT)

OBSESSED WITH LIGHT

FRI, 12/1, 7:30pm, 90 min SAG HARBOR CINEMA

Directors Sabine Krayenbühl and Zeva Oelbaum in attendance for Q&A.

Cocktail reception to follow

Directors: Sabine Krayenbühl, Zeva Oelbaum
Producers: Sabine Krayenbühl, Zeva Oelbaum
Editor: Sabine Krayenbühl
Cinematographers: Bob Richman, Claudia Raschke

The Artemis Rising Foundation is dedicated to supporting media projects that transform culture and challenge the status quo. Led by Founder and CEO, Regina K. Scully, the foundation champions powerful stories about some of the most challenging social justice issues of our time — including gender-bias, healing, trauma, mental health, addiction and women’s empowerment.

Obsessed with Light pulls back the curtain on Loïe Fuller, a wildly original dancer and inventor who pioneered the creative use of electric lighting for the stage. The documentary delves into the astonishing influence Fuller's work has on contemporary culture including artists like Red Hot Chili Peppers, Taylor Swift, and Shakira. Anyone who has been to a rock concert has seen a modern version of the lighting designs that Fuller patented over a century ago.

Sabine Krayenbühl and Zeva Oelbaum co-directed the NEH- supported documentary Letters from Baghdad. Krayenbühl’s editing work includes Oscar and Independent Spirit Award nominated My Architect and the Emmy-winning The Hunt for Planet B. Oelbaum also produced Ahead of Time, a feature-length documentary about journalist Ruth Gruber.

ORCA — BLACK & WHITE GOLD

← Go to Film Program

ORCA — BLACK & WHITE GOLD

FRI, 12/1, 5:00pm, 92 min SAG HARBOR CINEMA

Director Sarah Nörenberg in attendance for Q&A

Director: Sarah Nörenberg
Producers: Walter Kohler, Sarah Norenberg, Michael Frenschkowski
Editors: Maxim Kilewer, Verna Schonauer
Cinematographers: Sergei Amirdzhanov

This is a riveting docu-thriller exposing the illegal trade in endangered wild orcas fueled by American business practices. Ten years after the award- winning Blackfish opened our eyes to the cruel and inhumane treatment of whales in captivity, this film offers unprecedented access to activists, trainers, journalists and the catchers themselves and reveals the shocking truth behind the global orca trade.

Sarah Nörenberg’s desire to make films with an impact led her to join Terra Mater Studios in 2017. Black & White Gold is her directorial debut.

POSTHUMOUS LEGACY AWARD TO NANCY BUIRSKI

← Go to Film Program

POSTHUMOUS LEGACY AWARD TO NANCY BUIRSKI

SUN, 12/3, 2:00pm, Tribute followed by screening of The Loving Story, 77 min

SAG HARBOR CINEMA

We at Hamptons Doc Fest – along with the rest of the documentary film community – were shocked and deeply saddened when we learned of the untimely passing of filmmaker Nancy Buirski on August 29.

A graduate of Adelphi University on Long Island, Nancy began her career as a photographer, and as the Foreign Picture Editor at The New York Times, her selection of Kevin Carter’s photo resulted in the paper winning its first ever Pulitzer Prize for feature photography in 1994.

Nancy channeled her creative, visual acumen and affinity for documentary storytelling when she founded the Full Frame Documentary Festival in North Carolina in 1998. As the Creative Director of the Festival, she championed the works of innovative filmmakers and built the festival into one of the premiere documentary events in the U.S.

When she transitioned from festival director to film director, Nancy did so with a bang. Between 2011 when she directed her first feature documentary, until her untimely death 12 short years later, she directed and produced six award-winning feature documentaries including a trilogy exploring racial injustice (The Loving Story, The Rape of Recy Taylor and A Crime on the Bayou). Her most recent film Desperate Souls, Dark City and the Legend of Midnight Cowboy premiered in 2022 at the prestigious Telluride and Venice film festivals.

Nancy was a force–a generous, warm and kind human being–unforgettable in so many ways. She built a legacy in many corners of the documentary world, as a filmmaker, festival director, mentor and friend. To paraphrase Edna St. Vincent Millay: "The presence of her absence is everywhere."

Hamptons Doc Fest is proud to honor Nancy Buirski with our first Legacy Award, presented to her sister Judith Cohen by Susan Margolin and Chris Hegedus. In Nancy’s honor, the festival will screen the Emmy and Peabody award-winning documentary, The Loving Story (PG 25) her first feature as writer, director and producer, as well as the short film Daughter of Mine (PG 27), where she acted as Executive Producer and mentor to the filmmaker.

RAINBOW WARRIOR

← Go to Film Program

RAINBOW WARRIOR

FRI, 12/1, 2:30pm, 94 min BAY STREET THEATER

Director Edward McGurn in attendance for Q&A

Director: Edward McGurn
Producers: Edward McGurn, Eva Gunz, Sophie Daniel, Chris Dallas-Feeney, Katie Buchanan,
Editor: Chris Dallas-Feeney
Cinematographers: Andrew McGeorge, Neil Harvey, Ian Kerr, Matthew Pothier

On July 10th, 1985 two French secret agents bombed Greenpeace’s flagship The Rainbow Warrior while it was at port in Auckland, New Zealand. The operation, code-named “Satanic,” has been called one of the greatest intelligence failures in history. This feature tells an incredible story through archival footage and present- day interviews of the main characters onboard. The Rainbow Warrior put Greenpeace on the map, caused international outrage and ended nuclear testing in the Pacific.

Edward McGurn’s unique creative approach to unscripted works is rooted in his years of experience in narrative film and TV. His work privileges plot- driven and character-based modes of storytelling. Edward honed his skills as a development and production executive at Phoenix Pictures. McGurn also brings to his directing a wealth of experience in production, having early in his career worked on 22 feature films as an assistant director, including for directors Werner Herzog and Wim Wenders.

RATHER

← Go to Film Program

CLOSING NIGHT FILM

RATHER

WED, 12/6, 7:00pm, 95 min BAY STREET THEATER

Martin Rather via Zoom for Q&A

Director: Frank Marshall
Producers: Frank Marshall, Jenifer Westphal, Joe Plummer, Jeff Hasler, Ethan Goldman, Aly Parker
Editors: Curtis McConnell, Joe Fenstermaker
Cinematographer: Michael Koshkin

Dan Rather’s 60+ year career coincides with some of the seminal moments in American journalism. From his days embedded in the Vietnam War, to his on-the-ground coverage of JFK’s assassination, to his presence at the foot of the Berlin Wall as it fell, Dan Rather has reported on an astonishing number of iconic moments in history. Now, as a 92-year-old reflecting on seven decades of service and looking to the future of democracy, we meet a man freed from the auspices of any overarching network or deadline and with a dedication to the truth.

Frank Marshall often collaborates with his wife, film producer Kathleen Kennedy, with whom he founded Amblin Entertainment, along with Steven Spielberg. Marshall has worked with directors such as Spielberg, Paul Greengrass, Peter Bogdanovich, David Fincher, M. Night Shyamalan, and Robert Zemeckis. He has also directed the films Arachnophobia, Alive, Congo, Eight Below, and the documentaries The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart and Jazz Fest: A New Orleans Story. Marshall is one of the few people to have received an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony (EGOT).

Film sponsored by Douglas Denoff/Sutton Square Entertainment
Congratulations to Frank Marshall

SHARI & LAMB CHOP

← Go to Film Program

SHARI & LAMB CHOP

WED, 12/6, 2:00pm, 92 min BAY STREET THEATER

Director Lisa D’Apolito via Zoom for Q&A

Director: Lisa D’Apolito
Producers: Lisa D’Apolito, Nicholas Ferrall, Cassidy Hartmann, Morris Ruskin, Douglas Warner
Editor: Andrea Lewis
Cinematographer: Anne Etheridge

As a young female ventriloquist with big aspirations, Shari Lewis was searching for a voice who could say things that a young woman in the 1950s could not, and found it in a sock puppet named Lamb Chop. The duo debuted on the CBS children’s television series Captain Kangaroo in 1956 and went on to attain cultural icon status in the U.S. by the end of the 20th century. The documentary examines Shari Lewis’ surprising personal journey, as well as her professional one, which included

winning 13 Emmys and a Peabody and authoring 60 children’s books.

Lisa D’Apolito is a documentary and branded content director and producer. Lisa started out as an actress, including a part in Goodfellas. She eventually started her own production company 3 Faces Films. Her first feature documentary film Love, Gilda was selected as the opening night film of the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival, had a broadcast premiere on CNN and was nominated for two creative Emmy’s.