Fifteen-year-old DOC NYC, America’s largest documentary festival, has revealed its influential 15-film Short List. The festival will run its main lineup of 111 features, 32 world premieres, 24 U.S. premieres, and 129 short films in-person November 13-21 in New York City’s IFC Center, SVA Theatre, and Village East by Angelika and continue online until December 1 with films available to viewers across the U.S. All the films will have theatrical screenings at the festival, often with the directors in person.
Historically, most of the DOC NYC shortlist titles overlap with the Academy’s official 15-film Oscar shortlist. With the notable exception of Netflix’s Oscar-winning “My Octopus Teacher,” for 12 years, the festival has screened the documentary that went on to win the Academy Award, including “20 Days in Mariupol,” “Navalny,” “Summer of Soul,” “American Factory,” “Free Solo,” “Icarus,” “O.J.: Made in America,” “Amy,” “Citizenfour,” “20 Feet From Stardom,” “Searching for Sugar Man,” and “Undefeated.” The festival has also screened 53 of the last 60 Oscar-nominated documentary features.
Overlapping with Monday’s Critics Choice Award nominations for Best Documentary Feature are three Netflix titles that debuted at Sundance (“Daughters,” “The Remarkable Life of Ibelin,” and “Will & Harper”) as well as NatGeo’s Sundance pickup “Sugarcane.”
In his third year, DOC NYC artistic director Jaie Laplante curates the shortlist of films that may be in the running for the Academy Award for Best Documentary feature. (Also weighing in is former DOC NYC chief Thom Powers, now director of special projects.) This year’s list of 15 features showcases a spectrum of subject matter, including Sundance debuts, fall festival hits, and less widely viewed films from a range of funders and distributors. The programmers talk to Academy members and filmmakers, attend screenings and use their own spidey-sense about what Oscar voters are likely to choose.
The Short List sections showcase a selection of nonfiction features and shorts that the festival’s programming team considers to be among the year’s strongest contenders for Oscars and other prizes, while Winner’s Circle is a reminder of films already awarded at major international film events that are worthy of additional consideration. Past films shown in Winner’s Circle that all went on to further acclaim include “Writing with Fire,” “The Mole Agent,” “A House Made of Splinters,” “In the Rearview,” “Bad Axe,” “Midnight Family,” and “Advocate.”
DOC NYC’s 2024 Short List will mark the official world premiere of Alexis Bloom’s “The Bibi Files,” which earlier this year screened as a work-in-progress at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). The section also includes the New York premiere of Raoul Peck’s “Ernest Cole: Lost and Found,” winner of the Oeil d’Or for Best Documentary at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.
“The Bibi Files” is a “pretty explosive selection,” Laplante told IndieWire on the phone. “Having the official world premiere is major for us.” Another film that is less heralded so far is a look at Russia’s LGBTQ community, “Queendom,” produced by Oscar nominee David France (“How to Survive a Plague”), which Laplante considers a “dark horse contender” for the Oscars.
Lucy Walker’s “Mountain Queen: The Summits of Lhakpa Sherpa” continues to score standing ovations at screenings. Netflix has four films on the shortlist, but Laplante says distribution is irrelevant. Some of the films don’t have distributors, including “The Bibi Files,” “Union,” and “No Other Land,” which will likely self-distribute to qualify for the Oscars.
“Will & Harper” (Netflix) continues to win hearts wherever it plays. “I don’t think about Will Ferrell the superstar at all,” said Laplante. “This is about friendship, the ease they have with each other is so real, how much they love each other comes out in the film. This is different from any other type of celebrity documentary we are used to considering.”
Laplante noted that several American titles (“A Still, Small Voice,” “32 Sounds”) made the Oscar shortlist last year, even if the final five were all international. Russia’s “Queendom,” Mexico’s “Frida,” Japan’s “Black Box Diaries,” and Palestine’s “No Other Land” are among the international titles on this list.
See below for the complete slates for each section.
Short List: Features
“The Bibi Files” (World Premiere)
Director: Alexis Bloom
Producers: Alexis Bloom, Alex Gibney, Raviv Drucker, Kara Elverson, David Rahtz
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu went to court trying to block this film that reveals leaked video of his testimonies on corruption charges.
“Black Box DIaries”
Director: Shiori Ito
Producers: Shiori Ito, Hanna Aqvilin, Eric Nyari
A journalist upends Japan’s entrenched codes of silence when she brings sexual assault charges against a well-connected member of the Japanese media elite. (MTV Documentary Films)
“Dahomey”
Director: Mati Diop
Producers: Mati Diop, Judith Lou Lévy, Eve Robin
The restitution of priceless artifacts, looted by the French, to their origins in Benin provides an occasion for momentous impact and debate. (MUBI)
“Daughters”
Directors: Natalie Rae, Angela Patton
Producers: Lisa Mazzotta, Natalie Rae, Justin Benoliel, James Cunningham, Mindy Goldberg, Sam Bisbee, Kathryn Everett, Laura Choi Raycroft
Young girls whose fathers are incarcerated join in a one-day dad/daughter dance inside prison, with deep emotional consequences on each side. (Netflix)
“Ernest Cole: Lost and Found” (NYC Premiere)
Director: Raoul Peck
Producers: Tamara Rosenberg, Raoul Peck
In this rousing, elegant documentary, Raoul Peck examines the life and works of a seminal artist of the 20th century, South African photographer Ernest Cole. (Magnolia Pictures)
“Frida”
Director: Carla Gutiérrez
Producers: Katia Maguire, Sara Bernstein, Justin Wilkes, Loren Hammonds, Alexandra Johnes
Mixing lyrical animation of her influential works and expressive voice-over, Frida is a definitive film about the iconic twentieth-century Mexican artist Frida Kahlo. (Amazon/MGM Studios)
“Mountain Queen: The Summits of Lhakpa Sherpa”
Director: Lucy Walker
Producers: Charlie Corwin, Michael D. Ratner, Miranda Sherman, Dalia Burde, Christopher Newman
Lhakpa Sherpa is the first Nepali woman to summit and descend Mount Everest, but how she navigates her life as a single mother and immigrant is an even more heroic tale. (Netflix)
“No Other Land”
Directors: Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor
Producers: Fabien Greenberg, Bård Kjøge Rønning
One of the most urgent films of the year and winner of multiple festival prizes, “No Other Land” offers an essential and unflinching look at Palestinian life under Israeli military occupation.
“Porcelain War”
Directors: Brendan Bellomo, Slava Leontyev
Producers: Aniela Sidorska, Paula DuPré Pesmen, Camilla Mazzaferro, Olivia Ahnemann
Three Ukrainian artists pick up arms when Russia invades their country, but refuse to put down their drive to create. (Picturehouse)
“The Remarkable Life of Ibelin”
Director: Benjamin Ree
Producer: Ingvil Giske
Inside a sophisticated online game, a young man suffering from a degenerative muscular disease creates a world where he can live, love, strive, and hope, to the greatest extent his soul can muster. (Netflix)
“Queendom”
Director/Producer: Agniia Galdanova
Producer: Igor Myakotin
A genderqueer Russian artist/activist faces harassment and hostility in Putin’s Russia, but it is the universal ache of being cut off from one’s roots that proves to be her greatest existential threat. (Greenwich Entertainment)
“Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat”
Director: Johan Grimonprez
Producer: Rémi Grellety, Daan Milius
In a magnificent essay film, Johan Grimonprez explores the historical rollercoaster of Congo after its independence from colonial control, told through accounts from spies, mercenaries and jazz icons. (Kino Lorber)
“Sugarcane”
Directors: Julian Brave NoiseCat, Emily Kassie
Producers: Emily Kassie, Kellen Quinn
An investigation into the history of abuse and missing indigenous children at a Canadian residential school ignites a present-day reckoning on the nearby Sugarcane Reserve. (National Geographic Documentary Films)
“Union”
Director: Brett Story, Stephen Maing
Producers: Brett Story, Stephen Maing, Samantha Curley, Mars Verrone, Martin Dicicco
Against incredible odds and immense opposition, current and former Amazon workers form a labor union and petition the corporate behemoth for more dignified treatment of warehouse workers.
“Will & Harper”
Director: Josh Greenbaum
Producers: Rafael Marmor, Will Ferrell, Jessica Elbaum, Josh Greenbaum, Christopher Leggett
Former Saturday Night Live writer Harper Steele comes out as a woman and takes a road trip across the United States with her old friend Will Ferrell to explore transgender experience. (Netflix)
Short List: Shorts
“All Things Metal”
Director: Motoki Otsuka
Producer: Lucy Sexton
Three brothers are united by their love of metal work, heavy metal rock, and movie-making. (Rolling Stone Films)
“Denial”
Directors: Paul Moakley, Daniel Lombroso
Producer: Paul Moakley
Zoom in on Maricopa Country, Arizona, in 2020, where contested results of the Presidential election sow chaos, confusion and threats against the official overseeing the vote. (The New Yorker)
“Eternal Father”
Director: Ömer Sami
Producer: Alma Dyekjær Giese
One father deals with his mortality fears by stating his wish to be cryogenically frozen upon his death, leaving his family to contemplate what this means for them when the time comes. (The New Yorker)
“Goodbye, Moraganza”
Director: Devon Blackwell
Producer: Daniel Lombroso
In this shadow of a long-ago betrayal, Devon Blackwell documents her family’s history and the property stolen from her great-grandmother. (The New Yorker)
“I Am Ready, Warden”
Director: Smriti Mundhra
Producers: Keri Blakinger, Maya Gnyp, Keri Blakinger, Nina Anand Aujla, Smriti Mundhra
Sentenced to death, prisoner John Henry Ramirez spends his final days preparing a message for his victim’s son while saying goodbye to his own boy. (MTV Documentary Films)
“Incident”
Director/Producer: Bill Morrison
Producer: Jamie Kalven
Filmmaker Bill Morrison reconstructs a Chicago police shooting of an unarmed Black man, dissecting what some consider an accident and others a murder. (The New Yorker)
“Instruments of a Beating Heart”
Director: Ema Ryan Yamazaki
Producer: Eric Nyari
In an annual musical performance for first graders, a young girl faces her fears with determination and becomes one of the lead percussionists. (The New York Times Op-Docs)
“Julia’s Stepping Stones”
Directors: Julia Reichert, Steve Bognar, Jim Klein
Producer: Steve Bognar
Before her death, activist/director Julia Reichert began filming her life story. Her partner, Steve Bognar, finishes the decorated filmmaker’s work, sharing it with the world. (Netflix)
“Motorcycle Mary”
Director: Haley Watson
Producer: Rachel Greenwald
Meet Mary McGee, a decorated and courageous racer who shattered the glass ceiling for women in motorsports. (ESPN)
“The Only Girl in the Orchestra”
Director/Producer: Molly O’Brien
Producer: Molly Lisa Remington
The spotlight shines on double bass player Orin O’Brien, the first woman to join the New York Philharmonic, in this brilliant film for classical music fans. (Netflix)
“The Quilters”
Director/Producer: Jenifer McShane
Tasked with creating quilts for foster children in Missouri, the men in a maximum security facility stitch the dreams of future generations.
“Seat 31: Zooey Zephyr”
Directors/Producer: Kimberly Reed
Banned from the Montana House of Representatives, Rep. Zooey Zephyr makes the bench outside the house her new “seat” as she fights for the rights of trans people in the state. (The New Yorker)
“A Swim Lesson”
Directors: Rashida Jones, Will McCormack
Producers: Nicole Emanuele, Emily Arlook
A symphony of toddlers’ laughter, cries, and splashes can be heard in the backyard of Bill, an instructor committed to teaching little kids how to swim. (POV)
“The Turnaround”
Directors: Kyle Thrash, Ben Proudfoot
Producers: Ben Proudfoot, Nicholas Ruff, Josh Rosenberg
After a superstar trade turned into a rough start with the Philadelphia Phillies, one devoted fan inspires others to turn their boos into cheers in hopes of changing the trajectory of the player’s season. (Netflix)
“Until He’s Back”
Director/Producer: Jacqueline Baylon
As European countries ignore the refugee crisis on their shores, Faisal Bouhafs helps one Moroccan family repatriate their child after his unsuccessful journey across the Mediterranean. (POV)
WINNER’S CIRCLE
“Hollywoodgate”
Director: Ibrahim Nash’a
Producers: Talal Derki, Shane Boris, Odessa Rae
After foreign troops withdraw from Afghanistan in 2021, a journalist is given permission to follow and film two Taliban military men for a year. Winner, Feature Documentary Award, El Gouna Film Festival.
“The Last of the Sea Women”
Director: Sue Kim
Producers: Malala Yousafzai, Erika Kennair
Executive produced by Malala Yousafzai, The Last of the Sea Women explores the community of fisherwomen called the haenyeo on South Korea’s Jeju Island. (Apple Original Films) Winner, NETPAC Award for Best Asian Film, TIFF.
“A New Kind of Wilderness”
Director: Silje Evensmo Jacobsen
Producer: Mari Bakke Riise
An endearing family devoted to living in harmony with nature faces difficult challenges when their matriarch unexpectedly passes away. Winner, World Cinema Documentary Grand Jury Award, Sundance Film Festival.
“Nocturnes”
Directors: Anirban Dutta, Anupama Srinivasan
Producer: Anirban Dutta
In the dense forests of the Eastern Himalayas, two curious observers probe the dark of night to gain a greater understanding of one of nature’s most spellbinding creatures, the moth. (Grasshopper Films) Winner, World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award for Craft, Sundance Film Festival.
“Patrice: The Movie”
Director: Ted Passon
Producers: Kyla Harris, Innbo Shim, Emily Spivack
Patrice: The Movie plays like a romantic comedy, despite its serious subject matter about a couple fighting for disability rights. (Hulu) Winner, Audience Award, Camden International Film Festival.
