What I Saw At DOC NYC

This year’s film festival madness continued with DOC NYC (November 8–November 18), New York’s incredibly large, always-stacked documentary festival. This year, “America’s largest documentary festival” returned with a massive lineup filled with tons of world premieres, independent films and some of the most anticipated documentaries of the year. Also present were the films of the DOC NYC Shortlist, a key element in determining which films the Academy will nominate for Best Documentary Feature Film at next year’s Oscars.

At this year’s festival, I tried to mix anticipated films with lesser-known features. My final lineup included some films that premiered at other festivals, some of which premiered at DOC NYC, but all of which seemed like interesting features that pushed forward and questioned the concept of what makes a good documentary.

Worth A Watch

Wim Wenders’ Anselm–one of the acclaimed German director’s two films to release this year–is an ethereal, scintillating experience that doubles as a documentary. The film, shot in glorious 3-D, operates as a character portrait of German artist Anselm Kiefer and as an audio-visual experience attempting to replicate and represent his creative process. At just 93 minutes, it’s a deeply meditative, almost dream-like experience that poses deep questions on the nature of our existence, the grandeur of the natural world and the importance of remembering our histories, as difficult as that may be. It’s also the only film in a long time (barring James Cameron’s Avatar films) that truly warrants and capitalizes on the possibilities of 3-D technology.

Someone Lives Here follows Khaleel Sivwright, a Toronto-based carpenter who decides to build tiny shelters for members of the city’s homeless population during the winter months of the pandemic, when shelters are overpacked and the city’s government refuses to help the demographic. After his structures go viral, landing him interviews with local and national news outlets, the City of Toronto officially takes a stance against Sivwright’s structures, deeming them unsafe and fighting to remove the structures. The documentary’s plot is incredibly linear, but director Zack Russell’s precise direction, Sivwright’s wholehearted personality and much-needed social commentary are enough to make this doc a festival standout.

Lina Soualem’s Bye Bye Tiberias is an emotionally affecting, deeply profound look at how personal identity is molded–by cultural, patriotic and familial influences. In the 82-minute film, the filmmaker focuses on the life and experiences of her mother, Hiam Abbass (an actress, HBO’s Succession). The film is extraordinarily meditative, as Abbass discusses her late mother’s life and legacy, the pain of leaving her family in Palestine to pursue her career and family life, and the always-difficult process of reflecting on and reconsidering past moments and decisions. Soualem’s connection to the story and her unwavering focus on her mother’s life and experiences make the film even more affecting, functioning as a rumination on family and the complexities of the human condition simultaneously.

Good, But Not Great

In Songs of Earth, Norwegian director Margareth Olin uses a different approach to capture the lives of her parents. Rather than interviewing them or using archival footage, Olin focuses instead on their relationship to the vast landscapes that surround their picturesque hometown. Long montages of nature–glaciers, fields and lakes–are paired with sparse lines of dialogue where they discuss important developments in their lives and their experiences with the natural world. While the film’s distant approach can make the experience isolating at times, Olin’s precise direction allows the images to speak for themselves, immersing audiences into the beautiful Norwegian countryside for a well-spent 85 minutes.

Martina Radwan’s Tomorrow, Tomorrow, Tomorrow is half documentary, half video essay. The film chronicles her personal experiences taking three Mongolian children under her wing, whom she met while filming a project about homelessness in the country. Spanning key years in their adolescence, Radwan uses her camera and her knack for storytelling to explore what it means to make a documentary–the process and impossibility of capturing “authenticity,” the line between activism and savior-ism and the power dynamic between a filmmaker and their subjects. The film is a bit overlong, but a constantly rewarding experience that feels complete and fulfilling.

Chris Wilcha’s Flipside is two compelling ideas overstuffed into one 90-minute documentary. On its surface, the film surveys a struggling record store in a dying, suburban New Jersey town. But, the film also showcases Wilcha’s life, using narration and archival footage to highlight his experiences and the documentary projects he never finished. Both of these concepts are interesting in their own right, but they don’t really mesh as audiences constantly bounce from one event of Wilcha’s life to another without enough breathing room. Everything builds up to a fitting, emotional conclusion, but the steps to get there can be taxing.

Taking Venice explores the 1964 Venice Biennale, the first time the United States government submitted and supported an artist at the world’s premier art festival. Their contender, famed artist Robert Rauschenberg, won the Golden Lion award for the country, causing much controversy in the art world–including critics who claimed that the U.S. bribed jury officials to tip the odds in their favor. The film’s subject is interesting, but even at 95 minutes, the film overstays its welcome. Its first half is invigorating, especially since the subject feels so fresh and juicy. However, the repetition of historical beats and stylistic elements in the film’s second half bars it from making a more memorable impact. 

The Disappointments

Merchant Ivory is the latest documentary in the ever-increasing trend of artist biography documentaries, which use interview and archival footage to capture the careers and legacy of major directors, authors and actors. Merchant Ivory focuses on the production team and creative collaboration led by director James Ivory and producer Ismail Merchant, who produced 44 films together from 1961 to 2007. Among them: A Room With A View, Howard’s Ends and Remains of the Day. Unfortunately, Stephen Soucy’s documentary only gives a surface-level telling of Ivory’s and Merchant’s lives, playing like a visual Wikipedia page and not giving solid commentary on their legacies. The film is most captivating when it explores Ivory’s and Merchant’s romantic relationship–which they kept secret for many years–but often sidelines this topic to highlight the stories behind their biggest films instead.