Clockwise from top left: The Silence of the Mole, Nothing But the Sun, Comala, and Omara.
DOC NYC, the country’s largest documentary film festival, has announced its lineup for this year’s 12th edition with notably strong U.S. Latinx and Latin American representation across its sixteen sections. This year’s festival will return to in-person theatrical screenings after the program was held entirely online in 2020. Paving the way for greater accessibility to festival programming, there will still be the option for online viewing for all titles in case you can’t make it to the theater in-person.
DOC NYC has also announced the launch of three new competitive sections for this year’s edition, including a U.S. Competition for new American nonfiction, an International Competition recognizing global contributions to documentary filmmaking, and the Kaleidoscope Competition for experimental and formally daring documentary works.
“After pivoting in 2020 to present a completely online festival, we’re thrilled to be bringing films and filmmakers in person to New Yorkers again. But we’re very happy that we’ll also continue to serve our new audience across the country by once again presenting films online this year,” the festival’s artistic director Thom Powers recently told IndieWire. “We’re proud to showcase such a wide spectrum of documentary representing the diverse perspectives of our programming team.”
With sixteen filmmakers and titles hailing from Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, Paraguay, Cuba, Guatemala, Peru and the United States, including favorites from the international festival circuit, this year’s lineup brings together the best in recent U.S. Latinx and Latin American documentary while demonstrating the extreme diversity of styles, perspectives, and stories coming out of the region. Also important to note is the presence of many emerging documentary filmmakers alongside more established directors, signaling an exciting new generation of Latin American documentary filmmakers to keep on your radar.
Read on for the full lineup of U.S Latinx and Latin American documentaries at DOC NYC 2021:
In the U.S. Competition comes Brazilian-American director Julia Bacha’s Boycott and Cuban-American director Hugo Perez’s Once Upon a Time in Uganda. The latest documentary from award-winning filmmaker Bacha, Boycott investigates the recent explosion of laws designed to penalize Americans who push boycotts against Israel. A tale of two worlds and the binding power of cinema, Once Upon a Time in Uganda follows two men, one from Uganda and one from New York, who come together over a shared love for action cinema and start making films together in the slums of Kampala.
Representing Latin America in the International Competition with intimate stories about their own families’ painful histories are Mexican director Gian Cassini’s debut documentary Comala and Colombian director Iván Guarnizo’s On the Other Side / Del otro lado. Pulling from home videos and family archives, Cassini pieces together the legacy of his father El Jimmy, a small-time hitman in Tijuana who left behind a trail of broken promises. In On the Other Side, Guarnizo and his brother explore their late mother’s curious bond with one of the guerrillas who held her captive for more than 600 days.
In the Kaleidoscope Competition for essayistic and adventurous works is Brazilian director Eryk Rocha’s latest documentary Edna and Paraguayan director Arami Ullón’s Nothing But the Sun / Apenas el sol. Shot in vivid black and white, Edna tells the story of a woman living in the Brazilian Amazon who uses her diary as a way to recount memories of those she lost, alongside stories of her own resilience during Brazil’s brutal military dictatorship. Ullón’s Nothing But the Sun follows Mateo, a native Ayoreo from the Paraguayan Chaco, who has been using an old tape recorder for decades to capture the stories, songs and testimonies of his ancestral culture which was ravaged by white missionaries.
Dedicated to highlighting recent favorites from the international festival circuit, the International Award Winners section brings to the forefront Mexican director Alonso Ruizpalacios’ A Cop Movie / Una película de policías, which won the Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Contribution at the Berlin International Film Festival. A thoroughly original and unpredictable documentary, Ruizpalacios’ latest immerses the audience into the human experience of police work within Mexico’s dysfunctional system.
Also in the category is Cuban director Marcel Beltrán’s Option Zero / La Opción Cero, winner of the Best Documentary Feature Award at the Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival. The documentary brings together over 100 hours of personal cell phone footage to follow a group of Cuban migrants as they journey from Colombia to Panama seeking refuge.
In the Fight The Power: Stories of Activism section is Cuban-American director Sandra Alvarez’s latest documentary InHospitable and Abel Sanchez and Andres Alegria’s debut feature A Song for Cesar Chavez: Beware a Movement that Sings. Alvarez’s InHospitable follows patients and activists as they band together to fight a multi-billion dollar nonprofit hospital system that limits vital care for vulnerable patients, while A Song for Cesar Chavez offers viewers a unique and stimulating look at the life and legacy of American labor leader and civil rights activist Cesar Chavez and the farmworker movement he spearheaded.
Profiling documentary reporting in the Focus: Journalists section is Guatemalan director Anais Taracena’s The Silence of the Mole / El silencio del topo, in which the filmmaker unravels a decades-long conspiracy within the Guatemalan government and the bravery of the man who unveiled it all.
Celebrating musical personas and their stories, the Sonic Cinema section includes another entry from Cuban-American director Hugo Perez, his documentary Omara which offers a first-of-its-kind portrait of the internationally-beloved Afro-Cuban singer and grande dame of Cuban music Omara Portuondo, of Buena Vista Social Club fame. Also included is Peruvian-American filmmaker Alan Brain’s The Rumba Kings on the innovations of Congolese rumba, an upbeat blend of Congolese traditional music and sounds from Cuba showcased as a vessel for cultural self-expression and joy.
Finally, in the Portraits section is Russia-based Guatemalan filmmaker Renato Borrayo Serrano’s Life of Ivanna, a vérité feature shot in the Russian Arctic tundra, following a hearty Indigenous woman raising her five children in a house on skis.
DOC NYC runs from November 10 to 28, tickets are on sale now. Make sure to check out the full lineup and purchase your tickets and passes online here!
