We Are Fire! Draw for Change / Somos fuego by Karen Vázquez Guadarrama
The 14th annual edition of DOC NYC, America’s largest documentary festival, is taking place November 8-16 at the IFC Center, the SVA Theatre, and Village East by Angelika, and continuing online until November 26. This year’s edition includes a selection of films from Latin America and Latino USA, from its lineup of more than 110 feature-length documentaries, including 29 world premieres and 27 US premieres.
Having its world premiere in the Metropolis Competition is Lucha: A Wrestling Tale by Marco Ricci. A fresh spin on the story of high school sports as the path to transformation and redemption, the documentary takes us inside the Taft High School women’s wrestling team on their journey to a championship. Personal challenges abound, from unsupportive families to homelessness, but these four young women from the Bronx—Shirley, Nyasia, Mariam, and Alba—find solace and hope in each other and on the mat. Their empowering story is a testament to the human spirit and true grit.
Also in its world premiere—in the Fight the Power section—the Mexican film We Are Fire! Draw for Change / Somos fuego by Karen Vázquez Guadarrama, follows Maremoto (Mar), a young illustrator in Mexico City struggling to make sense of a town where eleven women are murdered daily, and 95,000 people have gone missing, with no one held accountable. Her feminist drawings support her community in dealing with the emotional trauma left by the femicides and galvanize them to fight to get the government forces to act. With her work, Mar also creates a safe space for the LGBTQ+ community and teaches self-acceptance.
Braulio Jatar and Anaïs Michel’s At the Border—set on the border between Colombia and Venezuela—navigates a complex and urgent narrative as deftly as its subjects navigate the perilous terrain around them. Español and Barrabas, two “coyotes,” or human smugglers, go about the business of surviving despite all the odds against them, as the directors’ quiet observational technique gets at why people make the life-threatening choice to migrate. Gritty, uncompromising, and thought provoking. The film is also having its world premiere at DOC NYC, in Come As You Are section.
The Brazilian film Neirud, the debut feature by Fernanda Faya, is having its international premiere in the international competition of the festival. Growing up, filmmaker Faya knew Neirud as her “aunt,” a family member close to her grandmother. What Faya uncovers after Neirud’s death is a mysterious and colorful life, from her time as a wrestler and circus performer to her secret and complicated love triangle. Neirud is a fascinating story about race and identity, and queer life in last century’s Brazil.
A Wolfpack Called Ernesto /Una jauría llamada Ernesto, the latest film by Mexican director Everardo González, will have its US premiere in the Kaleidoscope Competition. Set in Mexico City, the documentary follows a group of teenage gangsters that collectively call themselves “Ernesto.” The camera shadows them elegantly, preserving their anonymity as they go about daily life, both victims and perpetrators all at once. Immersive, engaging, and brilliantly unsettling, the narrative exposes the mechanisms and entanglements that allow these worlds of violence to thrive while denying us the full view we crave in order to understand.
Having its New York premiere as a special presentation, the documentary Patria y Vida: The Power Music, tells the story of the artist group, San Isidro, whose members have been jailed and tortured by the Cuban government, represents one of the few significant resistance movements in the history of oppression in Cuba. Inspired by their courage, Cuban hip-hop musicians living in exile record a protest song, Patria y vida (“Homeland and Life”) a direct affront to the official patriotic slogan patria o muerte (homeland or death). Beatriz Luengo, a multi-Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter, documents the events surrounding the creation of the song and the unprecedented impact it had as it became a worldwide anthem
Additionally, unseen, will have its local premiere in the American Stories section. The film follows Pedro, whose dream is to earn a degree in social work and support his family and community, but as an undocumented immigrant who is legally blind he faces legal challenges and uncertainty. Director Set Hernandez crafts this compelling portrait of a remarkable individual pursuing a better life with deliberately blurry visuals and a heightened soundscape that immerse viewers in Pedro’s version of the world and underscore his vulnerability and courage.
In Jesszilla by Emily Sheskin—also in its New York premiere—New Jersey’s own Jesselyn Silva, a three-time national boxing champion, is on her way to superstardom, dominating the junior ranks at the age of 15. With her every step of the way is her father, Pedro, a single parent who helps her navigate coaches, training schedules, and the angst of teenage life. When a devastating diagnosis threatens the father-daughter tandem, the pair turn to each other to fight their greatest opponent yet: cancer.
Thirteen years after their Oscar-nominated animated collaboration Chico & Rita, Spanish artists Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal reunite to explore the origin story of bossa nova, the universally beloved Brazilian music movement. With gorgeous hand-drawn frames and vivid colors, They Shot the Piano Player examines the 1976 disappearance of Brazilian piano virtuoso, Francisco Tenório Júnior as the totalitarian movement sweeping Latin American began clamping down on artists and those fighting for the freedom of expression that connects all peoples.
And DOC NYC will feature the documentary shorts The Last Carnival byTucker Morrison, Samuel Ott, and Anthony Wilson, about a migrant worker muses on the American Dream and his home as he helms the rides at a carnival; and Tito by Kervens Jimenez and Taylor McIntosh, a startling view of Haitian prison, shot by an inmate with a camera hidden from the guards.
