DOC NYC

Latest reviews

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  Daughters

  Review preview for Daughters

  For the most part the film comes across as a celebration of this moment as a light in the darkness, but it will likely leave some viewers additionally uncomfortable.

  Four young girls prepare for a special Daddy Daughter Dance with their incarcerated fathers, as part of a unique fatherhood program in a Washington, DC, jail.
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  Will & Harper

  Review preview for Will & Harper

  Greenbaum pinpoints the tension between the hate eating away at parts of US society and the tremendous potential that the country still has.

  When Will Ferrell finds out his close friend of 30 years is coming out as a trans woman, the two decide to embark on a cross-country road trip to process this new stage of their relationship in an intimate portrait of friendship, transition, and America.
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  2073

  Review preview for 2073

  As much as 2073 mentions things, it digs no further.

  A futuristic docudrama lamenting the state of the world to come.
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  No Other Land

  Review preview for No Other Land

  No Other Land brings humanity and particularity to a topic that is too often discussed in the abstract.

  This film made by a Palestinian-Israeli collective shows the destruction of the West Bank’s Masafer Yatta by Israeli authorities and the unlikely alliance which develops between the Palestinian activist Basel and Israeli journalist Yuval.
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  Porcelain War

  Review preview for Porcelain War

  A tactile and colour-infused film.

  Under roaring fighter jets and missile strikes, Ukrainian artists Slava, Anya, and Andrey choose to stay behind and fight, contending with the soldiers they have become. Defiantly finding beauty amid destruction, they show that although it’s easy to make people afraid, it’s hard to destroy their passion for living.
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  There Was, There Was Not

  Review preview for There Was, There Was Not

  While the physical violence of the war stays in the background with the constant noise of war sirens and bombs, the psychological one is impossible to hide.

  Four women try to rebuild their lives in Artsakh decades after the war, as another one breaks out.
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  Black Box Diaries

  Review preview for Black Box Diaries

  Documentaries don’t get much more personal or intimate than this

  Journalist Shiori Ito embarks on a courageous investigation of her own sexual assault in an improbable attempt to prosecute her high-profile offender. Her quest becomes a landmark case in Japan, exposing the country’s outdated judicial and societal systems.
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  Nocturnes

  Review preview for Nocturnes

  By night, Shreyank Nanjappa’s inspired sound design captures the furious beating of wings and, layered on top of them, the shuffling and chirrupping and all the curious calls of the moths as they rush in to land.

  In the dense forests of the Eastern Himalayas, moths are whispering something to us. In the dark of night, two curious observers shine a light on this secret universe.
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  The Last Of The Sea Women

  Review preview for The Last Of The Sea Women

  Too often scoots over things when it should take a breath and better look.

  Portait of the endangered tradition of haenyeo fishing and the threats it faces today.
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  The Battle For Laikipia

  Review preview for The Battle For Laikipia

  The documentarians invested several years in the project and it pays off in this impressively balanced assessment of a conflict over land that has been exacerbated by climate change and drought.

  Unresolved historical injustices and climate change raise the stakes in a generations-old conflict between Indigenous pastoralists and white landowners in Laikipia, Kenya, a wildlife conservation haven.

A–Z of DOC NYC 2024 reviews →

Features

• Looking at photographers
  James Hamilton on August Sander, Jacques-Henri Lartigue, Richard Avedon and Uncropped
• Mother nature
  Silje Evensmo Jacobsen on trust, complexity and A New Kind Of Wilderness
• A unified vision
  DOC NYC highlights and cinematographer Michael Crommett on Dan Winters: Life Is Once. Forever.
• 'Help does not have borders'
  Lidia Duda on the challenges of making refugee crisis documentary Forest
• 'It was basically like walking a tightrope'
  Peter Murimi and Daphne Matziaraki on striking a balance in The Battle For Laikipia
• Child's-eye view of a warzone
  Sareen Hairabedian on shooting her coming-of-age documentary My Sweet Land in the shadow of conflict
• Ghosts in the machine
  Hans Block and Moritz Riesewieck on exploring AI 'life after death' in Eternal You