Sundance 2017: US Documentary Competition

Casting JonBenet - the unsolved death of six-year-old American beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey remains the world’s most sensational child murder case. Over 15 months, responses, reflections and performances were elicited from the Ramsey’s Colorado hometown community, creating a bold work of art from the collective memories and mythologies the crime inspired.

Chasing Coral

City of Ghosts - with unprecedented access, this documentary follows the extraordinary journey of "Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently" — a group of anonymous citizen journalists who banded together after their homeland was overtaken by ISIS — as they risk their lives to stand up against one of the greatest evils in the world today.

Dina - An eccentric suburban woman and a Walmart door-greeter navigate their evolving relationship in this unconventional love story.

Dolores- Dolores Huerta bucks 1950s gender conventions by co-founding the country’s first farmworkers' union. Wrestling with raising 11 children, gender bias, union defeat and victory, and nearly dying after a San Francisco Police beating, Dolores emerges with a vision that connects her newfound feminism with racial and class justice.

The Force - this cinema verité look at the long-troubled Oakland Police Department goes deep inside their struggles to confront federal demands for reform, a popular uprising following events in Ferguson and an explosive scandal.

Icarus - when Bryan Fogel sets out to uncover the truth about doping in sports, a chance meeting with a Russian scientist transforms his story from a personal experiment into a geopolitical thriller involving dirty urine, unexplained death and Olympic Gold — exposing the biggest scandal in sports history.

Uncompromising millennial radicals from the United States and the United Kingdom attack the system through dangerous technological means, which evolves into a high-stakes game with world authorities in the midst of a dramatically changing political landscape.

NOBODY SPEAK: Hulk Hogan, Gawker and Trials of a Free Press - The trial between Hulk Hogan and Gawker Media pitted privacy rights against freedom of the press and raised important questions about how big money can silence media. This film is an examination of the perils and duties of the free press in an age of inequality.

Step - the senior year of a girls’ high school step team in inner-city Baltimore is documented, as they try to become the first in their families to attend college. The girls strive to make their dancing a success against the backdrop of social unrest in their troubled city.

Quest - For more than a decade, this portrait of a North Philadelphia family and the creative sanctuary offered by their home music studio was filmed with vérité intimacy. The family's 10-year journey is an illumination of race and class in America, and it's a testament to love, healing and hope.

Strong Island - Examining the violent death of the filmmaker’s brother and the judicial system that allowed his killer to go free, this documentary interrogates murderous fear and racialised perception, and re-imagines the wreckage in catastrophe’s wake, challenging us to change.

Trophy - this in-depth look into the powerhouse industries of big-game hunting, breeding and wildlife conservation in the US and Africa unravels the complex consequences of treating animals as commodities.

Unrest - When Harvard PhD student Jennifer Brea is struck down at 28 by a fever that leaves her bedridden, doctors tell her it’s "all in her head". Determined to live, she sets out on a virtual journey to document her story — and four other families' stories — fighting a disease medicine forgot.

Water And Power: A California Heist - in California's convoluted water system, notorious water barons find ways to structure a state-engineered system to their own advantage. This examination into their centers of power shows small farmers and everyday citizens facing drought and a new, debilitating groundwater crisis.

Whose Streets? - A nonfiction account of the Ferguson uprising told by the people who lived it, this is an unflinching look at how the killing of 18-year-old Michael Brown inspired a community to fight back — and sparked a global movement.