To be sure, a major hurricane rolling in just as you are preparing to open a film festival is the last thing anyone needs. DOC NYC  had just started press screenings when its main venue, IFC Film Center, along with the rest of lower Manhattan, was plunged into darkness for a week by Superstorm Sandy and its floodwaters. Somehow, despite the general chaos, the DOC NYC team managed to pull things together and open the festival on November 8, as scheduled.

The opening film, Maiken Baird and Michelle Major's Venus and Serena, was just the right kind of  story-true grit in the face of hardship. Following tennis superstars Venus and Serena Williams over a year in which each sister faced major health crises, the film tracks their months of physical therapy and training, and their return to the courts. The sisters granted Baird and Major unprecedented access to shoot in their homes, hotels and even hospital rooms, resulting in an intimate, behind-the-scenes profile that contrasts sharply with the enormous amount of media coverage the the sisters receive.

Now in its third year, DOC NYC seems to have hit its stride, with a considerably larger program encompassing a varied lineup of films. The 2010 edition was concentrated on several films of such masters as Werner Herzog and Erroll Morris. The 2011 festival expanded from a curated format to open admissions, and doubled the number of films as well as panels. A thematic section, "NY Stories," now "Metropolis," was added, and this year DOC NYC introduced a section on music films called "Sonic Cinema," along with a section on "Photography on Film."

It is always a pleasure to happen upon small, under-the-radar films, such as Treva Wurmfield's Shepard and Dark, a road trip featuring playwright Sam Shepard and his lifelong friend, writer Jonny Dark. Another discovery was Kristy Guevara-Flanagan's Wonder Women! The Untold Story of American Superheroines . The film traces the evolution and legacy of Wonder Woman from the 1940s to the present, along with her sister heroines like Bionic Woman and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Filled with clips from comic books and TV, and intercut with  interviews about how these images developed and changed, the film charts the often surprising course of the representation of women in popular culture over 70 years. One of the most interesting sections revealed how Wonder Woman's powers were drastically reduced after World War II, when American women had to go back to domestic tasks after working in the factories throughout the war.

Among the more hard-core social issue films was The Central Park Five, by Ken Burns, Sarah Burns and David McMahon, a scathing exposé of the case of five young black and Latino men who were convicted for a 1989 rape and beating of a woman in Central Park. In 2002, a New York State Supreme Court judge was presented with a confession and DNA evidence from a murderer and serial rapist, Matias Reyes, which resulted in overturning the convictions after these men had spent many years in prison.

Deconstructing the events with a relentless eye, the film tells a breathtaking story of incompetence by the cops, investigators and legal personnel involved in the trial and conviction. An important part of the film is its contextualization of the New York City of the 1980s as a battlefield, plagued by crime and reeling from the decimating shocks of a bad economy, AIDS, crack and racial tension. In 2003, following their release, the men filed a lawsuit against the City of New York, as well as the prosecutors and police who aided in the men's conviction; the lawsuit remains unresolved. One of the most striking aspects of the film is the section in which we see the Central Park Five literally harassed into confessions after many hours under interrogation. It is all the more poignant when years later we hear the testimony of these young men and their families, speaking quietly without apparent rancor, about the ways in which their youth was stolen and their lives were forever upended.

Sweet Dreams, by Rob and Lisa Fruchtman, takes us to post-genocide Ruanda, where an exciting all-women drumming circle has been organized by pioneering Rwandan theater director Kiki Katese, in a culture that never had women drummers. With members from all the groups previously at war with each other, Katese envisions the drumming troupe as a means to bring healing to the women, and she also wants to help them develop economic autonomy. Having decided that they should open an ice cream shop in their village, the women collaborate with the American owners of Blue Marble ice cream, Jenny Dundas and Alexis Miese, in a partnership.

We hear the terrible stories of what the Rwandan women have endured, and how hard they work at reconciliation with their terrible history. And yet an upbeat and often quite amusing tone pervades the film. Wonderful scenes of the women in amazing colorful traditional dress drumming at village events convey the sense of joy for them and their audiences. And while the story of creating the ice cream shop is full of mishaps that come with undertaking such a venture in a poor country with limited infrastructure, the audience is treated to a very happy and delicious ending.

DOC NYC also presented five days of panels and discussions under the rubric "DOC A THON."  I was pleasantly surprised to hear a very concrete and interesting discussion with filmmakers Meg McLagan and Daria Sommers (Lioness) and Nancy Schwartzman (The Line), both full of useful details on  how they designed their respective outreach strategies. Among the notable accomplishments of Lioness, about female combat veterans, has been its integration into the national veterans and Department of Defense healthcare infrastructures as a training tool for VA and military healthcare personnel. (The Fledgling Fund's website includes an excellent case study of the film's outreach campaign). For her part, Schwartzman, whose The Line addresses sexual assault, the issue of consent and the burden of blame, made adventurous use of social media to create educational and interactive programming that fosters dialogue about sexual boundaries and consent, so young men and women can discuss complex scenarios about healthy relationships and sex.

The panel on distribution was also invaluable, with participants from New Video, SnagFilm, FilmBuff and others focusing on monetizing distribution so that both filmmakers and distributors can see some decent returns--no easy process.

And despite having ticket sales halted for close to a week due to Superstorm Sandy, DOC NYC 2012 saw a 20 percent increase in audience attendance over last year, with dozens of shows selling out.

Wanda Bershen is a consultant on fundraising, festivals and distribution. Documentary clients have included Sonia, Power Trip, Afghan Women, Trembling Before G*D, Blacks & Jews. She has organized programs with the Human Rights Film Festival, Brooklyn Museum and Film Society of Lincoln Center and currently teaches arts management at CUNY Baruch. Visit www.reddiaper.com.