Secure in its June slot, and without the gravitational balance of the Tribeca Film Institute’s artist support and funding programs, Tribeca Festival’s traditional coziness with corporate sponsors has proliferated in recent years (and surely must also be pandemic-related). The film selections mostly reflect this unfortunate industry-wide trend. But between the celebrity- and music-driven biodocs that stuff Tribeca’s lineup, the festival also boasts stateside premieres of hotly anticipated creative documentaries, exciting debuts from independent filmmakers, and one of the best-curated film festival immersive sections in the world. For this recommendations list, we pulled together a mix of nonfiction projects that we’re anticipating will become the festival’s discoveries.
Festivals
A chance conversation with a friend in London about how we missed attending documentary film festivals resulted—some weeks and intensive planning
In 1993, Chuck Schultz received a call from an actress named Sharon Washington, who had been told by a friend that he could help her tell the story of
First Look, the Museum of the Moving Image’s (MoMI) film festival, annually introduces New York audiences to new cinematic talent and audacious
A caption in Alison O’Daniel’s film The Tuba Thieves (2023) refers to “quiet air”—a description of sound but also of sensation and (shared) substance
During the height of the pandemic, I participated in SXSW virtually, which meant watching films online from my living room couch, which didn’t invite the same emotions I felt at festivals in person. Thankfully, I was able to go to Austin for the first time this March, and I hit the ground running. It was an experience full of remarkable films, brilliant filmmakers, delicious barbeque, and confident networking.
Responding to the “permacrisis”—a 2022 “word of the year” meaning “an extended period of instability and insecurity” and the title for one of the talks at this year’s CPH:DOX film festival and conference in Copenhagen—was a prevailing theme at this season’s March event.
Nowhere is the commercialization of the nonfiction field seemingly more apparent than at the Sundance Film Festival. With entertaining documentaries
My main takeaway from last year’s DOC NYC was the festival community’s growing discontent with the status quo of the industry. At 2021 Pro Panels
IDFA, the largest documentary film festival in the world, sprawls throughout Amsterdam in mid-November. It’s also an industry mecca, where you might