The 13th annual Hamptons Doc Fest will take place online this year. The festival has been extended from five to 10 days, and includes a slate of 35 documentaries running December 4 to 13.
“We had hoped this year to welcome doc fans in person in December to an expanded Hamptons Doc Fest program at multiple cinemas, but, as with everything in 2020, we are innovating,” said Jacqui Lofaro, founder and executive director of the festival.
The opening night film will be “MLK/FBI,” by award-winning director Sam Pollard on Friday, December 4, at 7 PM. This film, based on newly-discovered and declassified files, is the first to uncover the extent of the FBI’s surveillance of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and other Black activists during the civil rights movement. After the film, there will be a Q&A with Pollard and Variety’s film awards editor Clayton Davis.
“Our lineup is vibrant and diverse, and we hope you will find it as entertaining and enlightening as we do, as it covers a wide range of topics including history, politics, biography, social justice, life challenges, the environment, and art, music and dance,” Lofaro continued.
A few of the films on the schedule include “A Crime on the Bayou,” directed Nancy Buirski, about young black teenager Gary Duncan who bravely challenges a powerful white supremacist in Louisiana in the 1960’s. “Barney’s Wall: Portrait of a Game Changer,” directed by Sandy Gotham Meehan and Williams Cole, probes the lasting political and cultural impact of Grove Press publisher and political activist Barney Rosset.
Filmmaker Frederick Wiseman is this year’s recipient of the Pennebaker Career Achievement Award. The award is in honor of D.A. Pennebaker, a longtime Sag Harbor resident and documentary filmmaker who passed away in August 2019. Wiseman’s 43rd film, “City Hall,” will be screened at the festival. The award, sponsored by Lana Jokel, will be presented online by Lofaro, with a pre-recorded acceptance speech. Josh Siegel, curator of the Department of Film at MOMA, will present a short career overview of Wiseman’s work.
The film “Fish and Men,” which exposes the high cost of inexpensive fish in the global seafood economy, and the forces threatening local fishing communities and public health, will receive The Andrew Sabin Family Foundation Environmental Award, presented by Sam Sabin. Co-directors Darby Duffin and Adam Jones will engage in a Q&A with Bonnie Brady of Montauk, executive director of the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association.
The Art and Inspiration Award, sponsored by the The Tee & Charles Addams Foundation, will be presented to the film “United We Sing,” about a choral group from the University of Rochester that travels to Africa to sing with and then closely bonds with a group of AIDS orphans in rural Kenya. The award will be presented by the foundation’s director Kevin Miserocchi. The film will be followed by a Q&A moderated by Michael Lawrence, Director of the Bridgehampton Chamber Music Society with the film’s director Dan Petracca and executive producers Aaron Sperber and Ross Pedersen.
“Through the Night,” a documentary that explores the personal cost of our modern economy through the stories of two working mothers and a childcare provider, whose lives intersect at a 24-hour daycare center, will receive the Robin L. Long Human Rights Award, presented by Long, and will be accompanied by a Q&A with director Loira Limbal, hosted by HDF Advisory Board member Susan Margolin.
Festival passes are available for $125 and individual film tickets are $12. Visit www.hamptonsdocfest.com for a full schedule and to buy tickets.