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DOC NYC Announces Their Influential 2024 Short List Lineup

DOC NYC 2024 Short List Lineup Announcement

DOC NYC, the world’s largest documentary film festival, has announced the lineup for its influential, distinguished Short List section for its 15th edition. This section features 15 titles that are the top documentary contenders, and is known to overlap with the Academy’s own 15-film shortlist. Many of its past films have gone on to win the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. Among them are 20 Days In Mariupol, Navalny, Summer of Soul, American Factory, Free Solo, Amy, Citizenfour, and more. This lineup shines a bigger light on this year’s diverse documentaries that have captured hearts, stunned viewers, and informed audiences through each of the filmmakers’ unique, unflinching visions.

Curating this year’s Short List section is DOC NYC Artistic Director Jaie Laplante, with Director of Special Projects Thom Powers contributing. Among the list of films is four Netflix documentaries: Daughters, Mountain Queen: The Summits of Lhakpa Sherpa, The Remarkable Life of Ibelin, and Will & Harper. Also featured are three documentaries that have yet to be picked up by a distributor: Alexis Bloom’s explosive Benjamin Netanyahu doc The Bibi Files (making its world premiere); the powerful No Other Land – directed by a Palestinian/Israeli collective; and Brett Story & Stephen Maing’s Union which follows the triumphant rise of the Amazon Labor Union.

Check out the lineup for DOC NYC’s Short List features section below:

The Bibi Files (World Premiere)

Director: Alexis Bloom

Producers: Alexis Bloom, Alex Gibney, Raviv Drucker, Kara Elverson, David Rahtz

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu went to court trying to block this film that reveals leaked video of his testimonies on corruption charges.

Black Box Diaries

Director: Shiori Ito

Producers: Shiori Ito, Hanna Aqvilin, Eric Nyari

A journalist upends Japan’s entrenched codes of silence when she brings sexual assault charges against a well-connected member of the Japanese media elite. (MTV Documentary Films)

Dahomey

Director: Mati Diop

Producers: Mati Diop, Judith Lou Lévy, Eve Robin

The restitution of priceless artifacts, looted by the French, to their origins in Benin provides an occasion for momentous impact and debate. (MUBI)

Daughters

Directors: Natalie Rae, Angela Patton

Producers: Lisa Mazzotta, Natalie Rae, Justin Benoliel, James Cunningham, Mindy Goldberg, Sam Bisbee, Kathryn Everett, Laura Choi Raycroft

Young girls whose fathers are incarcerated join in a one-day dad/daughter dance inside prison, with deep emotional consequences on each side. (Netflix)

Ernest Cole: Lost and Found (NYC Premiere)

Director: Raoul Peck

Producers: Tamara Rosenberg, Raoul Peck

In this rousing, elegant documentary, Raoul Peck examines the life and works of a seminal artist of the 20th century, South African photographer Ernest Cole. (Magnolia Pictures)

Frida

Director: Carla Gutiérrez

Producers: Katia Maguire, Sara Bernstein, Justin Wilkes, Loren Hammonds, Alexandra Johnes

Mixing lyrical animation of her influential works and expressive voice-over, Frida is a definitive film about the iconic twentieth-century Mexican artist Frida Kahlo. (Amazon/MGM Studios)

Mountain Queen: The Summits of Lhakpa Sherpa

Director: Lucy Walker

Producers: Charlie Corwin, Michael D. Ratner, Miranda Sherman, Dalia Burde, Christopher Newman

Lhakpa Sherpa is the first Nepali woman to summit and descend Mount Everest, but how she navigates her life as a single mother and immigrant is an even more heroic tale. (Netflix)

No Other Land

Directors: Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor

Producers: Fabien Greenberg, Bård Kjøge Rønning

One of the most urgent films of the year and winner of multiple festival prizes, “No Other Land” offers an essential and unflinching look at Palestinian life under Israeli military occupation.

Porcelain War

Directors: Brendan Bellomo, Slava Leontyev

Producers: Aniela Sidorska, Paula DuPré Pesmen, Camilla Mazzaferro, Olivia Ahnemann

Three Ukrainian artists pick up arms when Russia invades their country, but refuse to put down their drive to create. (Picturehouse)

The Remarkable Life of Ibelin

Director: Benjamin Ree

Producer: Ingvil Giske

Inside a sophisticated online game, a young man suffering from a degenerative muscular disease creates a world where he can live, love, strive, and hope, to the greatest extent his soul can muster. (Netflix)

Queendom

Director/Producer: Agniia Galdanova

Producer: Igor Myakotin

A genderqueer Russian artist/activist faces harassment and hostility in Putin’s Russia, but it is the universal ache of being cut off from one’s roots that proves to be her greatest existential threat. (Greenwich Entertainment)

Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat

Director: Johan Grimonprez

Producer: Rémi Grellety, Daan Milius

In a magnificent essay film, Johan Grimonprez explores the historical rollercoaster of Congo after its independence from colonial control, told through accounts from spies, mercenaries, and jazz icons. (Kino Lorber)

Sugarcane

Directors: Julian Brave NoiseCat, Emily Kassie

Producers: Emily Kassie, Kellen Quinn

An investigation into the history of abuse and missing Indigenous children at a Canadian residential school ignites a present-day reckoning on the nearby Sugarcane Reserve. (National Geographic Documentary Films)

Union

Director: Brett Story, Stephen Maing

Producers: Brett Story, Stephen Maing, Samantha Curley, Mars Verrone, Martin Dicicco

Against incredible odds and immense opposition, current and former Amazon workers form a labor union and petition the corporate behemoth for more dignified treatment of warehouse workers.

Will & Harper

Director: Josh Greenbaum

Producers: Rafael Marmor, Will Ferrell, Jessica Elbaum, Josh Greenbaum, Christopher Leggett

Former Saturday Night Live writer Harper Steele comes out as a woman and takes a road trip across the United States with her old friend Will Ferrell to explore transgender experience. (Netflix)

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M.J. O'Toole began writing for HtN in early 2021 during the Sundance Film Festival. An NYC native and lifelong cinephile, his favorite films include Chungking Express, The Three Colors Trilogy, Hiroshima Mon Amour, Lovers on the Bridge, and Midnight Cowboy. He is the Digital Marketing Manager for the agency 3rd Impression - working alongside Editor-at-large Matt Delman - that specializes in digital marketing for independent film. He holds a BA from Adelphi University and a Masters in Digital Photography from the School of Visual Arts. You can check out his portrait and street photography on Instagram.

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