Documentaries

Studio 54 will forever be embraced as one of the premiere dance clubs the world has ever encountered. Opened during the height of the disco era, the iconic club was more than just music.

After his internationally acclaimed documentary To Be and to Have (2002), French director Nicolas Philibert returns to the cinema news headlines with On the Adamant. This movie is a captivating exploration of the human condition, that delves into the lives of individuals with intellectual disability who meet daily in a floating day-care center on the Seine in Paris.

Nonfiction filmmaking has the capacity to open up all manner of wonderful avenues, taking viewers to new worlds by exploring under-told stories and shining a light on under-represented communities. Still, while the genre’s commercial footprint has undeniably expanded with the proliferation of streaming services, its narrative adventurousness has largely receded.

Julie Cohen is a highly acclaimed documentary filmmaker known for her impactful work. From exploring social issues to shedding light on untold stories, Cohen's films have brought attention to important topics and sparked conversations that have resonated and inspired viewers.

Micheal Rice started his career in theater and dance, but more recently the versatile artist has found a new creative outlet and spiritual calling as a documentary filmmaker highlighting stories of the LGBTQIA+ communities of color. His latest feature doc, Black as U R, is a powerful take on the intersection of being both Black and queer in America.

Sometimes, the apple does fall far from the tree. Tommy Tedesco, one of the most prominent and prolific studio session musicians ever, was named by Guitar Player magazine as the most recorded guitarist in history.

Zeberiah Newman, born in the Catskill Mountains, New York, has worked for more than a decade as a supervising producer on The Late Late Show with James Corden and The Ellen DeGeneres Show. In 2021, he got his feet wet as a documentary filmmaker with the short doc Right to Try, which examines the issues around trying to find a cure for HIV through the intimate lens of a long-term survivor.

The award-winning documentary Here. Is.

Two newly released documentaries, each rooted in home video footage from the early 2000s, illustrate the manner in which personally documented memories can be used in a foundational way to craft nonfiction films that plumb universally relatable themes. While their specific narratives diverge, Anonymous Sister and Sam Now each unpack incredibly engaging and affecting stories of family trauma — and the scars that can develop from secrets closely held, and conversations not had.

The documentary feature, Freedom is Beautiful, focuses on two remarkable Kurdish Iranian asylum seekers who are musicians, artists, poets and close friends. Farhad Bandesh and Mostafa ‘Moz’ Azimitibar were also freed within a month of each other, in 2020, after each having spent eight years locked up in brutal refugee camps on Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island and a Melbourne detention center run by the Australian Government.