The largest and probably most prestigious North American documentary film festival was held from November 8-15 in New York City featuring 135 feature-length documentaries, including 42 world premieres, in its program of 312 films. They covered a broad thematic range in 21 sections that included local, regional and global issues, with a strong focus on problems faced by contemporary societies. 2,000 films were submitted to the festival and hundreds more documentaries were screened for possible inclusion at other festivals.  Though statistical data are difficult to secure there has been a rapid expansion of documentary productions over the last few years, facilitated by a multitude of streaming platforms allowing all formats and approaches.  If you add the 6500 long and short firm documentaries which were part of the 14,259 submissions to the 2019 Sundance festival to the more than 2,000 films submitted to DOC NYC 2018, the figure approaches more than 7500 recently produced documentary films. This rapid growth is reflected at DOC NYC, which featured 237 productions in 2017 but 312 in 2018.  What still remains to be shown is how many documentaries shown at the major festivals actually reach through streaming services, television and other platforms a larger audience  DOC NYC’s 2018 program offered numerous events and extraordinary learning opportunities for an audience which grew by 10% compared to 2017 thanks to its film selections and the participation of over 500 filmmakers and special guest in. Many films had sold out screenings, including AFTERWARD, DECADE OF FIRE, JAY MYSELF, AMAZING GRACE.  An eight day series with full day sessions of 60 industry panels and workshops were co-presented with Amazon Studios.

The program included five new themed sections. The Series Showcase offered world premieres of new episodic series’ such as ShowTime’s production focusing on the conflictual relation between the White House and the FBI.  Photography on Film centered on productions with still photography as the guiding topic and replaced the Art & Design section. In Portraits shared distinct profiles of individuals ranging from the female commander of an all women Kurdish battalion to Leila, a woman running a detox clinic for addicts in Kabul. In the System provided critical analysis of institutions failing the public such as housing policies that have aggravated race and class conflicts and the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy. True Love replaced the True Crime section, including films on the multi-billion dollar wedding industry in China and the attachment of lonely men to life-size synthetic plastic dolls.

In the feature competition sections, Viewfinders selected nine productions with distinct directorial visions and Metropolis chose seven films with New York City themes. As in past DOC NYC editions, the Short List showcased 15 documentary features from 2018 considered for awards. A new addition to Short List this year was the showcasing of 12 of 2018’s best leading shorts. Other returning sections covered American and International Perspectives, performing arts, sports, science and technology, wild life, unconventional modern families, activism, film making music, and classical nonfiction docs.

The yearly changes in the festival’s thematic programming come as a result of the content of productions viewed by the festival’s programming team. There is no a priori fixed idea of what the festival’s content should be.  As in previous years, the adjusted broad range of themes and issues covered by the 2018 selections certainly satisfied the needs of a festival audience. Queried about possible shifts in the design and format of the selected productions, Basil Tsiokos, the festival’s Director of Programming shared the belief that the, “…lineup reflects a wide range of storytelling approaches including some nontraditional work like THE ANCIENT WOODS, or work that employs hybrid techniques like I’M LEAVING NOW. As a whole this does not represent a radical shift to our programming”.  With respect to controversial titles in the program, Tsiokos noted that an entire program section, Fight the Power was devoted to activist films that focused on contentious issues.

Just a few short years ago, The Wall Street Journal labeled the festival as one of the city’s grandest film events years. This still rings true but in the ensuing years DOC NYC has also become one of the most important events for reflection, clarification and learning.

THE BIGGEST LITTLE FARM by John Chester was produced in 2018 and opened the festival. It is the rare documentary about environmental problems that manages to be uplifting. Filmed over a period of eight years, it showed how a group of individuals found a way to create a harmonious existence with nature while reviving a desolate piece of land and transforming it into a fully functioning farm. Without any agricultural training, the filmmaker John, and his wife Molly, a culinary writer, leave their former home in polluted Los Angeles and settled in a desolate and arid area north of L.A. With the help of consultant Alan York they started a bio-diverse back-to- nature venture. They eschewed the use of chemicals and aimed to create a self-regulating ecological system. It took more than eight years before their Apricot Lane Farms project was fully realized. In their passage to success the Chesters overcome the obstacles posed by nature such as animals raiding their chicken coops, swarms of birds devouring their peaches normally sold in the local farmers market, and invasions by hostile insects. They refused to use chemicals and worked with nature rather than attacking it. Recording their work and the development of the farm carefully, the Chesters generate valuable lessons for similar ventures. Imaginative use of the camera and drones as well as old videos and illustrations make the documentary readily accessible and plausible. Their work is solutions-centered and their farm has become a show piece for increasingly large number of visitors who come to learn about the positive impact individual commitments and fortitude can have on our environment. The production feels plausible, but it would have been helpful if more information on the financing used to create and sustain their farm had been shared.

THE BIGGEST LITTLE FARM may have offered an upbeat perspective about healing a devastated farmland, but DECADE OF FIRE: THE SOUTH BRONX IS BURNING by Vivian Vazquez and Gretchen Hildebrand provides a rigorous well documented analysis of the reasons why most of the Bronx was burned down in the 1970’s and how a well-functioning closely knit multi-ethnic community was destroyed. It also demonstrates recent attempts by former and current residents of the area to reconstruct some of the neighborhoods. Contrary to the widely held view that the people who lived in the Bronx were responsible for the rampant fires through neglect of their households, Vazquez and Hildebrand show the true culprits of the destruction. They do this rather convincingly through their large research effort, collection and analysis of diverse records, and interviews with residents who survived the destruction. Their research found responsibility being held by virtually all city agencies with oversight of the area. If the Bronx had a mostly white demographic profile during that period rather than a mixed Afro-American and Latino one the Bronx it is highly doubtful it would have been left to burn. When buildings and blocks were burning, the fire department did not intervene effectively nor did the police department protect the residents or investigate intentional arson. The financial crisis of 1970’s New York City provided a convenient excuse for the reduction of services in poverty stricken areas such as the Bronx which included downsizing police and fire departments in the Bronx. Real estate interests encouraged arson and young children were often paid by landlords to torch building so that insurance money could be collected. Only a few dozen individuals were convicted for their crimes.  Presentation of the filmmakers’ research gained a human face through the recollections of the displaced residents and their offspring sharing their experiences of the destruction.  City officials and managers responsible for dislocating more than half a million people from their homes were never prosecuted for their part in this sordid affair.

Havana Marking and Sam Hobkinson directed THE KLEPTOCRATS, a documentary that celebrates the investigative journalism of reporters from the New York Times, the Wall Street and the Hollywood Reporter. KLEPTOCRATS delivers a significant public service by demonstrating how more than 3 billion dollars were stolen from the 1 Malaysia Development Berhad fund known as 1MDB. The film world premiered at DOC NYC. It convincingly shows how senior banking officials from Goldman Sachs, law firms selling litigation communication, Hollywood interest, prominent members of the US media, and members of groups close to the now imprisoned former Malaysian prime minister Datuk Razah, benefited from looting the 1MDB fund which was set up in 2009 to help the long-term economic growth of Malaysia’s 32 million people. Officials of 1MDB laundered $4.5 billion through shell companies to accounts in other countries. US federal authorities spent two years investigating how the fugitive kingpin Jho Low used massive fraud to fund lavish lifestyles, acquire of luxury apartments in Manhattan, secure funds for the production of THE WOLF OF WALL STREET, and generated 600 million USD for Goldman Sachs through the sales of $6 billion in bonds.  Two other DiCaprio films were also co-funded through 1MDB money. Prominent luminaries of the Hollywood elite like Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio enjoyed the financial largess bestowed by Jho Low through parties and gifts. The producers of THE WOLF OF WALL STREET were forced to return $76 million to federal authorities and DiCaprio had to surrender a $3 million Picasso painting given to him by an associate of Jho Low.  He also received a $9.2 million collage by Basquiat from Low.  DiCaprio’s involvements with Jho Low are still being investigated. The US is trying to recuperate $1.7 billion of stolen 1MDB assets and has secured an indictment of Jho Low for money laundering as well as the bribery of foreign officials. After pleading guilty, a former Goldman banker told his judge that his actions in the Goldman Sachs bond deals reflected that bank’s business practices.

As former US attorney General Jeff Sessions stated, the scandal of defrauding 1MDB is kleptocracy at its worst. He could have added that American banks and media figures facilitated Jho Low’s crimes and reflect the pursuit of wealth with disregard to all other considerations. This mirrors the actions of our leaders and their appointees. KLEPTOCRACY is a superb film that demonstrates the important work of investigative journalism. Through the painstakingly patient work of journalists KLEPTOCRACY reconstructs of the flow of information and money of the 1MDB fraud thanks in part to interviews with opposition politicians in Malaysia and frequently persecuted student activists protesting the abuse of financial power, and gives insight into the dire need for better social and educational infrastructure in Malaysia. The contrast between images of wild US parties and encounters between Jho Low and his associates and the adoring social media elite and the life of Malaysia peoples is amazing. I wonder what DiCaprio thought when given an expensive Picasso and Basquiat or when his gambling in Las Vegas were covered by Jho Low.

THE LAST RESORT is a compelling 2018 documentary by Dennis Scholl and Kareem Tabsch. The film presents the photographic work of Andy Sweet and Gary Monroe and includes backstories about their lives. It is a persuasive study of the Jewish community in Florida’s South Beach. With background documentation and superb use of the extensive visual records of the Jewish community taken during the seventies by Sweet and Monroe in color and black and white respectively, THE LAST RESORT provides fascinating personalized insights into the rise and demise of the traditional Jewish community in Miami Beach; from its infancy in South Beach to the fragmented and dispersed Jewish groups in Miami Beach today.

Until the end of the Spanish rule in the late 18th century no Jews were allowed to settle in Florida. When they began arriving there in the 1900s Jews faced systemic discrimination. Landlords and business owners posted “Gentiles Only”, “Always a View, Never A Jew” or “Restricted Clientele” signs on their properties as reported by Uriel Heilman. There were also residential restrictions. No Jews were allowed to live beyond 5th Street in Miami Beach. Laws outlawing discrimination and formally reducing overt antisemitism were not passed until 1949, a period when Miami Beach was but a small town, though it had already started attracting working class Jews to retire there. From that period through the early seventies there were many small hotels and inexpensive apartments which attracted Jews escaping from war torn Europe, including many Holocaust survivors that bonded though their shared experiences and a sense of Zionism. Mostly in their late sixties and early seventies, they provided the focus for Sweet and Monroe’s work. The 1970’s were the golden age for the Jewish community in Miami.  There are few images from that colorful period that reflect sadness or despair. At the end of the seventies, a different scene emerged, hotels were falling apart, growing isolation set in,  make shift prayer rooms did not have enough men for the minion, and sad faces became more common. With the Mariel boat lift Cuban refugees settled in South Beach accompanied by a rapid increase in crime and the drug trade with the FBI reporting the highest murder rate in the nation in Miami. In 1982 Andy Sweet was murdered, allegedly for being involved in a drug deal. Gary Monroe continued his photographic work but also recuperated and digitally restored Sweet’s images. Since 2016 several well-received exhibition have honored the achievements of Andy Sweet.

 What impressed me most about THE LAST RESORT were the superb images of the members of the closely-knit Jewish community in their everyday life and festivities in the seventies. They come to life in their portraits because Andy Sweet demonstrates a spontaneous but compelling maturity. He showcases a paradise lost to the drug wars and gentrification.

The 2018 edition of DOC NYC demonstrated the superb curatorial choices of the festival programmers and provided a superb selection of documentary films with comprehensive briefings about production and distribution themes. DOC NYC 2018 reinforced its importance to the documentary business.

Claus Mueller    filmexchange@gmail.com