Year's Top Nonfiction Selections Take Us From Chicago to Ukraine, Brazilian Amazon, and Inside Volcanoes May 19 - 22, 2022
CHICAGO, Illinois – CMP today announced the full slate of films being showcased at the 7th Doc10 Documentary Film Festival May 19 - 22, 2022. This year’s festival is presented in person at two Chicago venues, the Davis Theater and the Gene Siskel Film Center, and in addition to its customary ten documentary features, this year’s edition will also screen ten documentary short films.
“Doc10 strives to bring new ideas and compelling stories to audiences every year,” said Doc10 founders Paula Froehle and Steve Cohen. “This year’s slate of films continues our tradition of giving a platform to important, timely, and well-crafted documentaries, and expands on that mission with our first-ever documentary shorts program.”
“From passionate French volcano-hunters to Amazonian tribespeople fighting for their land to Ukrainian children yearning for a home, this year’s films are an extraordinarily moving, captivating, and eclectic mix, representing the very best examples of the nonfiction form,” said Doc10 Senior Programmer Anthony Kaufman.
Mere weeks before an expected Supreme Court decision that could severely curtail abortion rights across the country, Doc10 presents opening night’s THE JANES from directors Tia Lessin and Emma Pildes, an inspiring account of the Chicago-based Jane Collective, the underground network that helped women access safe and affordable care in a pre-Roe America.
Doc10 closes with Oscar-winning director Ron Howard’s WE FEED PEOPLE, which spotlights renowned chef José Andrés and his nonprofit World Central Kitchen’s incredible mission and evolution over 12 years, from being a scrappy group of grassroots volunteers to becoming one of the most highly regarded humanitarian aid organizations in the disaster relief sector.
This year’s selections are sure to engage audiences, including rousing stories of Chicago parents and students fighting City Hall to keep their beloved elementary school open in Kevin Shaw’s LET THE LITTLE LIGHT SHINE; eccentric French scientists chasing active volcanoes in Sara Dosa’s crowd-pleasing and gorgeously cinematic FIRE OF LOVE; and the myths and machinations of the multi-billion-dollar diamond industry in the sparkling and witty new film NOTHING LASTS FOREVER from Doc10 alumnus Jason Kohn.
The 2022 edition of Doc10 began with a special April 9 preview of NAVALNY, the riveting chronicle of the attempted assassination of Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny and its aftermath, with a post-screening panel discussion featuring director Daniel Roher, producer Odessa Rae, and Russian investigative journalist Maria Pevchikh, head of the investigative unit of Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK).
The full slate of films featured in Doc10 2022 includes:
DESCENDANT (Dir. Margaret Brown; Netflix)
FIRE OF LOVE (Dir. Sara Dosa; National Geographic Documentary Films)
A HOUSE MADE OF SPLINTERS (Dir. Simon Lereng Wilmont)
THE JANES (Dirs. Tia Lessin, Emma Pildes; HBO Documentary Films)
LET THE LITTLE LIGHT SHINE (Dir. Kevin Shaw; POV)
NAVALNY (Dir. Daniel Roher; CNN Films)
NOTHING LASTS FOREVER (Dir. Jason Kohn; Showtime Documentary Films)
RIOTSVILLE, USA (Dir. Sierra Pettengill, Field of Vision)
THE TERRITORY (Dir. Alex Pritz; National Geographic Documentary Films)
WE FEED PEOPLE (Dir. Ron Howard; National Geographic Documentary Films)
Doc10, presented by CMP, runs May 19 - 22, 2022 at the Davis Theater (4614 N. Lincoln Ave.) and the Gene Siskel Film Center (164 N. State St.). Tickets are $16 each, discounted to $12 for students, seniors, and active military. Doc10 offers a Date Night package of two tickets for $30 and a 6-ticket package for $85. Programming schedule and tickets are available online at www.doc10.org.
ABOUT THE FILMS (in alphabetical order by title): DESCENDANT Director: Margaret Brown Producers: Kyle Martin, Essie Chambers, Margaret Brown 108 min, US, 2022 In Africatown, Alabama, the truth has been suppressed for over a century. The neighborhood’s residents, who are descendants of the last known and illegal slave ship, the Clotilda, have long sought physical evidence of the sunken vessel as validation of a history that many have tried to bury. In this urgent, captivating film, award-winning director winning Margaret Brown (The Order of Myths, The Great Invisible) charts the discovery of the Clotilda and its impact, all the while exposing the legacy of slavery and oppression, the long search for justice, and one close-knit community’s uplifting fight to take command of their own story. Winner of a Creative Vision Award at Sundance, Descendant is a powerful testament to memory, family, and the racial reckoning continuing to roil America.
FIRE OF LOVE Director: Sara Dosa Producers: Shane Boris, Sara Dosa, Ina Fichman 93 min, US/Canada, 2022 Fire of Love tells the extraordinary story of Katia and Maurice Krafft, two eccentric French scientists who chased down active volcanoes around the world until the day they finally succumbed to the thing they loved the most. With gorgeous cinematic images captured by the Kraffts—of explosive eruptions, fiery red lava flows, and their own amusing geological-inspired home-movies—filmmaker Sara Dosa weaves together a quirky, profound, and entrancing tale about one couple’s passion for each other, and for a planet whose overwhelming power demands our deepest attention and respect. Poetically narrated by Miranda July, Fire of Love is a “crowd-pleasing” (Harper’s Bazaar), “breathtaking” (Vox), “heartwarming” (RogerEbert.com), and “gorgeously photographed, dreamily constructed” (The Hollywood Reporter) ode to devotion in all its forms.
A HOUSE MADE OF SPLINTERS Director: Simon Lereng Wilmont Producer: Monica Hellström 87 min, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Ukraine, 2022 In the Eastern Ukrainian city of Lysychansk lies an almost magical safe haven for kids—an orphanage where nurturing and strong-willed social workers take care of children whose futures remain uncertain. With profound compassion and beautiful camerawork, filmmaker Simon Lereng Wilmont, director of 2017’s Oscar-shortlisted The Distant Barking of Dogs (Doc10 2019), follows four youngsters—Sasha, Eva, Kolya, and Alina—whose gleaming smiles, dance routines, and rebellious streaks are charming and captivating, and yet their stories also poignantly reveal the human costs of war. Winner of a Best Directing Award at Sundance, this “exquisitely intimate” (Variety) and “astonishing” (The Hollywood Reporter) film is “a heartbreaking tapestry that also glows with empathy and shows glimmers of mischief and delight” (New York Times).
THE JANES Directors: Tia Lessin, Emma Pildes Producers: Emma Pildes, Daniel Arcana, Jessica Levin 101 min, US, 2022 Chicago 1968. Abortion is illegal; women are fighting for equality; and hospitals are filling up with victims of terminated pregnancies gone wrong. Enter the Jane Collective. In this inspiring account of the legendary underground network, filmmakers Tia Lessin (Trouble the Water) and Emma Pildes (Jane Fonda in Five Acts) chronicle this intrepid group of young activist women as they evade both the cops and the mob to help others gain access to safe and affordable care. Capturing their courage and conviction and the high-stakes suspense of their work, the film vividly charts the rise of their clandestine operations, complete with code names and safe houses, all the way to their capture in 1972. “Rousing (Variety), “revelatory” (Screen Daily), and “triumphant” (RogeEbert.com), The Janes is “urgent, and thoroughly engaging” and “unfortunately, very much of the moment” (The Hollywood Reporter).
LET THE LITTLE LIGHT SHINE Director: Kevin Shaw Producers: Rachel Dickson, Kevin Shaw 86 min, US, 2022 Chicago 2017: After closing down dozens of public schools, Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration sets out to shutter yet another, the top-ranked National Teachers Academy in the South Loop. But mother-professor-activist Elisabeth Greer and members of her community are fighting back. Filmmaker Kevin Shaw (a director on Steve James’ America to Me) was on the ground for the entire riveting David vs. Goliath saga. As the film tracks this passionate group of parents and students rising up for their beloved elementary school, it also reveals the bracing realities of systemic racism and gentrification. “Uplifting, funny, heartwarming, powerful” (Vox) and “propulsive” (Los Angeles Times), Let the Little Light Shine is a “rousing tribute to grassroots activism [with] the visceral impact of all six Rocky movies and a couple of Creed films put together” (Chicago Tribune).
NAVALNY Director: Daniel Roher Producers: Odessa Rae, Diane Becker, Melanie Miller, Shane Boris 98 min, US, 2022 Is resistance in Russia possible? In this riveting chronicle of the attempted assassination of Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny and its aftermath, Canadian filmmaker Daniel Roher goes up-close with the man that the Kremlin hates the most. Winner of the 2022 Sundance Audience Award, the film follows Navalny—who remains persistently charismatic and affable—as he and his team root out the men in real time who nearly murdered him. In the process, they reveal the deep inner-workings of Russia’s malicious secret operations and the harrowing challenges of dissent in an authoritarian regime. An “essential Bourne-like thriller” (Time Out) that “hinges on one of the most remarkable moments ever seen in a documentary” (Indiewire), Navalny is a “must-watch” (Variety) “jaw-dropping profile in courage” (RogerEbert.com).
NOTHING LASTS FOREVER Director: Jason Kohn Producers: Amanda Branson Gill, Jared Goldman 87 min, US, 2022 “A diamond is forever”—so goes the famous ad slogan. But in this witty, sparkling investigation, Doc10 alumnus Jason Kohn (Love Means Zero) questions the value of the sacred gem, uncovering the myths and machinations of the multi-billion-dollar industry—and the biggest threat to its power: factory-made diamonds. With stops in Botswana, India, and China, and a colorful array of insiders, from a De Beers executive to a Serbian gemologist to a L.A. jewelry designer, the film not only explores the evolution of our most precious mineral, but the very meaning of authenticity in our increasingly synthetic world. “A pleasure to watch” (The Hollywood Reporter) and “as tense and potentially mind-blowing as Uncut Gems,” Nothing Lasts Forever is “a thought-provoking film [and] also an entertaining human comedy” (Screen Daily).
RIOTSVILLE, USA Director: Sierra Pettengill Producers: Sara Archambault, Jamila Wignot 91 min, US, 2022 Welcome to Riotsville, USA. In the wake of civil unrest erupting across America in the 1960s, the U.S. government constructed fake towns to train police officers and the National Guard to suppress protest. In this chilling cinematic inquiry, award-winning filmmaker and brilliant researcher Sierra Pettengill (The Reagan Show) marshals never-before-seen footage of excessive law enforcement—both real, from Chicago and Miami 1968, and imagined, on the main streets of Riotsville—to provocatively mine the history of America’s militant and racist policies of control. “Transfixing and troubling” (Indiewire), and an “impressive… arresting… damning portrait of the state” (The Hollywood Reporter), this indispensable film shows “how little our civic arguments about racism, policing, poverty and politics have changed in more than 50 years” (New York Times).
THE TERRITORY Director: Alex Pritz Producers: Darren Aronofsky, Sigrid Dyekjær, Will N. Miller, Gabriel Uchida, Lizzie Gillett, Alex Pritz 84 min, US, 2022 The Territory provides an immersive on-the-ground look at the tireless fight of the Indigenous Uru-eu-wau-wau people against the encroaching deforestation brought by illegal settlers and non-native farmers in the Brazilian Amazon. With awe-inspiring cinematography showcasing the titular landscape, and richly textured sound design, the film takes audiences deep into the Uru-eu-wau-wau community, and provides unprecedented access to the settlers illegitimately clearing land and a network of desperate farmers advocating for access to colonize the protected rainforest. Partially shot by the Uru-eu-wau-wau people, the film relies on verité footage, captured over three years, as the community risks their lives to set up their own media team in the hopes of exposing the truth. Winner of Audience and Craft Awards at Sundance, The Territory is an “urgent, visually spellbinding plea, both sumptuous and enraging” (RogerEbert.com).
WE FEED PEOPLE 87 min, 2022, US
Director: Ron Howard Producers: Brian Grazer, Ron Howard, Sara Bernstein, Justin Wilkes, Meredith Kaulfers, Walter Matteson In this rousing portrait of Spanish culinary superstar José Andrés and his food relief organization World Central Kitchen, Oscar-winning director Ron Howard captures the Chef and his team working tirelessly to help the hungry in crisis zones across the world, from Haiti to Puerto Rico, New York City to the Navajo Nation. And with a commitment to empowering local communities and homegrown kitchens, Andrés isn’t just feeding people; he’s building sustainable solutions. Both an intimate look at a garrulous, passionate, and complex man with a daring mission and an up-close snapshot of global food insecurity and climate crises from the frontlines, We Feed People is an “emotionally stirring” (Variety), “moving and inspiring” (The Hollywood Reporter) film about the challenges of lifting people up…one plate at a time.
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