In 1967, while living in exile in New York City, South African freelance photojournalist Ernest Cole published his groundbreaking and only book House of slaveryexposing for the first time the violent atrocities of black life under apartheid to the rest of the world. Officially stateless a year later, Cole continued his photographic documentation of racial violence and discrimination in the United States, documenting the daily experiences of black Americans in Harlem and the South during the height of the civil rights movement in the late 1960s and early 1960s . 1970s.
The late photographer’s life and work will take center stage on the big screen in the documentary Ernest Cole: Lost and Found (2024), makes its debut in New York during the 15th edition of DOC NYC later this month. It’s one of them more than 200 films which will be shown at what is billed as America’s largest documentary festival, which kicks off on November 13 with non-fiction films on topics from the 2019 Sudanese revolution to the evolution of Yacht Rock.
The event will take place in person through November 21 at the IFC Center, SVA Theater and Village East by Angelika in Lower Manhattan, before continuing online, where audiences nationwide can access virtual screenings through December 1.
Among other films premiering at the festival are those by Manon Ouimet and Jacob Perlmutter Two strangers trying not to kill each other (2024), which focuses on the ups and downs of late-life romance through the relationship of Bronx-born photographer Joel Meyerowitz and British artist Maggie Barrett. The long documentaries My sweet country (2024) and There was, there wasn’t (2024), both of which focus on the experiences of ethnic Armenians during the Second Artsakh War, will also make their debut, followed by question-and-answer sessions with their filmmakers when they screen on November 16 and 18, respectively.
The festival will screen the documentary on November 15 No other country (2024), which illustrates the reality of Palestinian life in the occupied West Bank over five years by zooming in on the friendship between two of the film’s directors, Palestinian journalist Basel Adra and Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham. Despite gaining international fame and winning numerous awards, the film still doesn’t have an American distributorwhich the filmmakers claim could be due to political tensions due to the US elections.
“Maybe they are afraid of losing their funding if Trump wins,” Abraham said in an interview in Paris with the Associated press. “But Basel [Adra] has risked his life for years since he was a young boy to film this material… Can’t we have one distributor who has the courage… to take a certain risk, but such a critically acclaimed and to distribute such an important documentary?”
In addition to stories from outside the US, the festival will also highlight local history. The public can watch in Angelika’s Village East on November 17 Man from Pretentia (2024) – a documentary about East Village curator and gallerist Paul Bridgewater, who hitchhiked from a trailer park in California to become an essential figure in the burgeoning 1980s art scene in the Lower Manhattan borough. The film follows Bridgewater from his humble beginnings through the rise and fall of his short-lived Lower East Side gallery Smart Clothes to his final days, beset by health problems yet sustained by his resilient spirit.
“Paul Bridgewater’s story shines a light on a self-invention, self-creation and self-directed evolution that has become increasingly rare in our society, but not yet impossible,” said filmmaker Chih Hsuan Liang. Hyperallergic. “If there is a message in this film, it is that by following your intuition and joining a heritage and lineage you believe in, whether you were born to it or not, you can remake yourself in your own design .”
The full lineup for this year’s festival is available on the NYC DOC website here.
