Walking on Water

Now in its 9th edition, DOC NYC—America’s largest documentary film festival—runs from November 8 through 15. More than 300 films and events are included in a variety of categories, including American Perspectives, Behind the Scenes, Fight the Power, International Perspectives, Portraits, Jock Docs, Modern Family, Science Nonfiction, Sonic Cinema, and True Love. In most cases, filmmakers (and often their subjects) will be on hand to answer questions, post-screening. Awards will be given in several sections, including an overall Audience Award.

The gamut of films this year includes epic portrait Beyond the Bolex, Alyssa Bolsey’s doc about her great-grandfather, the groundbreaking movie camera inventor Jacques Bolsey; Afterward, in which Jerusalem-born director and  trauma expert Ofra Bloch visits victims and victimizers in Germany, Israel and Palestine; Lindsey Cordero & Armando Croda’s timely I’m Leaving Now, about an undocumented worker in Brooklyn facing a difficult crossroads; and We Are Not Done Yet, a short directed by Sareen Hairabedian and produced by actor Jeffrey Wright, about U.S. veterans combating their traumatic military histories through art, poetry and performance.

A few more highlights:

Dennis and Lois
A doc by Chris Cassidy that will resonate with music fans, Dennis and Lois is a portrait of a 60-something couple who have been music superfans for over 40 years. The Brooklyn-based duo, together since 1975, live in a house stuffed with band memorabilia and collectibles. Fixtures at NYC rock clubs, they still go to gigs, sometimes traveling long distances, though Lois’s health problems make it increasingly difficult. Musicians of various ages and stages, including members of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Mekons, Doves, The Hold Steady, Vaccines and many others, testify to the duo’s steadfast devotion.

For years, starting with the Ramones, Dennis and Lois sold t-shirts and other merchandise at live shows; they also housed musicians who came through town, earning the moniker “Sofa to the Stars.” They formed especially close bonds with bands from Manchester, England, including Stone Roses, Joy Division/New Order and especially Happy Mondays, who immortalized the couple in a song. These days, Lois notes, “The bands support us more than we support them.” The film is an affectionate look at a couple who never saw reason to give up the thing that brings them the most joy.

Screening: Wed, Nov. 14, at 3 pm (IFC Center, 323 6th Ave.); Thu., Nov. 15 at 9:45 pm (SVA Theatre, 333 W. 23rd St.). In person: director and film subjects.

Behind the Curve
An impressively, sometimes maddeningly, non-judgmental doc about the growing cult of people who believe the earth is flat, Daniel J. Clark’s Behind the Curve is utterly fascinating. It’s also deeply unsettling, as several of the film’s subjects—including flat earth movement leaders and would-be couple Mark Sargent and Patricia Steere—are articulate and relatively normal-seeming, making their claims all the more astounding. Though a few dogged individuals are shown attempting to prove the earth’s flatness through scientific experiments, most believers seem fine with disparate, provocative “clues” on YouTube that are like catnip to paranoid types.

This should all be amusing—and a little sad—but the movement’s hostility and condescension toward the scientific community smacks of the attitude so popular the days among some on the far right, whether it be denial of evolution, climate change or actual news events. To believe in a flat earth is to also believe that NASA is an evil mastermind and our entire educational system co-conspirators, exciting stuff for conspiracy theorists. (Unsurprisingly, there are rifts within the movement, resulting in conspiracy theories about the conspiracists.)  Behind the Curve features a psychologist and a few pained-looking astrophysicists who come to the conclusion that it’s probably better to engage these people in conversation rather than dismiss them outright. They may have a point, but I’d guess that most of these folks would rather stick to their insane world views than face facts.

Screening: Sat, Nov. 10 at 8 pm (Cinépolis Chelsea, 260 W. 23rd St.). In person: Daniel J. Clark

Walking on Water
Andrey Paounov’s doc about environmental artist Christo and his 2016 installation in northern Italy, The Floating Piers, has no narration or interviews. Rather, it follows Christo—a mercurial and charismatic individual—from initial drawings in his studio through execution and close of the project, the entire thing fraught with the inevitable setbacks bedeviling a work of such monumental proportions. The 16-day, site-specific installation, designed by Christo and his late wife and collaborator Jeanne-Claude, consisted of 70,000 square meters of yellow fabric covering a modular floating dock of polyethylene cubes that created a walkable surface on Lake Iseo between Sulzano, Monte Isola and the island of San Paolo.

Paounov’s remarkable access to Christo and his close associates (especially his nephew and Operations Director Vladimir Yavachev), both alone and in meetings with Italian planners and officials, captures the frustration, perseverance and joy in pulling off such a feat. Aside from the challenges of building the work according to Christo’s precise specifications, bad weather and bureaucratic wrinkles add suspense to the opening day build-up. And the film doesn’t stop there; Christo and his crew must then contend with the overwhelming results of the project’s massive popularity.

Screening: Sat., Nov. 10 at 1:15 pm (SVA Theatre, 333 W. 23rd St.). In person: Andrey Paounov and Christo.

For complete festival screening and event information: www.docnyc.net

—Marina Zogbi