Doco fans you're in for a treat! Running from 24 May – 9 July 2023, this year's Doc Edge Festival features 71 films, 22 XR projects, a photo exhibition celebrating the work of the late documentary photographer Ans Westra, and an honorary recognition for this year's Doc Edge Superhero, the critically acclaimed filmmaker and long-time WIFT NZ member Annie Goldson.
The festival will open in Auckland on 24 May at The Capitol Cinema with the Australian film The Endangered Generation? directed by Celeste Geer. It follows a new generation of scientists, artists, and First Nations leaders in the search for clues to our survival through the study of nature and indigenous peoples.
The festival will also have a special opening in Wellington on June 7 at The Roxy Cinema with the US film Love to Love You, Donna Summer directed by Roger Ross Williams and Brooklyn Sudano. The film pays tribute to the iconic musician Donna Summer and her impact on the music industry.
The impressive line-up showcases a wide range of films from around the world, including several world and international premieres. Some of the notable films by women which are making their world premieres at the festival include:
- Knowing the Score (Australia, director Janine Hosking): Biopic of Simone Young (pictured), an inspiring woman who made it to the top of the classical conducting world in the face of sexism.
- One Bullet (UK, director Carol Dysinger): An Afghan mother and US filmmaker, connected through one stray bullet, forge a surprising friendship amidst America's longest war.
- Call Me Dancer (USA, directors Leslie Shampaine, Pip Gilmour): A street dancer from Mumbai struggles against his parents’ insistence that he follow a traditional path. Then he meets a curmudgeonly Israeli dance master, who inspires him to follow his dreams.
- Into the Shaolin (China, director Hongyun Sun): The film follows the lives of several Shaolin monks and a young Serbian anthropologist who came to conduct fieldwork. Can these insiders and outsiders find the Buddhist inner peace and the ending of suffering there?
Click here for the full programme
Image: Classical conductor Simone Young, by Klaus Lefebvre