New York City, in many ways, is a movie town. We know we're not Los Angeles, but remember where all those filmmakers came from before they moved out west? Oh right, NYC.
They needed lots of space to build sets and didn't want to pay a premium on real estate, so LA it was. To this day, properties cost much less in LA than NYC. And it makes sense. People have been competing for space in this City for hundreds of years. LA? Not so much.
So of course, New Yorkers go nuts with the film festivals, and they're all great for one thing or another: from indie to sci-fi.
But we're especially excited for this year's DOC NYC, the City's premiere documentary film festival.
It's going on November 12th to 19th in cinemas all around NYC. There's about a million films to see, so you definitely have to curate your time wisely if you're trying to attend each day of the festival.
So we're putting together a list of our top recommendations. Full disclosure, much of it's from the DOC NYC Short List, known for predicting what films will rise to the top in critics' and award panels' opinions for years running. But we also have some tricks up our sleeve.
1. Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck
Kurt Cobain was one of the most influential musicians of the 90s, and his legacy has lived on in countless ways.
This film stands out above the rest on the topic as it features personal archives of art, music, and thus far unreleased home movies.
You may have seen Malala Yousafzai on The Daily Show, or on any number of other talk shows where she's regaled the world with her story of growing up in Pakistan, being shot in the head by Taliban fighters, and going on to found schools for educating women in her region.
The world premiere of Grammy and Emmy award winning director Thom Zimny's documentary on Bruce Springsteen's debut 1980 album, "The River."
The film, not short-listed, is a combination of Springsteen telling his own story, acoustic demonstrations, and period concert footage and photos.
4. Mad Tiger
Not on the festival's short list, this will be the world premiere of a spacey documentary on Japanese art-punk band Peelander-Z.
This film documents the recent state of the band, having lost half of the main attraction, Peelander Red, and Peelander Yellow's subsequent moves to get his best friend and bandmate back in action.
Michael Moore's first film in six years, he's now focusing on traveling around the world to bring the best ideas back to America
,6. Winter on Fire: Ukraine's Fight for Freedom
Winter on Fire documents the Ukrainian uprising in 2013-14 that resulted in the overthrow of President Yanukovych.
Filmmaker Evgeny Afineevsky compiled a series of humanizing characters to illustrate the complicated political environment with approachability.
Oscar-nominated director Joshua Oppenheimer's continued interest in Indonesia is paying off.
The Look of Silence is his second film focused on the history of violence in Indonesia with this film focusing on a village optometrist who uses his profession to confront those who murdered his brother.
DOC NYC will host the world premiere of this film tracking the effects of American war veterans returning home with enormous risk of suicide and PTSD.
Not on the festival's short list, this film aims to confront us with the painful facts that we have a mental health epidemic of critical proportions among our returning soldiers.
It's the story of Seymour Bernstein, "a hidden treasure of NYC." He sacrificed a promising career as a concert pianist in favor of teaching, and has made indelible marks on many people since, including Ethan Hawke, who directed the film.
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[via Doc NYC Short List]
[Feature Image Courtesy Noisey by Vice]