EXHILARATING’’

AFI DOCS
Short and Sweet’s
the Winning Formula
Washington, D.C., documentary festival uses
its five-day span to its advantage
By ANDREW BARKER
Last year, Michael
Lumpkin arrived as
director of Washington,
D.C.’s, five-day AFI Docs
Film Festival a mere six
short months before his
inaugural fest. For his second
go-round, he has had
the whole year to prepare
and promises a festival that
is more international and
“diverse, in terms of the
types of films, where they
come from, and who’s making
them.”
The festival, previously
known as SilverDocs, has
also completed its gradual
move from its first home in
Silver Spring, Md., to a centralized
hub in the heart
of D.C.
The vast majority of
screenings will be held
at the Newseum and the
nearby Landmark E Street,
opening with Alex Gibney’s
“Zero Days” on June
22, and closing with Rachel
Grady’s “Norman Lear: Just
Another Version of You” on
June 26.
All told, the fest will
screen 94 films from 30
countries, including Robert
Kenner’s nuclear warhead
expose “Command
and Control,” Judd Apatow
and Michael Bonfiglio’s
baseball doc “Doc and Darryl,”
Toby Oppenheimer
and Dana Flor’s “Check It,”
and Nicole Opper’s “Visitors
Day.” Werner Herzog will be
on hand for a panel as the
Charles Guggenheim Symposium
honoree, followed
by a screening of his internet-history
film “Lo and
Behold, Reveries of the Con-
Tipsheet
What: AFI Docs Film
Festival
When: June 22-26
Where: Washington, D.C.
web: afi.com/afidocs
nected World,” with additional
panels scheduled to
discuss diversity in documentary
filmmaking, shortform
docs and virtual
reality.
As always, the festival
boasts an unusual character
thanks to its brief duration
— less than half the allotment
for its biggest counterparts,
such as Amsterdam’s
IDFA and Toronto’s
Hot Docs — but the five-day
span allows Lumpkin and
his team to program with
a mind toward thematic
coherence.
“You have to say ‘no’ to
films that you really, really
love,” Lumpkin says. “So that
forces you to really think
about it and consider the
entire program you’re presenting.
Yes, all the films are
great, but how do they fit in
together as a festival?”
Despite taking place in
the nation’s capital shortly
before the two party conventions,
Lumpkin says
that the political atmosphere
didn’t play an outsized
role in programming.
But as one would expect
from a documentary festival,
hot-button current
events will rarely be far
from the minds of those
attending. [Speaking of
which, the fest’s attendance
rose from 11,000 to 15,000
from 2014 to ’15, and
Lumpkin expects a “significant
increase” this year.]
In particular, Lumpkin
calls attention to the
Newseum screenings of
Kim A. Snyder’s “Newtown,”
about the Sandy Hook Elementary
School shootings,
and the Netflix-bound sexual
assault documentary
“Audrie and Daisy,” directed
by Bonni Cohen and Jon
Shenk.
“They’re both very
important films in terms
of those issues, but they
both approach the issues in
very unique and different
ways,” Lumpkin says. “This
happened with a number
of films this year, where
you see the title and the
short description, and you
think, ‘Oh I’ve seen this film
before.’ But you go in and
watch it and say, ‘No, I haven’t
seen this film, this is
something I was not expecting
at all.’ And that points
to very good filmmaking.”
Lumpkin is also high on
Wide Focus
From Top: “Norman Lear:
Just Another Version of You,”
“Newtown,” and “Under the Sun”
are set to unspool at AFI Docs.
Vitaly Mansky’s “Under the
Sun,” filmed in North Korea
with the oversight of the
country’s government, but
which, he says, “plays with
the format, and uses the
actual frame of the image”
to give a subtle but revealing
glimpse of life in the
inhospitable country.
“They were able to really
uncover a truth about the
culture and the people
who live there that, if they
had gone in and said, ‘this
is what we’re doing,’ they
never could have done. So
it’s all in the filmmaking,
about what they’re choosing
to show you or not
show you.”
JUNE 14, 2016 VARIETY.COM
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