Documentaries

New York CineFest will welcome dozens of independent films, short and feature length, to the inaugural year of the international film festival May 13-15 at the Cinépolis Luxury Cinemas in Chelsea. Films of all genres will be presented, including documentaries.

Six Days Films, Roast Beef Productions, Doc Society and Journeyman Films are releasing the critically acclaimed documentary F@ck This Job (Tango with Putin) in UK cinemas beginning February 24. Produced by Mike Lerner (Oscar-nominated Hell and Back Again, Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer) produced and directed by Vera Krichevskaya and executive produced by Jess Search (Oscar winning Citizenfour, Emmy-nominated Virunga), Sandra Whipham (Emmy award-winning P.O.V. and Enemies of the People) and Barbara Biemann (National Bird), the film is an unprecedented look at censorship and the dramatic changing media landscape inside Putin’s Russia since 2008.

The nonprofit Big Sky Film Institute has announced the full lineup of official selections for its 19th annual Big Sky Documentary Film Festival. A hybrid exhibition in 2022, the festival will screen films in-person February 18-27 in theaters across downtown Missoula, Montana in addition to online screenings February 21 through March 3 in Big Sky’s virtual cinema.

Each year the Librarian of Congress chooses a select group of films to be inducted into the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress. The Registry champions American films and this year the seminal documentary, The Wobblies (1979), which was awarded a New York Women in Film and Television Women’s Film Preservation Fund grant in 2003, has been honored with inclusion to the list. The Wobblies (1979) by Deborah Shaffer and Stewart Bird is in outstanding company with others named to the Registry such as Sylvia Morales’ Chicana, Cheryl Dunye’s The Watermelon Woman and Who Killed Vincent Chin? by Christine Choy and Renee Tajima-Pena.