The Festival’s Documentary Competition features incredible work from emerging filmmakers.  In addition to being eligible for the $50,000 Target Documentary Award, these films are also eligible to be your Audience Favorite.

DOCUMENTARY COMPETITION

After the Storm

A celebration of perseverance and rebirth through the arts, this inspiring documentary follows a group of New Orleans teens as they stage a revival of the hurricane-themed musical Once on this Island.

DIRECTOR Hilla Medalia
WRITERS Bob Eisenhardt, Hilla Medalia
FEATURING Gerry McIntyre, James Lecesne, Randy Redd

Bananas!*
English and Spanish with English subtitles

The human cost of banana cultivation is revealed in this documentary chronicling the case of Nicaraguan laborers, represented by L.A. attorney Juan Dominguez, against the companies who they believed poisoned them with pesticides. Sweden.

DIRECTOR Fredrik Gertten
FEATURING Juan Dominguez

Sponsored by

Branson

Personal demons and backstage battles cannot deter the performers captured in this heartfelt documentary from living out their dreams of stardom on the strip-mall stages of Branson, Missouri.

DIRECTOR/WRITER Brent Meeske
FEATURING Jackson Cash, Amber Campbell, Geoffrey Hastings Haberer, Peggy Lee Brennan-Haberer, Terry Wayne, Nita Tate, Eric Eichenberger

Convention

Capturing what the mainstream media ignored, this fast-paced vérité documentary follows the efforts of Denver city officials and reporters to deal with the impact of hosting the historic 2008 Democratic National Convention.

DIRECTOR AJ Schnack

The Last Beekeeper

An intimate look at the struggles of three American beekeepers becomes a painful meditation on the devastating effects of economic and ecological change when a mysterious illness among the bees threatens both insects and businesses.

DIRECTOR Jeremy Simmons

October Country

A beautifully crafted, atmospheric portrait of a family in upstate New York haunted by the past, yet bound together by their struggles to break a cycle of hard luck and bad choices.

DIRECTORS/PRODUCER Michael Palmieri, Donal Mosher
FEATURING The Mosher Family

Those Who Remain

This intimate and discerning depiction of the impact of migration on families left behind by loved ones who travel north emerges as a nuanced portrait of “the other side” of the immigration story. Mexico.

DIRECTORS Juan Carlos Rulfo, Carlos Hagerman

Sponsored by

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