SummerDocs Returns In July With ‘Best Of Enemies,’ ‘Listen To Marlon’ And ‘Peace Officer’

Next month, Alec Baldwin will once again host the Hamptons International Film Festival’s seventh annual SummerDocs series, featuring screenings of three new documentaries—“Best of Enemies,” “Listen to Marlon” and “Peace Officer”—at Guild Hall in East Hampton.

“The SummerDocs series has been a tremendous success for HIFF and our patrons,” Mr. Baldwin said in a release. “The program brings the best in documentary film to Guild Hall during the summertime, when film fans are craving some serious subjects.”

The series opens with “Best of Enemies” from directors Robert Gordon and Morgan Neville, who tell the story of ABC’s swift sprint to top ratings when the network hired Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley Jr. to participate in a televised debate, marking the dawn of pundit broadcasting as it is known today. Their firecracker personalities, name-calling and personal attacks paved the way for a new era of television.

Following the screening, novelist and radio host Kurt Andersen will lead a conversation with directors Mr. Gordon and Mr. Neville, and one of the film’s subjects, Dick Cavett.

On Saturday, August 1, “Listen to Me Marlon” director Stevan Riley will walk viewers through Marlon Brando’s acting career and personal life in a new and unorthodox manner: by using the star’s own personal recordings. There are no interviews and no third-party storytelling, breaking conventional documentary methods. Instead, Mr. Brando posthumously narrates his own documentary, non-chronologically. Mr. Baldwin will lead a conversation with Mr. Riley following the screening.

The third and final film in the series, “Peace Officer” will close the series on Friday, August 28. The documentary, directed and written by Brad Barber and Scott Christopherson—who will participate in a talkback with Mr. Baldwin after the screening—is about police militarization in the United States, told from the perspective of William “Dub” Lawrence, a retired sheriff responsible for the creation and training of his rural state’s first SWAT team. The film, which debuted at this year’s South by Southwest Film Festival, won the Documentary Feature Competition Grand Jury award.

“We have a provocative and engaging slate for our seventh year that truly exemplifies the high-caliber film making that we value at HIFF,” Artistic Director David Nugent said in a statement. “The SummerDocs series continues to be a highly anticipated mainstay of our programming initiatives, screening award-winning documentaries each year to our audience.”

The SummerDocs Series from the Hamptons International Film Festival’s seventh annual SummerDocs series will open with “Best of Enemies” on Saturday, July 11, at 7:30 p.m. at Guild Hall in East Hampton. The series will continue on Saturday, August 1, with “Listen to Me Marlon” at 8 p.m. and Friday, August 28, with “Peace Officer” at 7:30 p.m. Q&A sessions will follow each screening. For tickets and more information, visit guildhall.org.