15th Annual Hamptons Doc Fest 2022 Awards

A gala begins with a cocktail and hors d’oeuvres reception, followed by the award presentation at 8 p.m. to filmmaker Sam Pollard for his monumental career as a dedicated chronicler of the Black experience in America. The award is named in honor of longtime Sag Harbor resident and documentary filmmaker D.A. Pennebaker who died in August 2019. The award, sponsored by filmmaker Lana Jokel, will be presented by Jokel and Chris Hegedus, Pennebaker’s partner and co-filmmaker.

After the ceremony and interview with Pollard by documentary filmmaker Julie Anderson, a member of the Hamptons Doc Fest Advisory Board, the festival will screen Pollard’s latest film “Lowndes County and the Road to Black Power” (2022, 90 min.), co-directed by Geeta Gandbhir, about the courageous men and women in Lowndes County, Alabama, who risked their lives to win suffrage in 1960 for residents, 80 percent of whom were Black and unregistered to vote.

Hamptons Doc Fest has shown four of Pollard’s earlier films — “Sammy Davis, Jr: I Gotta Be Me,” which won the HDF Filmmakers’ Choice Award in 2015; “MLK/FBI,” which served as the HDF Opening Night Film in 2020; “Black Art: In the Absence of Light,” a co-presentation with the Parrish Art Museum in 2020; and “Citizen Ashe,” winner of HDF’s Audience Award in 2021 for his film about the tennis champ Arthur Ashe.

With a career as a veteran feature film and television editor, documentary producer and director spanning 50 years, Pollard has garnered multiple Peabody and Emmy Awards and an Academy Award nomination. Previous recipients of the Career Achievement Award, in chronological order, include Richard Leacock, Susan Lacy, Chris Hegedus and D.A. Pennebaker, Barbara Kopple, Stanley Nelson, Alex Gibney, Liz Garbus, Sheila Nevins, Robert Kenner, Frederick Wiseman, and last year, Dawn Porter.

Receiving this year’s Environmental Award is “Fashion Reimagined” (2022, 92 min.), which follows fashion designer Amy Powney, of the London brand Mother of Pearl, who’s the daughter of environmental activists, and sets out on a historic quest in 2018 to produce a fashion collection from field fiber to finished garment, that is both ethical and sustainable. Director Becky Hutner, a Canadian who lives in England, has spent the past five years in London creating fashion and culture work for DUCK Productions. She will participate in a virtual Q&A after the screening.

“Still Working 9 to 5” (2022, 96 min.), directed by Camille Hardman and Gary Lane, takes a fresh look at the 1980 comedy cult classic “9 to 5,” that starred Jane Fonda, Dolly Parton, Dabney Coleman and Lily Tomlin, and includes its various incarnations as TV shows and Broadway musicals. It explores the evolution of gender inequality and discrimination in the workplace since 1980 and traces the history of the women’s movement, revealing that little has changed over the past four decades.

Susan Lacy of Sag Harbor, a Hamptons Doc Fest Advisory Board member and creator/director of the American Masters series, 1993-2020, will do the post-film Q&A with Hardman and Lane, executive producer Larry Lane (Gary’s twin brother), and Ellen Cassedy, co-founder of the 9 to 5 National Association of Working Women.

National Geographic Documentary Films is honored in recognition of the notable, worldwide films it has produced over the years, each featuring outstanding documentary filmmakers. Accepting the award will be Chris Albert, Executive Vice President of Global Communications for the company.

The award presentation will be followed by a screening of “The Territory” (2022, 85 min.), directed by Alex Pritz, which premiered at Sundance, winning both the Audience Award and Special Jury Award for Documentary Craft. Pritz will be on hand after the film for a Q&A. The film provides a deep look into the tireless fight of the Indigenous Uru-eu-wau-wau people of the Brazilian Amazon over three years as they risk their lives to battle against the encroaching deforestation caused by farmers and illegal settlers who burn and clear their protected native lands.

In addition to “The Territory,” this year’s tribute to National Geographic Documentary Films will also include “The Flag Makers” (35 min.) as part of the Shorts Program on December 5.

Recipient of the Hamptons Doc Fest’s 2022 Filmmaker Impact Award will be Ondi Timoner, director of “Last Flight Home” (2022, 101 min.), who will participate in a Q&A after the screening. The film tells the story of her father, Eli Timoner, who founded Air Florida, the fastest growing airline in the world in the 1970s. Through stunning footage, she follows her father’s life to the end, involving both incredible successes, devastating setbacks and the power of human connection. The film premiered this year at Sundance festival.

The documentary “Omar Sosa’s 88 Well-Tuned Drums” (2022, 99 min.) will receive Hamptons Doc Fest’s Art & Inspiration Award from The Tee & Charles Addams Foundation. Accepting the award and participating in a post-film Q&A will be the director Soren Sorensen.

Cuban-born pianist and composer Omar Sosa is one of the most versatile jazz artists on the scene today, fusing a wide range of jazz, world-wide music and electronic elements with his native Afro-Cuban roots to create a fresh and original rhythmic sound. In his over 25 years as a solo artist, Sosa has released over 30 albums and received four Grammy nominations and three Latin Grammy nominations. He often performs as many as 100 concerts annually, across six continents.

Receiving the Hamptons Doc Fest’s Human Rights Award will be “Four Winters” (2022, 96 min.) about the Jewish resistance in World War II. Through first-person interviews, family photographs and rare archival footage, the last surviving partisans tell their stories of fighting back against the Nazis and their collaborators from the forests of Belarus, Ukraine and Eastern Europe — engaging in acts of sabotage, blowing up trains, burning electric stations and attacking armed enemy headquarters.

Director Julia Mintz has been on production teams that won Emmy, Peabody and festival awards. She will participate in a Q&A afterward.

Winner of the Grand Jury Prize in the World Cinema Documentary Competition at Sundance 2022, and also the Golden Eye award for the best documentary at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, “All That Breathes” (2022, 97 min.) is directed by Shaunak Sen, who will appear in a virtual Q&A afterward. The film tells a tale of two brothers in New Delhi, India, who have a bird hospital in their tiny basement in which they rescue and care for thousands of black kites — birds of prey that drop from the sky because of the smog-choked skies and other environmental toxins.