Eight Days, 30 Documentaries

The Hamptons Doc Fest, now in its 14th year, will run Friday, December 3, through Friday, December 10, in Sag Harbor. This year, the festival will offer 30 screenings at two venues.

The festival begins at the Sag Harbor Cinema December 3-5, with eight films including the Opening Night Film, the presentation of the Human Rights Award, the Pennebaker Career Achievement Award, the Art & Inspiration Award, and in collaboration with Sag Harbor Cinema, the Producer Impact Award and posthumous Tribute to Diane Weyermann.

The festivities then move down the block to the Bay Street Theater on Long Wharf where, from December 6-10, 22 more films will be screened, including the winner of the festival’s Environmental Award, the Young Voices Program for students, two Shorts Programs, ending with a free Community Day on Friday, December 10.

This year, the Hamptons Doc Fest will also offer a virtual component of 11 films the following week, December 11-18.

“Returning to the big screens at two iconic venues in Sag Harbor is what we hoped for in 2021. And it’s happening,” said Jacqui Lofaro, founder and executive director of Hamptons Doc Fest. “We are thrilled to share an exciting and diverse program of films with our documentary fans.”

Sag Harbor Cinema, 90 Main Street, Sag Harbor:

Opening Night Film — Friday, December 3, 7 p.m.

“Joyce Carol Oates: A Body in the Service of Mind” (94 min.), director Stig Bjorkman. Oates, the prolific, award-winning author of scores of novels, short story collections, poetry and essays, and a longtime professor at Princeton University, is intensely private. But Bjorkman was granted access to make this documentary, and record her mornings of longhand writing, her walks with her husband and her moments of solitude.

Post-film, there will be a Q&A with Swedish film director and writer Stig Bjorkman (well-known internationally for his documentaries about Ingmar Bergman), hosted by Miriam Parker, associate publisher of ECCO, an imprint of Harper Collins. Tickets are $25

Pennebaker Career Achievement Award to director Dawn Porter — Saturday, December 4, 9 p.m.

Ceremony and a short reel on Porter’s work followed at 9:30 p.m. by two of Porter’s films —“Bree Wayy: Promise, Witness, Remembrance” (32 min.) about how artists have paid tribute to 26-year-old Breonna Taylor, who was killed by police in Louisville, Kentucky; and a short excerpt from her new film “Cirque du Soleil” about the iconic circus’s attempts to return to the stage after the COVID crisis. Tickets are $50.

Human Rights Award — Saturday, December 4, 5 p.m.

The film “Citizen Ashe” (94 min.), directed by Rex Miller and Sam Pollard, will be the recipient of the Doc Fest’s Human Rights Award. The documentary details the life and career of tennis champion Arthur Ashe, who was the first African American to win the men’s singles titles at Wimbledon, the U.S. Open and the Australian Open, and the first to win induction into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1985. He worked for civil rights causes in America and South Africa and also became an AIDS activist in the late 1980s after contracting HIV through blood transfusions related to heart surgery.

The virtual Q&A after the screening will include directors Rex Miller and Sam Pollard (who received the Hamptons Doc Fest Filmmakers’ Choice Award in 2018 and a career achievement award from the International Documentary Association in 2020), in conversation with Nancy Buirski, founder/director of the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival for 10 years and director of several award-winning films involving African American subjects.

Art & Inspiration Award — Sunday, December 5, 5 p.m.

The documentary “Bernstein’s Wall” (100 min.) will receive the Doc Fest’s Tee & Charles Addams Foundation’s Art & Inspiration Award. Presenting the award to award-winning director/writer Douglas Tirola and producer Susan Bedusa, will be Kevin Miserocchi, director of the Tee & Charles Addams Foundation. The film will be followed by a Q&A with Tirola and Bedusa, hosted by Hamptons Doc Fest Advisory Board Member and documentary filmmaker Roger Sherman, a founder of Florentine Films.

This film about famed composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein paints a complex portrait of how an immigrant son became the visionary and exuberant conductor of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra and then an American cultural superstar and celebrity. Bernstein matched his passion for music with an unyielding commitment to political engagement, all the while wrestling with his hidden sexuality.

Producer Impact Award/Tribute to Diane Weyermann — Sunday, December 5, 7:30 p.m.

Hamptons Doc Fest and the Sag Harbor Cinema join together to recognize the life and work of producer Diane Weyermann, who tragically passed away in October. She was to receive the festival’s first Producer Impact Award, which will be presented by Hamptons Doc Fest artistic director Karen Arikian and now will be accepted posthumously by Diane’s sister Andrea Weyermann.

Weyermann’s impact on the documentary film community was immense, spanning 25 years in leadership positions at three seminal organizations — as director of the Open Society Institute’s Arts and Culture Program, where she started the Soros Documentary Fund; as director of the Documentary Film Program at the Sundance Institute, where she nurtured the creative work of up-and-coming documentarians; and for the last 16 years, as chief content officer at Participant, where she produced many award-winning films highlighting social issues.

While at Participant, Weyermann was a staunch champion of female-led projects, including “Citizenfour” (114 min.), directed by Laura Poitras and executive produced by Weyermann, which will be screened at Doc Fest after the award presentation.

“Citizenfour,” which won the 2015 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature as well as dozens of other awards, is a real-life espionage thriller, placing viewers right in the room with Edward Snowden in Hong Kong, as he hands over classified documents to journalist Glenn Greenwald, about the National Security Agency’s illegal invasion of citizen privacy. The film title comes from the first alias that Snowden used.

After the film, Sag Harbor Cinema artistic director Giulia D’Agnolo Vallan will engage in a conversation with director Poitras. Tickets are $25.

Bay Street Theater, Long Wharf, Sag Harbor:

Environmental Award — Tuesday, December 7, 7:30 p.m.

This year’s recipient of The Andrew Sabin Family Foundation Environmental Award, presented by Andrew Sabin, is “After Antarctica” (105 min.), directed by Tasha Van Zandt, who has led expeditions around the world for National Geographic. A Q&A follows the screening with director Van Zandt, hosted by Andrew Botsford, arts writer and president of the Hampton Theater Company.

The film, with amazing cinematography, recounts not only the grueling 4,000-mile, seven-month trek by polar explorer/expert Will Steger, his five fellow international explorers and their dog teams as they completed the first coast-to-coast dogsled crossing of Antarctica in 1989-90 to draw global attention to preserving the continent, but also 30 years later, Steger’s solo journey at the age of 75 across the Arctic, before melting ice makes that expedition impossible.

Closing Night Film — Friday, December 10, 8 p.m.,

Offered as part of the Saunders Free Community Day on Friday, December 10, at Bay Street Theater, “Torn” (92 min.), directed by Max Lowe for National Geographic, will be shown followed by a possible Q&A on Zoom.

The film provides an intimate look at the Lowe-Anker family as Alex Lowe’s eldest son Max Lowe, the director, captures their emotionally and physically-harrowing journey to Tibet’s 26,289-foot mountain Shishapangma to put Alex to rest after the renowned mountain climber was tragically lost with his cameraman David Bridges in a deadly avalanche there in 1999. Surviving was Alex’s best friend and mountaineer Conrad Ankar, who fell in love with Max’s widow Jennifer and stepped in to help raise Alex’s three sons.

For a full schedule and descriptions of all 30 films showing at the Hamptons Doc Fest, visit hamptonsdocfest.com. All passes and tickets will be sold online. A festival pass for admission to all in-theater films at both venues, and including the Opening Night film, the Awards and the Tribute films, and the Pennebaker Career Achievement Award Program is $250. Except where noted, tickets to individual films at both venues are $15. A virtual pass to 11 films that will be screening online from December 11-18 is $75. Attendees at all live events in the two theaters are required to wear a mask and show proof of COVID vaccination.