Full Frame Documentary Film Festival | Wednesday, June 2—Sunday, June 6, 2021
This year’s Full Frame Documentary Film Festival features 36 titles from 21 countries—21 feature films and 15 shorts. Here’s a sampling of what’s unspooling, virtually, at this year’s fest.
From the makers of 2018’s RGB, My Name is Pauli Murray chronicles the legacy of the pioneering poet and activist attorney who spent her childhood years in Durham. Murray’s tireless work on gender and race equity led to genuine lasting change in America.
It’s no secret that local journalism is in crisis. Storm Lake follows the staff of an Iowa newspaper as they fight to keep their publication alive, and explores larger issues concerning watchdog journalism, lethal misinformation, and, quite possibly, the survival of democracy. World Premiere.
In 1983, ABC broadcast the made-for-TV movie The Day After, depicting the aftermath of nuclear war, which promptly traumatized an entire generation of viewers. Some of us still haven’t recovered. Australian director Jeff Daniels investigates the making of the film, as well as the psychological impact it had on people, policy makers, and even entire nations.
Truman and Tennessee: An Intimate Conversation
This ambitious double portrait takes an innovative approach to Southern writers Truman Capote and Tennessee Williams. Actors Jim Parsons and Zachary Quinto read from published works, diaries, and letters between the two literary legends. Acclaim! Addiction! Ambiguous sexuality! Good times.
Chinese-American filmmaker Nanfu Wang delivers what is essentially an origin story on COVID-19, starting with a Wuhan new year’s gathering in the very first moments of 2020. Wang’s ferocious film reveals corruption and deliberate misinformation at the highest levels of government, in both China and America.
Scenes from the Glittering World
This world premiere tracks three students from the Navajo Nation as they navigate the treacherous waters of adolescence. Filming in and around the most remote high school in the U.S., director Jared Jakins tells their stories through a series of sometimes funny, sometimes tragic vignettes. World Premiere.
A small nursing home in Denmark is taking a radical new approach to caring for residents with severe dementia. Eschewing traditional elder care, the staff deploys the powerful medicine of laughter, engagement, and empathy.
Spirit never dies, only transitions
Logan L. Burroughs’ loving black-and-white short film celebrates the power of simple traditions and rituals in Black communities, using slow-moving images and innovative sound design.
Billed as a deadpan dramedy of manners, this doc takes an odd, artful approach to documenting the Swedish funerary business. Using carefully composed images, director Carl Olsson escorts viewers through cemeteries and morgues—even a hearse ride-along. Dead serious.
In 1978, psychobilly punk rockers the Cramps and the Mutants played a legendary gig in the psychiatric ward of Napa State Hospital in California. This short film includes rare footage from the show.
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