Get Your Docs Off

AFI DOCS, the acclaimed documentary festival formerly known as Silverdocs, looks like it will hit yet another bullseye in 2014. As a bonus, this year could come with a subtitle: Women in Film. Nearly half of the movies Washington City Paper reviewed in advance of this year’s fest were directed or co-directed by a woman. And unlike most mainstream films, many also have female protagonists at their center. If you’d like to learn about a recent and miraculous advance in medicine, see the “Face the Music” series of shorts for Beyond Recognition, whose subject, a woman named Carmen, is undeniably brave. You can catch the contagious optimism of Abbie, an 18-year-old with a rare and deadly skin disease, in Butterfly Girl. Or get acquainted with FEMEN, a feminist protest group—and its unlikely leader—in Ukraine Is Not a Brothel.

Of course, this fest isn’t all about the grrls. Despite AFI DOCS’ ostensible repositioning as a more Washington-appropriate, policy-centric event, the documentaries’ subjects and approaches are diverse. Political controversies both old and new (1971; The Newburgh Sting), drug addiction and homelessness (The Fix; The Homestretch), and controversial artistry (Dangerous Acts Starring the Unstable Elements of Belarus; Art and Craft) are included in a buffet that nearly everyone can find satisfaction in sampling. Film itself is even a subject in Point and Shoot, about a Baltimorean adventure documentarian-turned-Libyan revolutionary, and Life Itself, the closing-night film, about the late movie critic Roger Ebert. It’s a fitting choice to close out a festival that is, as Ebert was, a reliable and discerning champion of the art.

—Tricia Olszewski

For more, read our essay on the state of the festival, Ctrl + Alt + Doc: A Year After Hitting Reset, AFI DOCS Is Still in Transition.

AFI Docs takes place from June 18 to 22 at the AFI Silver Theatre, Goethe-Institut, the National Portrait Gallery, the Naval Heritage Center, and the Newseum. Tickets to individual movies range from $11 to $14. For a full schedule and information on festival passes, visit afi.com/afidocs.