Now in its second year, the DC/DOX film festival is coming into its own. Thoughtfully programmed and with a breadth of cinematic sensibilities, it feels distinct from SilverDocs and AFI Docs, the previous documentary festivals that would take place in the D.C. area in June. Spearheaded by festival director and programmer Sky Sitney, DC/DOX starts from the assumption that its audience is engaged and curious.

Sure, the festival, running June 13 through 16, screens the usual issue-based docs that follow everything from the war in Ukraine to the Amazon Union, but these films don’t unfold like a feature-length segment from a newsmagazine. Instead they focus on access, not editorializing—a difficult and more rewarding way to draw in viewers. DC/DOX also screens more intimate documentaries that don’t focus on current events, which are no less compelling and universal. Watching the films showcased is more than an opportunity to see how filmmakers—in spite of the proliferation of streaming nonfiction films that regress toward mediocrity—raise the form to exciting new heights. It is an opportunity to better understand the world. In a city full of type A know-it-alls, DC/DOX creates a genuine sense of FOMO.

Here’s our guide to some of the best films this year’s fest has to offer.

Black Box Diaries

In the hands of any other filmmaker, Black Box Diaries might seem exploitative. It follows Shiori Ito_, a young reporter in Japan who seeks justice against a journalist—and biographer of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe—who raped her. We see Ito at every stage of her attempt to prosecute her rapist, including intimate moments like when she feels betrayed by her family, or she has a phone call with a crucial witness in the case. What saves the film from being an intense, exploitative invasion of privacy is that Ito is the director.

With final say over every image and detail in the film, Ito takes back agency. There are scenes where emotion overwhelms her, but she shows the many faces of surviving: She is at times charming and plucky, other times she demonstrates reserves of steel. Black Box Diaries is a compelling portrayal of a #MeToo battle, and not just because the film offers unparalleled access to each new detail in Ito’s story. The film also exposes some significant issues with Japan’s legal system, like the burden of proof that Ito must make in criminal and civil court, or the paltry sum she finally receives (about $30,000 in U.S. dollars). Like most stories about justice, the path toward victory includes steps backward, and yet Ito’s persistence helps her become a reluctant hero in a world where women and survivors are often ignored.

Black Box Diaries could have easily been a hagiography, an attempt by Ito to show herself in the most positive light. She eschews that approach through naked honesty, and little scenes where we get a sense of her as a person, rather than a survivor in a complex legal battle. In the end, the film feels like a cross between All the President’s Men and The Insider, where the hero is the whistleblower and the investigator all rolled into one. Ito’s rapist is still at large, and there are some grim details in the final title cards that suggest he still has significant influence and power in Japan. But the story is not about him and more about the anonymous men and women who look to Ito and see hope.

Black Box Diaries screens at 5:15 p.m. on June 14 at E Street Cinema. Buy tickets here.

A Photographic Memory

Whereas many documentaries at this year’s DC/DOX examine big topics like war and poverty, some are achingly intimate. They burrow into the lives of one person or family, all in an attempt to find something universal on the other side. Such is the case with A Photographic Memory, a film that follows one photographer’s attempt to understand her long-deceased mother. It doesn’t illuminate in the same way as a topic-driven documentary, and yet there is soft-spoken wisdom about inherited sensibilities, along with buried grief.

Sheila Turner–Seed, the mother of director Rachel Elizabeth Seed, died when Rachel was a baby. Unlike many who die at a young age, Sheila left behind an extensive archive of her life. She spent years working as a photographer, documenting milestones, but she ultimately found her life’s calling when she began making audio recordings of other photographers. Through a mix of archival footage and sound recordings, Rachel gives us a stirring impression of her mother—a woman who seemed both shy and urbane. Sheila’s story runs parallel to Rachel’s and her attempt to know someone who only exists in snapshots, recordings, and memory.

Parts of A Photographic Memory are enigmatic because it presents a situation rich with irony and regret. Yes, Rachel has access to an archive of her mother, to say nothing of present-day interviews with people who knew her, and yet her pursuit for greater understanding often leads to more questions than answers. The irony is not lost on Rachel, who films herself with a mix of deep sadness and perseverance, and for whom the journey seems more important than the product. If this film leaves us wanting to know about the filmmaker and her subject, there must be solace in how Rachel’s bittersweet lack of resolution mirrors anyone who attempts to make sense of loss.

A Photographic Memory screens at 12:15 p.m. on June 15 at E Street Cinema. Buy tickets here.

Union

The secret behind so many tech companies is that ancient methods make them possible. Much like how slaves and laborers built the pyramids, an anonymous wall of humanity ensures your iPhone works, or that your air filters from Amazon get delivered on time. Union, the new film from directors Brett Story and Stephen Maing, looks into how Amazon tries to suppress its workforce. By following one small group that successfully unionizes in Staten Island, it exposes the regressive underbelly that allows tech companies to dominate entire segments of our economy.

Story and Maing have access to Zoom calls, rallies, and meetings where various warehouse workers organize for basic workplace rights. On one level, this is a classic David vs. Goliath story, but it’s to the film’s credit that they focus on other complications. There are many scenes where we see Amazon’s insidious anti-union activity, whether it’s through workplace propaganda or other employees who serve as anti-union plants. The union faces incredible pressure against a massive company, so it’s no wonder that some organizers crack, like an employee who wants to return to work, or a union meeting that nearly devolves into a shouting match.

If Union has a hero, it is organizer Chris Smalls, a charismatic man who works as the face of the union. Sometimes Amazon sends a lackey to harass him, like when he stands in a parking lot and his former supervisor threatens to have him arrested. There are other times where he has no choice but to push back against other organizers who lack his resolve. In every scene, he internalizes something that Story and Maing also communicate effectively: When it comes to fighting an anonymous company with infinite resources, any weakness is an opportunity to attack. Although Union depicts a small-scale struggle to give some workers the dignity all deserve, it’s more compelling as a dystopian tale about how megacorporations are our modern-day empires, seeking to expand their purview and influence, no matter the human cost.

Union screens at 4:15 p.m. on June 15 at the U.S. Navy Memorial, Burke Theatre. Buy tickets here.

Emergent City

The conflict over the “civic epic” Emergent City may sound a little dry. Directors Kelly Anderson and Jay Arthur Sterrenberg follow the saga of Industry City, a large former industrial space in the Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn, as developers struggle to get it rezoned for commercial use. What sounds like a simple municipal matter is much more—becoming a protracted battle for the neighborhood’s future. Industry City serves as a potent symbol for the clash between community and gentrification.

Anderson and Sterrenberg opt for a cinema verité approach. Over the course of years, they observe countless discussions and community meetings about the space. A few key figures emerge, including the beleaguered city councilman who seemingly cannot satisfy anyone, and developers who regard community concerns with a thinly veiled mix of amusement and contempt. They all contribute to a multifaceted struggle that has so many interests and points of view that no one side, even the wealthy interlopers, are wholly right or wrong. Yes, we see the developer on a panel with Jared Kushner, an immediate red flag if there ever was one, and yet Industry City’s critics are so obstinate that all compromise seems impossible.

Emergent City is not a polemic, nor does it fall into the “all sides” trap of equivocation. It’s curious and patient, taking the time to understand its subject. It leaves enough wiggle room for the audience to make up its own mind, a kind of nonfiction Rorschach test to help us illuminate how we really think about everything from housing costs to climate change. 

Emergent City screens at 6 p.m. on June 15 at E Street Cinema. Buy tickets here.

The Cinema Within

Some linguists think that humankind has an innate capacity for language. We have a desire for interaction and an ability to recognize patterns, so verbal and written communication must then follow. The fascinating new documentary The Cinema Within takes this idea and expands it. The director and his subjects believe that, like language, humankind has innate capacity to understand cinema.

Director Chad Freidrichs and his interviewees, including the Oscar-winning film editor Walter Murch, start by examining early films. If audiences could not follow simple film grammar, then the entire medium of movies would never have advanced as far it has. They test this theory with a novel experiment. A cinema scholar travels to a remote village in Turkey, a place where no one has ever seen a film or watched television, and shows them simple shots. When they are shown two images of the same donkey, just from different camera angles, are they able to intuitively understand it is the same animal? The answers are more complicated than you may think.

There is an infectious sense of discovery and curiosity to this film. Even if you are not a film obsessive like I am, there is something universal about the pursuit of Freidrichs, Murch, and the others. They even talk to scientists, not film editors, who make the convincing case that the act of blinking is so similar to a cut in a film edit that the act of watching a movie is a facsimile of how we perceive the world. Between some major breakthroughs and Freidrichs’ clever way of showing how the artificiality of moviemaking can seem utterly natural, The Cinema Within is the rare documentary that can quite literally change our notion of how we see the world.

The Cinema Within screens at 2:45 p.m. on June 16 at E Street Cinema. Buy tickets here.

DC/DOX runs June 13 through 16 at various locations throughout D.C.

Editor’s note: City Paper film critic Alan Zilberman will moderate the Q&A for the film Omar and Cedric: If This Ever Gets Weird at 7:30 p.m. on June 14 at E Street Cinema.