Top 10 Films Of DOCNYC 2023 [Part Two]

As this year’s DOC NYC comes to its conclusion (festival ends on 11/26), we’ve compiled the ten best films from this year’s impressive slate. Here, we close with five more of the very best films of DOC NYC 2023

5. Mediha

Starting off the back half of this top 10 is one of the numerous World Premieres at this year’s festival, and one of the very best of that crop. From director Hasan Oswald comes Mediha, a breathtaking look into the life of a young Yazidi teenager living in the northern part of Iraq. Living a life as part of a religious and ethnic minority, Mediha is also a survivor of a genocide coordinated by ISIS in 2014, which is largely the subject of this new picture. Told through her own words, more specifically her video diaries, Mediha is a harrowing documentary that ruminates on the grief and trauma one in Mediha’s situation has gone through (and, horrifyingly, still go through across the world) while also giving her words and experiences the weight that they deserve in the larger context of the oppression of Yazidi women. It’s a beautiful film from that perspective, giving this woman the space to tell her experiences and hopefully spark a conversation on a much larger scale about the violence against these people. It’s also a profoundly moving viewing experience, with Mediha herself being a real presence on screen. A difficult watch, no doubt, it also happens to be one of the festival’s most emotionally engrossing works.

4. Bad Press

Going into the Winner’s Circle section of the festival, we turn to Bad Press, the latest from directors Rebecca Landsberry-Baker and Joe Peeler. The film sends viewers to Oklahoma, and introduces us to the Mvskoke Media, a news outlet from the Muscogee Nation of Oklahoma. More specifically we meet Angel Ellis, a reporter attempting to bring about change and end corruption in her government. At first glance, the film doesn’t seem like much more than a typical documentary about modern day press freedoms and censorship, however, what makes this film so special is both the specificity of the experiences here as well as the lead character. At its very best it has touches of political thriller thrown into its documentary stylings, with its keen focus on press censorship within a self-governing Native American tribe, all centered around this one reporter and her push to rid this body of its proverbial sickness. A one of a kind documentary experience.

3. Angel Applicant

At number 3 on this list is Ken August Meyer’s Angel Applicant. One of DOC NYC 2023’s more personal and emotionally moving works, Angel Applicant follows Meyer as he is diagnosed with systemic scleroderma, which in the broadest terms is an autoimmune disorder specifically targeting the skin and internal organs, with scar tissue building up in those areas. In search of some sort of meaning behind all the pain and trauma he’s going through, Meyer uncovers the work of Paul Klee, a painter from the 1930s who is reported as suffering from the same disease. Through this connection with history, Meyer tries to find hope in what could easily be a hopeless situation. At once a portrait of two artists connected by trauma as well as a portrait of the unwavering power of art as a place to find hope and meaning, Angel Applicant is a beautifully rendered, briskly-paced piece of work that is truly not like anything else at this year’s festival.

2. The Eternal Memory

From director Maite Alberdi comes The Eternal Memory, the penultimate film on this year’s DOC NYC Top 10. Viewers are introduced here to journalist Augusto Gongora and actress Paulina Urrutia, a couple set to face their hardest journey yet. As Gongora copes with Alzheimer’s disease, viewers watch as the couple, particularly Urrutia, begin to adapt to the latest chapter in their storied romance. Gongora was diagnosed some eight years ago, and the couple fears that, despite being together for a quarter century, there is a day coming where he will not recognize his partner. What could have easily become a difficult, harrowing portrait of a relationship on the brink of collapse, The Eternal Memory is, in actuality, a profoundly beautiful document two people affirming their love for one another as they attempt to grasp onto 25 years of memories. While there’s absolutely dark moments, moments where the horrors of memory loss are front and center, the greatness of this film is that despite all of those dark moments, viewers never once think that these two will ever stop loving one another, no matter how much our bodies and mind may fail us.

1. Name Me Lawand

Rounding out this list is the latest from director Edward Lovelace, a film entitled Name Me Lawand. The film introduces us to the titular Lawand, a deaf child who, with the hopes of giving him a better life, sees he and his parents move to England and enroll him in the Royal School for the Deaf Derby. However, despite seemingly finding a real home there, the lingering question of whether the government will allow him to stay is constantly lingering over both the film and the family at its center. This film is a gorgeously shot documentary, one of the better composed films of the festival, and with Lawand squarely in the center of the narrative, it’s also one of the more engaging watches as well. Watching him grow and connect with others is indescribably moving, something that does make up for a few strange decisions (the score really is going to be polarizing for those that watch it, for example). If you’re able to look through the weird artifice of some of the scenes here, there really wasn’t a film that I saw during the festival that had the same sense of joy as this one. Solid little picture.