"The Music of Strangers" will be shown on Opening Night, Friday November 4th at 8pm:

"If the screen went dark during The Music of Strangers, that would be a disappointment. But if the sound failed, that would be a tragedy. While this documentary, subtitled “Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble,” is lovely to watch, it’s even more beautiful to hear. “I’m always trying to figure out, at some level, who I am and how I fit in the world, which I think is something that I share with seven billion other people,” Mr. Ma says early in the film. That curiosity led him to assemble the Silk Road Ensemble, a collective of some 50 musicians and other artists from across the globe. “This was like the Manhattan Project of music,” one interviewee says of the group, which was founded in 2000. Morgan Neville, the documentary’s director, follows the ensemble as it performs, and profiles a few of its members — among them Kayhan Kalhor, a kamancheh player from Iran, and Kinan Azmeh, a clarinetist from Syria — who speak about the threatened traditions of their homelands. There are discussions of the relevance of music in a violent world, and of the stress of staying true to one’s art while mixing with other styles."    Ken Jaworowski,  New York Times, June 9, 2016

"Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You" will be shown on Saturday, November 5th at 5pm

"Arguably the most influential creator, writer, and producer in the history of television, Norman Lear brought primetime into step with the times. Using comedy and indelible characters, his legendary 1970s shows such as All In the Family, Maude, Good Times, and The Jeffersons, boldly cracked open dialogue and shifted the national consciousness, injecting enlightened humanism into sociopolitical debates on race, class, creed, and feminism. Norman Lear:Just Another Version of You is the definitive chronicle of Mr. Lear’s life, work, and achievements, but it is so much more than an arm’s-length, past-tense biopic; at 93, Mr. Lear is as vital and engaged as he ever was. Top-notch cinéma vérité documentarians Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing (Jesus Camp, 12th & Delaware, DETROPIA) seize the opportunity to fashion a dynamic portrait that matches the spirit of their subject. Breaking down the fourth wall to create an evocative collage where past and present intermingle, they reveal a psychologically rich man whose extraordinary contributions emerge from both his personal story and a dialogue with the world."

"Zero Days" will be shown on Saturday, November 5th at 7pm

"Zero Days begins with the true story of a cyberattack against a nuclear power plant in Iran in which uranium-processing centrifuges were programmed to explode. But the sophisticated worm wreaking the havoc spread to computers around the world. This malicious computer virus, the film reveals, was jointly built by the United States and Israel although neither will publicly confirm it. Numerous officials in Washington are questioned about its existence, but none acknowledge it, and a sequence of high-level stonewalling makes for dark comedy. The film contends that the secret program, Stuxnet, also known as Olympic Games, has since been identified as part of a broader plan, code-named Nitro Zeus, that could disable Iran’s infrastructure. One presence on camera is David E. Sanger, a reporter for The New York Times who calmly puts the development of cyberwarfare into a broad perspective. He is not alone in suggesting that this is now the frontier of modern warfare and that nations are competing fiercely to stay ahead.  ..." Stephen Holden, New York Times, July 7, 2016

"Life Animated" will be shown on Sunday, November 6th at 5pm

"The subject of Life, Animated, is Owen Suskind, who is now twenty-five years old. In the early nineteen-nineties, when Owen was three, he began to withdraw into himself. Neither his motor skills nor his powers of speech were functioning as they should. The change was so rapid as to leave his parents—Ron Suskind, then a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, and his wife, Cornelia—profoundly alarmed. They seemed to be losing the Owen they knew. In Ron’s words, “Someone kidnapped our son.” They consulted a specialist, who diagnosed autism. The prospects of retrieving Owen, as it were, or of assuaging his condition in any substantial way, were arid. Then—“a year along, into his silence,” as Ron puts it—the family was watching a video of Disney’s “The Little Mermaid.” Suddenly, Owen spoke, repeating the villain’s words: “Just your voice.” Of all the lines in all the movies in all the world, he went for those. A doctor, however, dampened hopes by identifying a case of echolalia—in psychiatric terms, a parroting of sounds that carries no weight of meaning. Cut to the ninth birthday of Walter, Owen’s older brother, when Owen, having talked for four years in what Ron describes as “gibberish,” came into the kitchen and announced, “Walter doesn’t want to grow up, like Mowgli or Peter Pan.”    Anthony Lane,  The New Yorker

"The Land Connection" will be shown Friday night before "The Music of Strangers"

Local filmmaker Marc Sanchez Corea's short film looks at the history of ranching and farming in West Marin.

Doc Fest Organizing Committee

Lynette and Jamie Sutton
Harriet Moss
Gail and Bucky Mace
Maureen Marshall & John Hutchinson
Gail Graham & Gary Herman
Ginny Felch

THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS

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Mauree Jane and Mark Perry
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Harriet Moss
Ann Shulman and Steve Colwell
Gail Graham and Gary Herman
Charlene Harvey
Nancy and Bob Bishop
Mary Ann Cobb and Peter Wilson
John Hutchinson and Maureen Marshall
Roberta and Jim Hawthorne
Jamie and Lynette Sutton

    Directors

Kathryn and George Barcos
Gary Ireland and Elizabeth Zarlengo
Kirk and Kathy Kirkham
Geraldine Green
Ann Walsh
Marion Weber
Dick and Carol Watts
Susie Nelsen
Kathy McLorg
Susan and Dick Peterson
Susan Byrd and Mark Lampert
Arianne Dar
Amanda Ross Skincare
Elizabeth Terplan
Judy and Bob Aptekar
Gail Mace
Ashley Grimm and Peter Evans
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Rob and Douglas McCrimmon
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"Maya Angelou; And Still I Rise" will be shown on Sunday, November 6th at 7pm

Distinctly referred to as “a redwood tree, with deep roots in American culture,” icon Maya Angelou gave people the freedom to think about their history in a way they never had before. Dr. Angelou’s was a prolific life; as a singer, dancer, activist, poet, and writer she inspired generations with lyrical modern African-American thought that pushed boundaries.

This unprecedented film celebrates Dr. Maya Angelou by weaving her words with rare and intimate archival photographs and videos, which paint hidden moments of her exuberant life during some of America’s most defining moments. From her upbringing in the Depression-era South to her work with Malcolm X in Ghana to her inaugural speech for President Bill Clinton, the film takes us on an incredible journey through the life of a true American icon. The film also features a remarkable series of interviews with friends and family including President Bill Clinton, Oprah Winfrey, Common, Alfre Woodard, Cicely Tyson, Quincy Jones, Secretary Hillary Clinton, John Singleton and Dr. Angelou’s son, Guy Johnson.