Latest in AFI Docs

Plans are in the works to launch a new documentary film festival in Washington, D.C. in June 2023, with a launch event to take place later this month. Jamie Shor, president of PR Collaborative, and Sky Sitney, director of the film and media studies program at Georgetown University, are founders of the new event…

AFI Fest on Wednesday officially announced dates and a call for entries for its 36th edition, which will take place in Los Angeles from November 2-6, 2022.  Entries open today and filmmakers are invited to submit fiction, documentary, experimental and animated short films. Once again placing the fest in the heart of…

Vertical Entertainment has acquired North American rights to Rushed, an indie thriller directed by Vibeke Muasya that stars Siobhan Fallon Hogan, Robert Patrick, Jake Weary and Peri Gilpin. A theatrical release is planned. Hogan penned the screenplay and stars as Barbara O'Brien, an upstate New York Irish Catholic…

AFI Docs, the annual nonfiction film festival in the D.C. region, returns on Tuesday as a hybrid of in-person events and virtual screenings, a format mandated by ongoing safety concerns over Covid-19. While the ability to host at least some screenings at the AFI Silver Theater parallels the reopening of movie venues…

AFI Docs, the non-fiction film festival held each June in the D.C. area, announced a slate that includes four world premieres, including Obama: In Pursuit of a More Perfect Union. Other feature film and series world premieres include The Slow Hustle, from director Sonja Sohn, focusing on a corruption scandal in the…

AFI Docs will go forward this year with limited in-person screenings as well as a virtual edition, and planners of the event announced an initial three screenings. The festival will open on June 22 with the world premiere of Naomi Osaka, from Garrett Bradley. and will close with Cusp, directed by Parker Hill and…

EXCLUSIVE: Here’s a clip from The Atlantic's first feature documentary, White Noise, which tracks the rise of far-right nationalism by focusing on the lives of three of its main proponents. The feature was directed and shot by Daniel Lombroso, who embedded himself in the movement for four years to make the movie. It…

EXCLUSIVE: Big Freedia is known as the Queen of Bounce, a hip hop genre from New Orleans that she popularized and boosted her into the stratosphere as an influential artist. In the new documentary, Freedia Got A Gun, she uses her platform to shift focus on gun violence after her brother Adam was murdered. “When are…

AFI Docs, to take place as a virtual film festival from June 17-21, unveiled a slate of titles on Monday that is heavy in topics having to do with race and gender. Among the 59 films in the lineup is Women In Blue, an examination of race, gender and violence in the Minneapolis police department. Also on the list of…

The American Film Institute’s annual documentary film festival will be online this year, the latest event to be reimagined in the face of the coronavirus crisis, and it will open with the project Boys State.  The festival will run from June 17 to 21, and films will be available to view on DOCS.AFI.com. The festival…

AFI Docs has raised the curtain on its 2019 slate — 68% of which are films produced by women and nearly half that feature a female helmer. The lineup features 72 documentaries from 17 countries, including six world premieres. The films will unspool from June 19-23 in Washington, D.C., and Silver Spring, MD. See the…

Michael Lumpkin, who has served as Director of the American Film Institute’s Docs for the past three years, has just been named Director of AFI Festivals. Jacqueline Lyanga, who began serving as Director of AFI FEST in 2010 and is a graduate of the AFI Conservatory, is departing her role to pursue new…