Documentary Voices 2020

February 5–April 29, 2020

Our annual series showcases an international array of recent and historical nonfiction films.

Read full description

  • The Fourth Dimension

  • Lands

  • News from Home

  • Spell Reel

  • Graves Without a Name

  • Upcoming
    Films
  • Upcoming
    Events
  • Selected
    Objects
  • Past
    Films
  • Past
    Events

Past Films

  • CANCELED: The Two Faces of a Bamileke Woman

    • Wednesday, April 29 7 PM
    Rosine Mbakam
    Cameroon, Belgium, 2016

    “The filmmaker reinventing how African women are portrayed in movies” (NPR), Rosine Mbakam turns the camera on her own remarkable mother and her generation in this captivating documentary. With Haminiaina Ratovoarivony’s short Razana.

  • CANCELED: The Private Property Trilogy: A survey of the life and films of C. B.

    • Wednesday, April 22 7 PM
    Nicolás Pereda
    Mexico, United States, 2018

    All film screenings and public programs at BAMPFA have been temporarily canceled. Learn more

    Acclaimed Mexican-Canadian filmmaker Nicolás Pereda returns to BAMPFA with this film/performance/lecture on the life and work of one “C. B.,” an artist, political activist, amateur archeologist, and anarchist.

    Nicolás Pereda and Natalia Brizuela in Conversation

  • CANCELED: Graves Without a Name

    • Wednesday, April 8 7 PM
    Rithy Panh
    France, Cambodia, 2018

    All film screenings and public programs at BAMPFA have been temporarily canceled. Learn more

    In his latest film, Rithy Panh reflects on the search for peace after tragic loss—in this case, the Cambodian genocide, in which most of his family perished. “At once emotionally overwhelming, visually ravishing, and intellectually stimulating” (Hollywood Reporter).

  • CANCELED: The Fourth Dimension

    • Wednesday, April 1 7 PM
    Trinh T. Minh-ha
    United States, 2001

    All film screenings and public programs at BAMPFA have been temporarily canceled. Learn more

    Trinh T. Minh-ha’s essayistic work explores Japan’s everyday life and rituals with her usual sense of lyricism, investigation, and play. “Functions as a recurrent melody, appealing to all the senses” (Locarno Film Festival).

    Lecture by Trinh T. Minh-ha

  • CANCELED: Salesman

    • Wednesday, March 18 7 PM
    Albert Maysles, David Maysles, Charlotte Zwerin
    United States, 1969

    All film screenings and public programs at BAMPFA have been temporarily canceled. Learn more

    New Digital Restoration

    This direct cinema study of door-to-door Bible salesmen in Boston slyly underlines the materialism at the heart of the American dream, and revolutionized the documentary form in the 1960s. “Its broader diagnosis has lost none of its truth” (Village Voice).

  • Spell Reel

    • Wednesday, March 11 7 PM
    Filipa César
    Germany, Guinea-Bissau, 2017

    Decaying archival films from Guinea-Bissau’s 1960s war of independence were digitized and screened in the places where the original footage was shot. The resulting film is “a tribute, a documentary, and an excavation” (New York Times).

  • Chez Jolie Coiffure

    • Wednesday, March 4 7 PM
    Rosine Mbakam
    Cameroon, Belgium, 2018

    A Brussels hair salon catering to West African immigrant women is at the center of this warmhearted documentary. “A must-see! An atypical and timely portrait of the intersection between the immigrant experience and female identity” (Indiewire). With Ellen Spiro and Cheryl Dunye’s short DiAna’s Hair Ego REMIX.

    Introductions by Ellen Spiro and Cornelius Moore

  • News from Home

    • Wednesday, February 26 7 PM
    Chantal Akerman
    France, 1977

    New York City, imposing and anonymous, serves as the visual counterpoint to Chantal Akerman’s reading of her own mother’s letters in this personal, beautifully photographed film. With Palestinian artist Mona Hatoum’s short Measures of Distance.

  • Lands

    • Wednesday, February 19 7 PM
    Maya Da-Rin
    Brazil, 2010

    The invisible border that the Amazon River forms between Colombia, Brazil, and Peru is the main character in Maya Da-Rin’s beautiful film, which moves between nature, culture, and commerce. With Jesse Lerner and Scott Sterling’s short Natives.

  • Beyond Ethnography: Three Short Films

    • Wednesday, February 5 7 PM

    Three short works that expand the nonfiction form: Vincent Carelli and Mari Corrêa’s Video in the Villages Presents Itself, on indigenous media in Brazil; Beatriz Santiago Muñoz’s The Black Cave, exploring Puerto Rico’s Paso del Indio; and Laura Huertas Millán’s La libertad, taking its structure from the pre-Hispanic backstrap loom.