Documentary Voices 2021

September 1–November 10, 2021

This fall our ongoing series Documentary Voices returns to BAMPFA’s Barbro Osher Theater with a selection of classic and contemporary nonfiction films that bring history to light in a variety of engaging and inventive ways.

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  • Still from Sugarcoated Arsenic by Kevin Jerome Everson and Claudrena Harold

    Sugarcoated Arsenic

  • No Ordinary Man

  • Crip Camp

  • The Murder of Fred Hampton

  • Tempestad

  • The Man with a Movie Camera

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

Past Films

  • Black Life Presents: Kevin Jerome Everson and Claudrena N. Harold’s UVA Black Fire Films

    • Wednesday, November 10 7 PM

    Kevin Jerome Everson and Claudrena N. Harold’s UVA Black Fire films employ a radical, nonnarrative approach to represent the history of Black achievement and everyday life at the University of Virginia.

    Ryanaustin Dennis in Person

  • Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution

    • Wednesday, October 27 7 PM
    Nicole Newnham, James LeBrecht
    United States, 2020

    A groundbreaking summer camp helps spark a national civil rights movement for people with disabilities in this award-winning documentary with “smart focus, remarkable archival footage and inspiring subjects” (Hollywood Reporter).

    James LeBrecht, Sara Bolder, and Sunaura Taylor in Conversation

  • No Ordinary Man

    • Wednesday, October 13 7 PM
    Aisling Chin-Yee, Chase Joynt
    Canada, 2020

    “No Ordinary Man . . . is a genre unto itself, a meta-biographical film about a musician who earned his place in history posthumously, for reasons that he carefully avoided revealing throughout his life.” —Richard Brody, New Yorker

    Introduction by Mel Y. Chen

  • National Silent Movie Day: The Man with a Movie Camera

    • Wednesday, September 29 7 PM
    Dziga Vertov
    USSR, 1929

    An ecstatic portrait of a city and its inhabitants and a compendium of camera and editing techniques, commenting on itself and our own watching, “Dziga Vertov’s experimental silent documentary upends reality in ways that are still dizzying, thrilling and strangely sexy” (Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian).

    Judith Rosenberg on Piano

  • Tempestad

    • Wednesday, September 15 7 PM
    Tatiana Huezo
    Mexico, 2017

    Built around interviews with two women, Tempestad employs asynchronous sound and evocative cinematography to suggest the omnipresent effects of organized crime in Mexico.

    Introduction by Nicolás Pereda

  • The Murder of Fred Hampton

    • Wednesday, September 1 7 PM
    Howard Alk
    United States, 1971

    Restored 35mm Print

    This impassioned political documentary investigates the killing of Black Panther Fred Hampton and is an indictment of the Chicago police force.

    Introduction by Melissa Charles