Hey art lovers, DOC NYC 2019 is calling, and we strongly urge you to pick up. The downtown New York City festival, which runs through November 15, hosts a mind-boggling amount of events (over 300). The catalog is like an encyclopedia volume. However, tucked inside are documentaries that will give art enthusiasts a new appreciation for artists such as JR, Ai Weiwei, Jackson Pollack, and Audrey Flack.

Now in its 10th year, DOC NYC has a long history of introducing New York City audiences to fascinating and inspiring documentaries about artists. Last year’s program featured Walking on Water, about Christo’s Floating Piers project, and Jay Myself, Stephen Wilkes’s film on photographer Jay Maisel. Films from past lineups include Troublemakers: The Story of Land Art, Banksy Does New York, Alison Klayman’s Carmen Herrera profile The 100 Years Show, and Almost There, Aaron Wickenden and Dan Rybicky’s portrait of outsider artist Peter Anton.

As for DOC NYC 2019, the fest has dialed up its art-doc game. We’ve explored the offerings and come up with seven screening events that should be on every art enthusiast’s radar. Most include Q&As with both the filmmaker and the artist profiled.

Shorts: Art Scenes
This shorts program offers a cornucopia of documentaries about artists and their art. Catherine Opie b. 1961 is a profile of photographer Catherine Opie from The Punk Singer filmmaker Sini Anderson. Ian Forster’s Art21 short Alex Da Corte: 57 Varieties explores Alex Da Corte’s process in making his installation for the 57th edition of the Carnegie International. Alison Chernick’s Jackson Pollock: Blue Poles revisits Ben Heller’s controversial sale of Pollock’s painting to the National Gallery of Australia. Jes Fan in Flux is about a Brooklyn-based glass artist. And, DOC NYC alum Mary Wigmore returns with a film about Los Angeles ceramicists Magdalena and Michael Frimkess.
DOC NYC Screening:
Sun Nov 10, 2019, 10:15 AM | IFC Center

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Queen of Hearts: Audrey Flack

At 88, visual artist Audrey Flack continues to make art. Coming up in the age of abstract expressionism, Flack was one of the pioneers of photorealism in the 1970s and later turned to sculpture. Filmmakers Deborah Shaffer and Rachel Reichman deliver an intimate portrait of the artist’s life and creative process as she takes her work in a brand new direction. Flack is expected to be in attendance.
DOC NYC Screenings:
Sat Nov 9, 2019, 5:00 PM | Cinepolis Chelsea
Thu Nov 14, 2019, 10:45 AM | IFC Center

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Ai Weiwei: Yours Truly

Ai Weiwei is a very popular documentary subject. A new film about the Chinese artist and rights activist seems to surface every few years. As for Cheryl Haines’s Ai Weiwei: Yours Truly, the film is an extension of @Large: Ai Weiwei on Alcatraz, an exhibition she organized with Weiwei at the former island penitentiary in San Francisco while he was still under house arrest in Beijing. The show, which was on display from September 2014-April 2015, raised questions about human rights and freedom of expression and sparked visitors to connect with prisoners of consciousness. Haines’s film celebrates the power of art to effect change.
DOC NYC Screening:
Sun Nov 10, 2019, 12:15 PM | IFC Center

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Flower Punk
Award-winning filmmaker Alison Klayman (Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry, The Brink) sets her sights on visionary Japanese flower artist Azuma Makoto with her documentary short Flower Punk. A meditative work, it screens in the festival’s Shorts: Punk! program.
DOC NYC Screening:
Thu Nov 7, 2019, 9:45 PM | Cinepolis Chelsea

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Imitating Life: The Art of Suzanne Heintz & Like the Back of Her Hand


Filmmakers Karen Whitehead and Katherine De Francis struck gold with Suzanne Heintz. The conceptual photographer is the subject of the duo’s feature-length documentary, Imitating Life: The Art of Suzanne Heintz, which is world premiering at DOC NYC. The filmmakers follow Heintz as she packs up her family of mannequins and goes on a crusade to challenge persisting stereotypes of women’s roles and lives. Heintz is expected to be in attendance. Imitating Life screens with Sarah Friedland’s short film about Wendy Richmond, Like the Back of Her Hand.
DOC NYC Screenings:
Sun Nov 10, 2019, 3:05 PM | Cinepolis Chelsea
Mon Nov 11, 2019, 12:40 PM | Cinepolis Chelsea

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Elliott Erwitt, Silence Sounds Good & One Thousand Stories: The Making of a Mural

Elliott Erwitt Silence Sounds Good_FilmTrailer from Adriana Lopez Sanfeliu on Vimeo.

One Thousand Stories: The Making of a Mural (Teaser) from Tasha Van Zandt on Vimeo.

Photographer Elliott Erwitt, who was fêted at DOC NYC in 2011 with a program devoted to his documentary short films, returns to the festival, this time the subject of Adriana Lopez Sanfeliu’s joyful profile Elliott Erwitt, Silence Sounds Good. A nonagenarian, Erwitt became a Magnum photographer in 1953 and is best known for his portraits of famous people and humorous depictions of everyday life. For her intimate portrait, Sanfeliu spends time with Erwitt in his studio and also travels with him to Cuba following the easing of travel restrictions by the U.S. Elliott Erwitt, Silence Sounds Good screens with Tasha Van Zandt’s short about French photographer JR’s recent San Francisco mural project.
DOC NYC Screening:
Sun Nov 10, 2019, 4:30 PM | IFC Center

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Show Me the Picture

Yet another documentary about an iconic shutterbug, this one looks at influential rock ’n’ roll photographer Jim Marshall. A master of candid music photography, Marshall focused his lens on the likes of The Beatles, Janis Joplin, Bob Dylan, Jim Morrison, The Who, Led Zeppelin, the Grateful Dead, Johnny Cash, Miles Davis, and John Coltrane. London-based filmmaker Alfred George Bailey’s film is both a nostalgia trip and an introduction to a deeply paradoxical figure.
DOC NYC Screenings:
Tue Nov 12, 2019, 5:20 PM | Cinepolis Chelsea
Tue Nov 12, 2019, 9:55 PM | Cinepolis Chelsea