Adam Harbottle and Brian Hill’s RELENTLESS RIDE opens, Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss’s THE MISSION is the Centerpiece selection, and Michèle Stephenson & Joe Brewster’s GOING TO MARS: THE NIKKI GIOVANNI PROJECT gets the closing slot.
Mary Steenburgen will be this year’s Honorary Chair, Sky Hopinka will receive the HSDFF Brent Renaud Career Achievement Award, and Diane Becker and Shane Boris will be the recipients of this year’s Impact Award.
Hot Springs, AR (September 19, 2023) – The critically acclaimed Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival presented by Oaklawn announced the lineup of films and honorees for its 32nd edition, taking place October 6-14. Screenings will kick off at Oaklawn’s Event Center with the previously announced Opening Night presentation of Adam Harbottle and Brian Hill’s Relentless Ride, followed by the Centerpiece Selection of Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss’s The Mission (distributed by National Geographic Documentary Films) with Michèle Stephenson & Joe Brewster’s Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project screening on Closing Night. Special presentations include Justin Taylor Smith and Kaoru Ishibashi’s A Song Film by Kishi Bashi: Omoiyari, as well as Jack Lofton and Jeff Dailey’s The People v. Profits, and Li Lu’s doc series A Town Called Victoria, which will both make their world premieres at HSDFF. Following Opening Night at Oaklawn, all screenings will take place at The Arlington Resort Hotel & Spa.
This year’s Honorary Chair, Mary Steenburgen, will participate in the Southern Storytellers Screening and Panel, one of a handful of special events and new initiatives featured at this year’s edition of the film festival. Sky Hopinka will receive the HSDFF Brent Renaud Career Achievement Award, and Diane Becker and Shane Boris will be the recipients of this year’s Impact Award.
Other new initiatives include the previously announced Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB)-funded Filmmaker Forum, The Natural State – a new section focused on the environment, outdoor adventure, athletic achievement and the stories and people of Arkansas, a new film series added to the lineup – The Wellness Series, True Stories: A Live Storytelling Event, and a Secret Screening.
HSDFF Executive Director, Ken Jacobson, said, “In our 32nd year, we are underlining the high level of film programming that has made the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival such a beacon for the best and most innovative filmmakers working in the documentary form today. In addition, we are incorporating dynamic new programs and events to enrich the audience experience and support the documentary filmmaking community. Our goal is to embrace the rich tableau of nonfiction storytelling and forge deeper connections between filmmakers, the people and place of Hot Springs, Arkansas and the broader world. We are thrilled to be launching these efforts alongside this year’s Honorary Chair, the extraordinary and beloved Arkansan, the multi-talented Mary Steenburgen.”
THE GALAS AND SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS
Adam Harbottle and Brian Hill’s Relentless Ride will start this year’s edition of HSDFF on Friday, October 6 with a distinctly local flavor, with its immersive look at a diverse group of amazing riders who take on the grueling 2021 Arkansas High Country Race, known to be one of the most challenging bike races in the U.S. If that weren’t exciting enough, the following day, this year’s Arkansas High Country Race will hit the streets of Hot Springs, with more than 70 competing cyclists participating. This year’s Centerpiece selection, taking place Wednesday, October 11, is Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss’s The Mission (distributed by National Geographic Documentary Films) which tells the tragic story of what happened when a young American missionary contacted one of the last isolated communities of Indigenous people in the world. Producer Will Cohen and film participant Dan Everett will attend and participate in a post-screening discussion moderated by Variety’s Peter Debruge.
Michèle Stephenson & Joe Brewster’s Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project will close HSDFF on Saturday, October 14. The film focuses on celebrated American poet Nikki Giovanni and the revolutionary periods in which she wrote, from the Civil Rights Movement to Black Lives Matter. Both Stephenson and Brewster will attend the screening. There will be a Special Presentation of Justin Taylor Smith and Kaoru Ishibashi’s A Song Film by Kishi Bashi: Omoiyari, which follows the musical journey of multi-talented musician Kishi Bashi as he explores the legacy of Japanese American incarceration during World War II. Kishi Bashi will be in attendance at the film festival.
WORLD PREMIERES
HSDFF world premieres include Arkansas filmmaker Jack Lofton, and Jeff Dailey’s The People v. Profits, which provides a court-side seat into the high stakes, big money consumer cases where the top, charismatic lawyers go head-to-head with the world’s biggest corporations. Li Lu’s three-part documentary series A Town Called Victoria will also make its debut at the film festival. The series looks at what led to a mosque being burned to the ground in a small Texas town and, in the aftermath, how residents rallied to support the local Muslim community but with many lingering and complicated questions remaining.
HSDFF HONORARY CHAIR AND HONOREES
This year’s Honorary Chair, Mary Steenburgen will be a key participant in the Southern Storytellers Screening and Panel, taking place on Friday, October 13. Moderator Courtney Pledger, CEO of Arkansas PBS, and Peabody Award-winning filmmaker Craig Renaud will join Steenburgen for an in-depth conversation about the new three-part docuseries from PBS. Southern Storytellers traverses the American South, from the mountains of Appalachia to the Gulf of Mexico, to reveal a vivid patchwork of stories that celebrate the resilience and joy of Southern people—and the magnitude of gifts from the region’s writers.
Steenburgen is an Academy Award and Golden Globe winning actress best known for her work in notable and beloved films like Melvin and Howard, Parenthood, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, Philadelphia, Stepbrothers, and Book Club and television shows Justified, Orange is the New Black, Curb Your Enthusiasm and The Last Man on Earth. Most recently, Steenburgen starred in NBC’s musical television sensation Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist, and the feature film Book Club: The Next Chapter.
This year’s Brent Renaud Career Achievement Award will be received by Sky Hopinka on Monday, October 9, followed by a screening of Hopinka’s short films including his latest, Sunflower Siege Engine. In a relatively short time, Hopinka has produced a truly distinctive and remarkable body of work in the documentary field. His explorations into the relationship between people and the land, the interplay between culture and language, and his highly intuitive and inspired insights into form have made deep impressions on audiences throughout the world and helped redefine the way documentaries are perceived and received. His work has played at many festivals around the world, as well as being a part of the 2017 Whitney Biennial, the 2018 FRONT Triennial and Prospect.5 in 2021. He was a guest curator at the 2019 Whitney Biennial and participated in Cosmopolis #2 at the Centre Pompidou. He has had a solo exhibition at the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, in 2020 and in 2022 at LUMA in Arles, France. He is the recipient of the Infinity Award in Art from the International Center and the Alpert Award for Film/Video and fellowships including The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, Sundance Art of Nonfiction, Art Matters, The Guggenheim Foundation, and The Forge Project. In the fall of 2022, Hopinka received a MacArthur Fellowship for his work as a visual artist and filmmaker.
The HSDFF Impact Award will be presented to Diane Becker and Shane Boris, Academy Award winners for Navalny last year. The presentation will take place prior to a screening of their film King Coal on Tuesday, October 10. Produced with Peggy Drexler and Elaine McMillion Sheldon, who is also the film’s director. King Coal is a sensitive portrait of a community and culture defined by industry, showcasing the beauty of the coal region of Appalachia through the eyes of an inquisitive child.
Becker is an Academy Award-winning, Emmy-nominated producer and the co-founder of Fishbowl Films. Navalny won both the U.S. Documentary Audience Award and the Festival Favorite Award at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival and was awarded a BAFTA, PGA, DuPont, and the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature. Her films have screened in the most prestigious festivals across the globe, and she has worked with companies like HBO, CNN, Showtime, Netflix, and PBS. Film credits include Manhunt, The Final Year, Legion of Brothers, If I Leave Here Tomorrow, Belushi, and the Emmy-nominated Tina. Fishbowl Films won a Peabody Award in 2019 for Inventing Tomorrow (POV) and Diane and co-founder Melanie Miller were awarded the 2020 Sundance Institute/Amazon Producer’s Award for Non-Fiction for Whirlybird. Becker is a 2023 recipient of the Dear Producer Award and was a Sundance Documentary Creative Producing Fellow.
Boris is an Academy Award-winning and three-time Academy Award-nominated producer and writer working on films that push the boundaries of conventional form to tell timeless and cinematic stories. His films have premiered at festivals around the world and screened in museums like The Louvre, MoMA, and the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. Previous films include: the Academy Award-winning and BAFTA-winning Navalny, the Academy Award-nominated and Peabody Award-winning Fire of Love, the Emmy Award-nominated The Last Cruise, the Indie Spirit Award-nominated Stray, the Academy Award-nominated and Peabody Award-winning The Edge of Democracy, and the Sundance Award-winning All These Sleepless Nights. His latest films, King Coal, and Hollywoodgate, premiered this year at Sundance, Venice, and Telluride. Boris is also the co-founder of Joon, a multidisciplinary incubator, and has worked as a strategist for businesses and NGOs, a writing consultant for authors, and a song lyricist for musicians.
NEW INITIATIVES AND PROGRAMMING ADDITIONS
The Natural State film series, sponsored by Sigma Supply, will include a selection of features and shorts related to: the environment, outdoor adventure and athletic Achievement, with particular emphasis on topics related to the unique attributes of Arkansas and to extraordinary Arkansans. The Wellness Series Film Screenings will be highlighted by screenings of Elliot Kotek’s The Hidden Power of Purpose, sponsored by AARP, which asks the urgent question, “What does it mean to live a life driven by purpose?” via four inspiring stories with the latest scientific research which affirms that living a life of purpose and living longer are inextricably intertwined. Also featured in this new series is Jonathan Hock’s Open Heart, sponsored by CHI St. Vincent, focuses on New York Rangers’ star goalie Henrik Lundqvist, who was forced to face his own mortality when he was diagnosed with a potentially fatal heart condition.
HSDFF will also look to expand the audience’s film festival experience beyond film screenings this year by introducing a new live storytelling event called “True Stories”. A series of short, personal stories told by a diverse mix of visiting filmmakers and local storytellers, led by Kai Coggin, author and the inaugural Poet Laureate of the City of Hot Springs, this program (inspired by the beloved “Campfire Stories” at the True/False Film Festival) is designed to foster a vibrant exchange between local artists and residents of Hot Springs and the filmmakers who come to the festival every year.
ADDITIONAL FILM HIGHLIGHTS
Additional highlights among the impressive film lineup include Ben Hania’s Four Daughters, which was a winner of the L’Oeil D’or prize at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival. The hybrid film weaves documentary and stylized fiction to explore the shocking story of a Tunisian matriarch whose two eldest daughters suddenly go missing. Allison Ellwood’s crowd pleaser, Let the Canary Sing focuses on the life and music the beloved and distinctive Cyndi Lauper. Alexandria Bombach’s It’s Only Life After All is a heartwarming music documentary celebrating the legacy of the Americana folk duo Indigo Girls, who have enjoyed a resurgence this year thanks to the Barbie movie.
Nick Capote’s Between Life & Death: Terri Schiavo’s Story is a piercing, thoughtful re-examination of the complex story of Terri Schiavo, whose headline-grabbing right-to-die legal saga and media circus in the early 2000s electrified the nation, forcing Americans to confront the tangled intersection of personal faith and federal policy. Stamped From the Beginning is the latest documentary from Academy Award-winning director Roger Ross Williams. The film is a thoughtful and candid examination of the origin, evolution, and continued impact of racist anti-Black narratives on American policy and culture. From documentary filmmaking legend Errol Morris comes The Pigeon Tunnel which delves into the life and career of former British spy David Cornwell — better known as John le Carré — author of such classic espionage novels as “The Spy Who Came in From the Cold” and “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy”.