DOC NYC

 

     The 2nd annual (first attended by me) DOC NYC film festival, presented by the IFC, is currently in progress. Making use of the IFC Center and the also participating NYU Kimmel Center and Skirball for the Performing Arts, the festival runs from the 4th through the 10th and features an eclectic group of features. I assume what you choose will have to do with the subject matter and the proactive directors behind them. 

     Of the two I saw, Scenes of a Crime by Grover Babcock and Blue Hadaegh and Fightville by Michael Tucker and Petra Epperlein, both are telling in the cinematic way (or lack thereof) documentarians choose to present their stories. Crime focuses on a father accused of accidentally murdering his newborn baby, but its most memorable feature - and due to its faux craze in current pop movies today, its selling point - is the use of the actual ten-hour interrogation footage which many felt lead the father to being coaxed into signing a false confession. The footage, although obviously repetitive (the cops have to convince this emotionally unstable man of his mysterious wrongdoings one way or another), gives the movie its backbone. The rest is basic talking heads and ominous shots of empty jury rooms and calm rivers. It's take on medical malfeasance is eye-opening though.

     Fightville, focusing on a group of Southern mixed martial arts fighters in the indies, is more participatory in nature, encompassing the musicality of the sport with its cinematic brutality. Since most MMA fights in the industry are shot with TV cameras, here is a film which lets us see it with different eyes, even allowing us to read (via onscreen text) what the fighters occasionally say to one another. The usual narratives show face: a rising star, formally a troubled youth, is on a hell of a roll and hopes to make it to the UFC; a part-time waiter, part-time fighter finds himself caught between his girlfriend and his career, causing him to get out of shape and fall far behind. Fightville is exciting however, for its pacing and escalating stakes. Shedding light on a struggling promoter who will have to sell his home if his next show doesn't sell well, the movie is also about multiple acts of competition causing pressure, whether it be through grappling or economic woes. The film's star, Dustin Poirier fights in a preliminary match on UFC on FOX this Saturday, November 12th.