The 18th annual Hamptons Doc Fest festival starts tomorrow, Dec. 4, and continues over the course of eight days, showcasing 33 documentary films across at three different Hamptons locations.
With an aim to introduce the best examples within the documentary genre to attendees, this year’s Doc Fest sees half of the stories about or told by women. In addition to providing movie-goers with myriad documentaries, the festival also provides viewers with in-person discussions, media labs and workshops, receptions and award ceremonies, and educational programming.
“Our 2025 program is electric with real-life stories,” said Hamptons Doc Fest founder and executive director Jacqui Lofaro. “Join us for eight days of great documentary filmmaking crafted by talented creators who edit, not censor, who discover, not destroy. It’s testimony to free and frank expression — the voices we need.”
Two screenings will be at Bay Street Theater on Tuesday, Dec. 9: Everest Dark at 3 p.m. and Rebel with a Clause at 5:30 p.m. (Photos courtesy of Hamptons Doc Fest)
Kicking off the festival tomorrow is a screening of Steal This Story, Please!, directed by Tia Lessin and Carl Deal and following the story of journalist and Bay Shore native Amy Goodman, specifically examining what happens to a democratic society when the press surrenders to power. Pretty apropos stuff especially in our nation’s current political climate. The film starts at 7:30 p.m. at Sag Harbor Cinema, with Goodman, Dean and Lessin all slated to be on hand for a Q&A following the screening.
Throughout the course of the week, most of the films will screen at either Bay Street Theater (1 Long Wharf) and Sag Harbor Cinema (90 Main St.).
On Friday, Dec. 5, four films will screen at Sag Harbor Cinema beginning at noon: She Runs the World; My Underground Mother (at 2:30 p.m.); A Life Illuminated (5 p.m.); and Between Goodbyes (7:30 p.m.). On Saturday, Dec. 6, documentary action shifts over to Bay Street Theater beginning at 9:30 a.m. with a breakfast and short films program, which will include a 116-minute series of four docs: All the Empty Rooms, Saving Our Ancestors: Reflections by Dr. Biruté Galdikas, Doc Albany, and Women Laughing. A Q&A with three directors from these four films will be occur after the screenings.
At 6:30 p.m. on Friday, there’ll be a gala honoring Alan Berliner, this year’s Pennebaker Career Achivement Award recipient. With work described by the New York Times as “powerful, compelling and bittersweet…full of juicy conflict and contradiction, innovative in their cinematic technique…” the Brooklyn-born, Queens-bred Berliner’s experimental documentary films include First Cousin Once Removed, Wide Awake, The Sweetest Sound, Nobody’s Business and Intimate Stranger, to name a few. His latest film Benita will be shown immediately following the award ceremony, cocktail reception, at 8 p.m. at Bay Street.
The second round of “Shorts & Breakfast Bites” hits Bay Street on Sunday, Dec. 7 at 9:30 a.m., with additional screenings slated to occur through Wednesday, Dec. 10. Documentaries on the docket include Below the Clouds, Ask E. Jean, Starman, The Tale of Silyan, Everywhere Man: The Lives and Times of Peter Asher, State of Firsts, The Secret of Me, Everest Dark, Rebel with a Clause, Holding Liat, Cutting Through Rocks, SPEAK, The Ark, and Raoul’s, A New York Story. A Young Voices Program set for Monday, Dec. 8, at LTV Studios in Wainscott (75 Industrial Road). This year, middle and high school students can partake in a workshop on the elements of filmmaking, covering everything from directing, filming, editing and performing.
The festival’s closing night will be at Southampton Playhouse (43 Hill St.), with a viewing of Lost Wolves of Yellowstone, on the theater’s state-of-the-art IMAX screen, on Thursday, Dec. 11, at 7:30 p.m. Directed by Thomas Winston (who will be on hand for a Q&A following the film), the documentary tells the story of Mollie Beattie, the first female director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and how she was able to bring wolves, including Alpha Female #5, back to Wyoming’s Yellowstone National Park, after a 50-year absence. According to a press statement from Doc Fest, “Mollie’s Pack is now over 750 wolves strong.”
For the full lineup of documentaries as well as to buy tickets to Doc Fest (which start at $17) click here.
