The Full Frame Documentary Film Festival has announced the official feature and short film selections for the festival’s 23rd edition, which has been cancelled amid COVID-19 health and safety concerns. Culled from nearly 2,000 submissions, this year’s lineup included 44 features and 12 shorts from 26 countries. The festival is moving forward with cash juried awards.
“We are honored to present the 2020 official Full Frame selections. By turns exciting and bold, luminous, and poignant, these carefully crafted titles display a staggering range of creativity and dedication in examining the world around us,” said artistic director Sadie Tillery. “While we are deeply disappointed that we will not have the opportunity to showcase this work in Durham and welcome these filmmakers for the four-day festival, in light of the circumstances, it felt especially vital to champion these films.” She added, “We thank the filmmakers for agreeing to be a part of Full Frame 2020 and for allowing us to announce their planned participation. We are also especially grateful to the 2020 New Docs awards sponsors and jurors for their continued involvement.”
The New Docs lineup included Barbara Attie, Janet Goldwater, and Mike Attie’s “Abortion Helpline, This Is Lisa” and Jennifer Redfearn’s “Apart.” The former sees counselors at a women’s health fund field calls from women seeking to end their pregnancies but who cannot afford the procedure and the latter follows three women navigating the challenges of mothering their children from prison. The program also featured “Coded Bias,” Shalini Kantayya’s investigation into how racial, gender, and other human biases affect artificial intelligence, and “Spit on the Broom,” Madeleine Hunt Ehrlich’s portrait of a a secret organization of African American women who offer support and aid to their communities and to one another.
Among the titles set to screen in the Invited Program were Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar’s “9to5: The Story of a Movement,” a look inside America’s secretaries’ fight to end abuse on the job, and Ramona S. Diaz’s “A Thousand Cuts,” an examination of current events in the Philippines.
Head over to Full Frame’s website to check out the complete lineup. The fest was slated to run from April 2-5 in Durham, NC.
