DC/DOX in the nation’s capital and the Bentonville Film Festival in northwest Arkansas are relative newcomers to the festival scene, but both have become important destinations for filmmakers and lovers of film.
DC/DOX hosted some of the top names in documentary at its third edition, including Ryan White (Come See Me in the Good Light), Carl Deal and Tia Lessin (Steal This Story, Please!), Rachel Grady (co-director of Folktales), Andrew Jarecki and Charlotte Kaufman (The Alabama Solution), Brittany Shine (Seeds) and many others.
On the new edition of Deadline’s Doc Talk podcast, we speak with filmmaker Rob Petit, who brought his directorial debut Underland to DC/DOX after world premiering at the Tribeca Festival. It’s a stunning film that explores what’s beneath our feet, in a manner of speaking. This isn’t a nature film, but a human nature film – probing what has prompted our ancient ancestors, and our contemporaries, to make habitations out of caves and even urban storm drainage systems.
Doc Talk also heads to the Bentonville Film Festival, now in its 11th year under the leadership of chair Geena Davis and president Wendy Guerrero. BFF features fiction and nonfiction in its lineup; the documentary slate included the world premiere of Stop the Insanity: Finding Susan Powter, a film that solves the mystery of what happened to the titular Powter, who became a media sensation in the 1990s with her diet and fitness advice. Bentonville also premiered Beyond the Ashes: An Adaptive Trail Story, about Bentonville’s extraordinary mountain biking trail system which has been made accessible for disabled riders.
Guerrero tells Doc Talk why documentary has always been an important component to the festival experience. And she explores BFF’s core value of inclusion – which might not have seemed radical 11 years ago but certainly stands out now in a time when inclusive thinking has been demonized. Davis says for the entertainment industry, it’s simply about having television shows and films reflect the makeup of the audience.
That’s on the new episode of Doc Talk, hosted by Oscar winner John Ridley (12 Years a Slave, Shirley) and Matt Carey, Deadline’s documentary editor. The pod is a production of Deadline and Ridley’s Nō Studios.
Listen to the episode above or on major podcast platforms including Spotify, iHeart and Apple.
