Focus Programs

Exploring the unique relationship of trust between documentary film and audiences, Fabrications presents ten films that test the limits of the format’s promise of truth. Rather than providing an answer, the program explores the documentary form as realism, as opposed to reality, and encourages audiences to think more deeply about how all realities are fabricated on screen. 

The curated selection questions to what extent our realities inform our fictions, and vice versa, and includes the late Safi Faye’s docufiction about the village she was born, Letter from my Village and Massoud Bakhshi’s kaleidoscopic city portrait Tehran Has No More Pomegranates!. The first four titles in the program have been announced; the remainder will be made public in October.

The Focus Program Fabrications is supported by vfonds.

Looking back on 100 years since Kodak introduced 16mm, 16 Worlds on 16 explores how the film format influenced the history of documentary film. The less expensive and lighter alternative to 35mm cameras enabled experiment and independent filmmaking to flourish—also making it more accessible for lesser represented communities, such as Sara Gómez’s On the Other Island that addressed Cuba’s intersectional inequalities. 

The selection also includes cinema verité classics, such as Agnès Varda’s Daguerréotypes, and examples of metaphorical critique of authority to bypass censorship, such as Abbas Kiarostami’s exploration into revolutionary mindsets in First Case, Second Case. The sixteen titles that make up the program have been announced.

Placing connectivity and creative influence in the spotlight, Corresponding Cinemas will examine the ways through which the work of each filmmaker has inspired the work of the other, offering a glimpse into cinema’s endless relay of creative connections. 

Starting with Sky Hopinka, this program invites us to explore the work of and connections between Basma al-Sharif, Jumana Manna, Ibrahim Shaddad, and Abderrahmane Sissako. Accompanied by introductions and conversations, the program will show nine titles by the filmmakers.