Unorthodocs

Short films from up-and-coming filmmakers and established artists working in a dizzy range of documentary forms and tones. Among this year’s highlights is Jill, Uncredited (Anthony Ing, 2022), a playful yet profound portrait of the prolific background actor Jill Goldston who has appeared in almost 2000 films and TV programs ranging from Mr. Bean to The Elephant Man. This short film retains the viewer’s focus as each new scene becomes a “Where’s Waldo?”-esque search for Goldston (approx. 90 minutes, DCP)

Additional Information: Tickets will be available at wexarts.org (or in person at the box office). Accessibility accommodations available upon request.

This intimate and surprising David vs. Goliath story closely follows a group of current and former Amazon employees who seek to unionize within one of the world’s largest and most powerful companies. After the screening, the film’s co-director Brett Story will be in conversation with the Ohio filmmaker Steven Bognar, an Oscar-winner for his powerful unionization film American Factory.

Additional Information: Tickets will be available at wexarts.org (or in person at the box office). Accessibility accommodations available upon request.

Shot entirely within the notoriously violent world of Grand Theft Auto, this film charts the ridiculous, hilarious and moving adventure of Sam and Mark as they attempt to stage a full production of Hamlet within the game. Winner of the 2024 South by Southwest Jury Award for Best Feature Documentary (89 minutes, DCP).

Additional Information: Tickets will be available at wexarts.org (or in person at the box office). Accessibility accommodations available upon request.

​​Following an unlikely collaboration between a Palestinian filmmaker and an Israeli journalist, this is a powerful record of life in Occupied Palestine. Bearing witness to the everyday horrors of life under occupation, and the stark inequality it gives rise to, this is a welcome and urgent act of witness and testimony (96 minutes, DCP). In Arabic, Hebrew, and English with English subtitles.​

Additional Information: Tickets will be available at wexarts.org (or in person at the box office). Accessibility accommodations available upon request.

Filmmaker Rachel Elizabeth Seed attempts to piece together a portrait of her mother, an avant-garde journalist and a woman she never knew. Through techniques that Variety calls “ingenious,” A Photographic Memory is a poignant exploration of memory, legacy and stories left untold (87 minutes, DCP). After the screening, Rachel Elizabeth Seed with be in conversation with photographer Laura Larson.

Additional Information: Tickets will be available at wexarts.org (or in person at the box office). Accessibility accommodations available upon request.

Unfolding in a series of eight vignettes, Sound Spring explores the unique history of Yellow Springs, Ohio over hundreds of years, as narrated by its residents in comical scenes. Through interacting with their own previously recorded media, villagers uncover layers of time and storytelling. Sound Spring was supported by the Wexner Center’s Film/Video Studio and Alvarez is the 2020 Ohio Shorts Jury Award winner (95 minutes, DCP).

Additional Information: Tickets will be available at wexarts.org (or in person at the box office). Accessibility accommodations available upon request.

Mingle with the filmmakers participating in this year’s Unorthodocs festival and other documentary lovers at this reception with light snacks and a cash bar. Reception will take place in the lower lobby in between two screenings of Ohio-made films.

This tribute to the late and beloved Oscar-winning Ohio documentarian Julia Reichert by her long-term partner celebrates her legacy and spirit through never-seen-before footage of her life and work. This program will bring Julia’s inspirational spirit to the Wexner Center with three short films by Bognar that highlight the incredible woman who was so often behind a camera. Remembering Julia surveys her exceptional film output over the decades, Julia Home Movies is a poetically intimate look back on her life, and Julia’s Stepping Stones is a beautiful reflection of her journey narrated by Reichert herself (and is inspired by a talk she gave at the 2019 Unorthodocs festival). (Approx. 90 minutes, DCP)

Additional Information: Tickets will be available at wexarts.org (or in person at the box office). Accessibility accommodations available upon request.

DRIVER follows three years in the life of long-haul trucker Desiree Wood and her community of women drivers, presenting a snapshot of a quickly-disappearing labor landscape, told through the women who are living it every day. Desiree and her sisterhood of truckers are fueled by a sense of gallows humor and a fiery outrage as they rally against the crushing forces of an industry that is indifferent to their survival (90 minutes, DCP).

Additional Information: Tickets will be available at wexarts.org (or in person at the box office). Accessibility accommodations available upon request.

When Mats Steen was diagnosed with a rare form of muscular dystrophy and increasingly lost control of his body, he fell into the world of computer games with the aid of specially built chairs. His parents had worried about the isolation of the last years of his life but after his death at the age of 25, they realized that he’d had a rich and eventful online gaming life and had made friends around the world. Through a blend of reconstructed animated gameplay and interviews, the exciting Norwegian filmmaker Benjamin Ree creates a vivid portrait of Ibelin, Steen’s avatar within the World of Warcraft community, illustrating how Steen was able to transcend the limits of his physical world. The winner of directing and audience awards at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, Ibelin is one of the year’s most unforgettable and moving documentaries (101 minutes, DCP). In Norwegian and English with English subtitles.

Additional Information: Tickets will be available at wexarts.org (or in person at the box office). Accessibility accommodations available upon request.

Anand Partwardhan is known for his brave documentaries that question his country’s dominant Hindu nationalist ideology. In The World Is Family (an old Sanskrit phrase), Anand looks at his family’s elders who had fought for India’s Independence alongside Mahatma Gandhi in the first half of the 20th century. Today self-confessed supremacists whose ideology once inspired the murder of Mahatma Gandhi are in power. As they rewrite India’s history, memories of the past have become more precious than mere personal nostalgia (96 minutes, DCP). In Hindi with English subtitles.

Additional Information: Accessibility accommodations available upon request.