AFI Docs 2015: What I Saw

I loved every film I saw at AFI Docs this year, with a wide variety in subject matter and tone. There were intimate, personal stories, and movies about major global figures and forces. And I also saw an eye-popping demonstration of new technology, VIZIO’s Ultra HD supporting Dolby Vision. With samples from computer animation to live action, the Reference Series TV, which will be available later this year, showed stunningly dynamic, clear, and accurate images. They will also be using their systems in movie theaters, including five AMC theaters this year.

The films I saw were:

“The Best of Enemies” The legendary William F. Buckley/Gore Vidal debates following the Republican and Democratic conventions of 1968 are, according to this film, the origin of today’s partisan, combative television news programming.

“The Wolfpack” Like a Wes Anderson movie come to life, this is the story of seven children, six of them boys, growing up in New York, home schooled and not allowed to leave the apartment, completely isolated from the world except for movies, which they watch and re-create.

“From This Day Forward” As a filmmaker prepares for her own wedding, she explores the very unusual but deeply committed relationship of her parents, who remain married despite her father’s transition to being a woman.

“Hot Type: 150 Years of the Nation” The country’s oldest continuously operating publication faces unprecedented challenges in an era of new media and impatient readers.

“How to Dance in Ohio” A group of teenagers and adults with autism prepare for a prom to work on their social skills.

“Very Semi-Serious” New Yorker cartoon editor Bob Mankoff and the quirky and engaging people who create cartoons tell us how they find what is strange about the familiar and familiar about the strange.

“Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine” Alex Gibney, whose award-winning documentaries have covered Enron, Scientology, torture, Eliot Spitzer, and more, turns his camera on one of the most influential figures of the 20th century.