AFI Docs 2016

AFI Docs is the best documentary festival in the US, and the schedule for 2016 is filled with outstanding selections. I am most excited for the films about television icon Norman Lear, and the always-fascinating Werner Herzog’s new film about the internet, “Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World,” followed by a conversation between Herzog and filmmaker Ramin Bahrani (“99 Homes”). “Gleason” is the story of former football player Steve Gleason, who discovered he had ALS as he was about to become a father. “Life, Animated” is the story of a wonderfully generous and devoted family, and the son with autism who taught himself to communicate and understand through Disney animated films, and “The Lovers and the Despot,” the crazy story of the kidnapping of South Korea’s greatest movie star and movie director (who were formerly married to each other) by North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il, who forced them to make movies for him.