Hampton Doc Fest marks 15th anniversary

The Hamptons Doc Fest celebrates its 15th anniversary this weekend with a lineup of 25 films and mostly in-person appearances by some of the best-known filmmakers in the documentary field. 

The festival runs from Dec. 1 through Dec. 6 at the Sag Harbor Cinema and the Bay Street Theater, also in Sag Harbor.

Among the high-profile guests will be Sam Pollard, a longtime chronicler of Black life in America, who will accept the festival’s Pennebaker Career Achievement Award and speak before a screening of his latest film, “Lowndes County and the Road to Black Power,” which looks at a 1960s Black suffrage movement in Alabama. Ondi Timoner, whose credits include “Dig!” and “We Live in Public,” will hold a Q&A session after a screening of her new film, “Last Flight Home,” which traces the life of her father, founder of the upstart airline Air Florida. Shaunak Sen will appear for a virtual Q&A to discuss his film “All That Breathes,” about two brothers in New Delhi who run an avian hospital in their basement for the thousands of birds of prey called black kites that drop from the city’s polluted skies.  

Other titles include “Omar Sosa’s 88 Well-Tuned Drums,” a portrait of the prolific Cuban-born pianist-composer; “The Quiet Epidemic,” about the controversial diagnosis of chronic Lyme disease; and two new films about classic movies, “Still Working 9 to 5” and “Desperate Souls, Dark City and the Legend of Midnight Cowboy.” 

For tickets and more information, go to hamptonsdocfest.com.

By Rafer Guzmán

rafer.guzman@newsday.com@raferguzman