Our annual spring series Documentary Voices showcases a broad range of contemporary and historical documentaries, from poetic explorations to cinematic essays to forays into archival collections. This season we feature an international selection of films that investigate history: The Specialist, a re-examination of the 1961 Eichmann trial, from Israel; May They Rest in Revolt, a verité look at the experience of marginalized immigrants; Body of War, Ellen Spiro and Phil Donahue's affecting portrait of an antiwar veteran's struggles with injuries sustained during the Iraq War (with Spiro in person); and the director's cut of Joshua Oppenheimer's surreal and shocking The Act of Killing, in which Indonesian death squad members reenact murder and torture, inspired by Hollywood films. Lucien Castaing-Taylor will be in person with Leviathan, the exquisite, immersive depiction of commercial fishing by Castaing-Taylor and Veréna Paravel.
We are also screening a number of documentaries in other BAM/PFA series this spring: The politically charged pseudo-documentary Le Président from Cameroon and Fidaï, from Algeria, an elegant re-creation of political actions, screen in our African Film Festival. And we are delighted to host several other documentary filmmakers in person to discuss their work: American documentarian and activist Tony Buba, Iranian filmmaker Kamran Shirdel on his first U.S. visit, and Ross McElwee from Cambridge, MA.