The third edition of DC/DOX went off without a hitch earlier this month (fest took place June 11-14), despite—or perhaps even because of—the military parade down Constitution Avenue Saturday afternoon to celebrate the U.S. Army’s 250th birthday, but whose real purpose was–well, never mind.  The specter of the parade hung over the festival, whose organizers had worked with staff, filmmakers and even attendees to reassure them that the parade would not affect the event.  Even so, some filmmakers still pulled out at the last minute.  My wife and I had a long discussion about whether it was even “safe” for me to come to D.C. on Saturday at all.  I’m glad I did, certainly to lead panels as much as to meet my colleagues and celebrate, in the nation’s capital, the sheer importance of truth in filmmaking. 

“We invite you to enjoy our town this weekend because we sure as hell will!” festival co-founder Jamie Shor said at the Thursday night opening event, held at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre. 

Shor, who is also president of the PR Collaborative (which once again handled publicity for DC/DOX), said that, in anticipation of the Saturday parade, she had been working out at home and humming songs by the Chicks, the Texas band who got into some hot water in 2003 when, on the eve of the Iraq War, lead singer Natalie Maines said she was “ashamed” to be from the same state as George W. Bush.  It was one of many instances of small resistance I observed throughout the festival. 

Sky Sitney

Co-founder Sky Sitney, a film professor at Georgetown, shared both an excited welcome to the full house and the sad news that her father, film historian P. Adams Sitney, had passed away earlier in the week. 

“The gift he gave me wasn’t just a love of film, it was a reverence for it…along with an invitation to see and think differently,” Sitney said of her late father.  She added that Shor and the DC/DOX executive team continued attending to last-minute logistical details during Sitney’s absence from Washington.

Sitney then introduced the opening-night feature, “Steal This Story, Please!” which follows Democracy Now! reporter Amy Goodman’s career asking hard questions of high-profile figures—even when threatened with lawsuits and powerful interests seeking to silence her.  Democracy Now! accepts no government funding, which allows it an unusual amount of editorial independence from corporate and government interests.  Sitney praised Goodman’s work as a form of “moral clarity and unflinching dignity.” 

“Amy Goodman said something [in the film] that stayed with me: ‘Dissent is what makes this country healthy,’” Sitney said.  “This is what I believe DC/DOX invites us to do.  Dissent is a form of Democracy in action.  And this invitation today feels increasingly under threat.”

Among the film’s more intriguing anecdotes is that Democracy Now! was the closest media outlet to Ground Zero on 9/11, and they continued to operate even as first responders—and reporters—breathed in the toxic fumes. 

At the post-screening panel, moderated by Deadline’s Matthew Carey, co-director Tia Lessin stated that Democracy Now! and Fox News were launched in the same year, 1996.  She chided CNN and other outlets for not speaking to protesters in downtown Los Angeles recently, but instead only to other journalists back in the studio.  They were missing out on a crucial piece of the story, she said. 

“It’s not state media, and it’s not corporate media, so what is it?” Goodman asked rhetorically of Democracy Now!  “It’s that global audience hungry for authentic voices.” 

Goodman decried worldwide efforts at press muzzling, including in Israel and the United States.  She also related that protesters in North Dakota seeking to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline project thanked her for coming to interview them. 

She didn’t disagree—at least not too much—with panelists’ assertions that she is an activist as well as a journalist. 

Still from “Sunset and the mockingbird”

Among the most affecting documentaries I saw this year was the short “Sunset and the Mockingbird,” a tender portrait of musician Junior Mance during his decline into dementia, while his wife and manager, Gloria Clayborne, maintains a diary about their experience. 

Clayborne and filmmaker Jyllian Gunther first met in 2015.  Filming of Mance began shortly thereafter, and continued for three years as his condition worsened.  “Sunset and the Mockingbird” is essentially a love letter to their marriage. 

“It was [Mance’s] passing that [cemented] the idea of who is Gloria going to be without Junior,”  Gunther told me in the lobby of the Regal Gallery Place before their Friday afternoon screening as part of the shorts program “The Beat Goes On.”  “In order to know Gloria’s story, we have to really see what she’s struggling with. 

“Love and memory and loss seem to be the only subjects of my whole filmmaking career.”

“People do not talk about this disease,” Clayborne said, choking up recalling her late husband.  “Somewhere, you get lost, but you need to find yourself to continue the journey.  So hopefully, this is a springboard to be more open [about] the disease and how the two can be on this journey together.”

When asked how she maintained her equanimity amid the difficulties of caring for her ailing husband, Clayborne said that at first, she would gently correct Mance when he made a mistake, such as the wrong day of the week.  However, eventually, she shifted her approach entirely. 

“I decided whatever he said to me, it really is true in his world,” she said.  “It’s not true in my world, so I jokingly would say I live in two worlds.”

Clayborne added that she relied on a concept she called “negative plus,” by which she would attempt to find the positive even in difficult moments.  Thus, when Mance could no longer play music publicly, the upside, she said, was that the jazzman continued to play internally.  This continued to his last day when Claybourne heard him talking to imaginary persons shortly before he fell out of bed.  Claybourne said she believed her husband had “just walked off the stage” in his reality. 

“He reached to shake someone’s hand and fell, but he believed he was, so that’s the positive,” she said.   

Moments later, after Claybourne believes Mance briefly recognized her, he was gone. 

Gunther said she and Claybourne are working with the Cure Alzheimer’s Fund and setting up screenings at senior living facilities as well as at live music venues.  She believes the film can be a powerful tool to help people deal with grief and loss.  Claybourne added that she hopes her story will help others learn coping strategies, both for the sufferer and their caregivers.  Indeed, Claybourne says she would allow herself a rest outside of the apartment every two months so that she could recharge. 

As with Anderson Cooper’s famous interview with Tony Bennett, Mance is seen recalling songs of even decades before, somehow untouched by the entropy of his disease.  Gunther said that a modern treatment for Alzheimer’s is to use music playlists from the time the patient was

aged 12 to 25 because that music sticks in memory for whatever reason.  Even today, Mance’s recorded music continues playing in her New York apartment, Claybourne said, as a fitting tribute to her husband. 

“The music never goes off,” she said.  “It just stays on.” 

After taking a stroll down to the National Mall Saturday afternoon to catch and photograph some of the lead-up to the Army’s birthday parade (in addition to veterans, the protestors and counterprotestors were much in evidence, though none seemed to be arguing, at least in my presence), I returned to the Regal Gallery Place for “Arrest the Midwife,” an intriguing and little-known story about Amish and Mennonite midwives in upstate New York.  However, despite the good these women are doing assisting births, the state requires them to be licensed to practice—licenses they do not possess. Thus, Albany seeks to hand down severe sentences, even as practitioners move to nearby Pennsylvania, which does not require the license. 

“Arrest the midwife”

It’s a morally complex scenario in which two opposing truths can be found to be valid. 

At the post-film panel, producer Robin Hessman noted that the Amish community is incredibly insular and distrustful of outsiders.  They also typically stay out of politics and do not vote, but for reproductive rights, they came forward; Hessman said this demonstrates “how large the tent is.”

“Participating was an extension of their activism,” added director Elaine Epstein.  Even though the Amish don’t condone abortion, “more than that, they believe the government doesn’t have a right to tell them what to do with their bodies,” especially regarding midwifery, she added. 

“Arrest the Midwife” also addresses other significant issues, including the disparity in maternal mortality rates in communities of color.  Epstein said this is just one reason among many that she appreciates documentary filmmaking, as it allows directors to experience other people’s lives vicariously. 

“This is not just about New York State,” she said.  “It’s harder and harder for midwives to practice [due to] the medical industrial complex.”

I led three post-screening Q&As at DC/DOX 2025, including one with “Underland” director Robert Petit, as well as with “River of Grass” director Sasha Wortzel and editor Rebecca Adorno-Dávila. 

One stood out particularly.

Saturday evening, following Clay Tweel’s “Andy Kaufman Is Me” screening, Tweel joined me at the front of the theater for a chat.  He and I met last year at DC/DOX to discuss his film “A Bitter Pill,” and thus, it was an immediate “yes” from me to moderate his Q&A.  Things started great, with Tweel gamely sharing his thoughts on getting Kaufman’s family and friends on board the project, as well as his artistic choice to utilize puppets to “animate” Kaufman’s never-completed, surrealist semi-autobiography. 

Things were proceeding swimmingly, and we moved on to several audience questions.  Then, a man seated near the exit raised his hand and was handed a microphone.  He identified himself only as Steve and launched into a rambling monologue about having driven for fifteen hours to be at this screening.  Steve claimed to have known Kaufman for decades but told us that the Kaufman family now refuses to see him.  Steve also said he had “died” three times on the operating table recently—and was under doctors’ orders to stop at least once an hour during his drive to walk around. 

Getting to D.C. for this screening—and somehow unburdening himself—was some mission he had to accomplish. 

Steve’s speech lasted nearly five minutes, at which point he said, “I’m done.”  He and his wife immediately stood and exited the theater even as Tweel responded with a dose of empathy the moment called for.  When the allotted time for questions ended a few minutes later, I entreated the audience to cheer once again for Tweel—and I asked them to think kindly thoughts for Steve.

Following the screening, “Sunset and the Mockingbird” director Jyllian Gunther and subject Gloria Clayborne found me in the theater lobby, where they expressed their appreciation for how Tweel and I had handled the uncomfortable moment.  Matthew Robertson, a staff member of the PR Collaborative, told me Steve and his wife were nowhere to be found. 

This incident was among the chatter at Saturday evening’s closing party, with those of us who were there to attempt to make sense of the bizarre moment.  Tweel found me on the outdoor balcony chatting with Renée Tsao of the Film Collaborative and “Middletown” executive producer Mark DiCristofaro.  Still coming down from the Q&A experience, Tweel and I toasted. 

“I figured you could use a drink after that,” he said. 

Kaufman was thought to have faked his 1984 death, with many people who appeared in Tweel’s film saying they half-expected him to pop up at his memorial service.  Perhaps Steve’s mysterious appearance and then disappearance was somehow of a piece with that type of performance—dare I say it, even Kaufman-esque. 

DC/DOX will return in 2026 (featured image: “Andy Kaufman is me)