A new film festival is on its way to Southern California, and it’s arriving sooner than anyone would think.
IndieWire can exclusively announce that the inaugural Ojai Documentary Film Festival will take place October 26-30 at the historic Ojai Theater. The new festival promises to bring together an eclectic lineup of award-winning documentaries and series, filmmaker talks, special screenings and experiences designed to connect audiences directly with the artists behind the work.
The Ojai Documentary Film Festival is the result of an ongoing collaboration between El Roblar Hotel owners Eric Goode and Jeremy McBride, who also happen to be the filmmakers behind the Emmy-nominated docusers “Tiger King” and “Chimp Crazy,” as well as the recent HBO documentary “Monsters of God,” and David Berger, who recently acquired and launched the historic Ojai theater, which has been a destination often since.
The new annual event will be dedicated exclusively to storytelling, celebrating non-fiction in all its forms, spanning vérité, hybrid, experimental and completely non-genre, from contemporary releases to influential works of the past.
“The best documentaries take you into a world you didn’t know existed, and the truth usually turns out to be stranger than anything you could have made up,” Eric Goode said in a statement. “These films are often collaborative in the making, and the people behind them rarely sit in a room with their audience. Ojai has always attracted eccentrics, artists and independent thinkers, and with the David Theater and Hotel El Roblar working together, we can bring these filmmakers here and let people meet them up close.”
“An independent theater is only as strong as its programs and the community that shows up for it,” said David Berger. “When we renovated the Playhouse, we wanted it to be a mix of the past, the present and the future. There’s nothing like sitting in a dark room with your neighbors, sharing the same story at the same time. That shared experience is why we brought this theater back, and when Eric and Jeremy came to us with this festival idea, it felt like just how the Build a theater.”
“David brought back the common knowledge of going to the movies in Ojai, and we wanted to build on that,” Jeremy McBride said. “The idea is to take the best documentary work of the year and share it in a thoughtful, experiential way. We believe event-driven programming is the future of cinema, extending each film beyond the screen, with food and drink and live music.”
Over five days, the festival seeks to give audiences the opportunity to discover amazing films, meet filmmakers, and engage with the people who are shaping today’s documentary landscape.
The inaugural festival will feature a wide range of documentaries and series, including:
• “Musk” – Alex Gibney (HBO)
• “Everest: The Other Side” – Chai Vasarhelyi & Jimmy Chin (National Geographic)
• “Once Upon a Time in Harlem” – William Greaves & David Greaves (Neon)
• “Jean-Michel Basquiat” – Quinn Whitney Wilson & Viridiana Liberman (Netflix)
• “You See Everything” – Nathan Fielder & Lance Oppenheim (A24)
• “The History of Concrete” – John Williamson
• “Nuisance Bear” – Jack Weisman & Gaby Osio Vanden (MUBI), Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner, by filmmakers in person
• “The Bend in the River” – Robb Moss (Netflix), with Moss talking to Lauren Greenfield
• “Boat Builders” – Luke Lorentzen, by the filmmakers personally
• The Best Summer” – Tamra Davis, by Davis personally
• “Soul Patrol” – JM Harper (Kino Lorber)
• “Barbara Forever” – Brydie O’Connor (Strand Releasing)
• “Remake” — Ross McElwee (Music Box)
• “Narrative Film Storytelling,” Chapters 1–3 — Mark Cousins
The festival will also present a series of special revival screenings by the filmmakers, including “The Queen of Versailles” by Lauren Greenfield, followed by the signing of her new picture book, “The Queen of Versailles: An American Allegory”; “Punishment Park” by Joan Churchill; and “Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell,” introduced by Matt Wolf. Additional filmmakers and special guests will be announced.
“Arthur Russell didn’t follow the rules of a genre or the conventional model of being an artist, and that’s the spirit of this amazing festival. I can’t think of a better place to share his story with a new audience,” said Matt Wolf, director of “Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell,” as part of the festival announcement.
The Ojai Documentary Film Festival will also feature talks exploring the creative, legal and financial realities of documentary filmmaking today. “See You in Court: Documentaries Under Fire,” directed by Wade Gentz, Netflix’s Head of US Litigation, brings attorneys Michael C. Donaldson, Diana Palacios and Russell Smith to discuss defamation, post-Warhol fair use, and unauthorized recording. “The New Financial Playbook,” moderated by Kim Masters, features Ted Hope in conversation about how independent documentaries are financed, produced and sold today. Additional talks and special guests will be announced.
The festival also plans to have a strong local and educational component, welcoming high school students from across the Ojai Valley to attend demonstrations and lectures throughout the week. The initiative is intended to give students the opportunity to experience documentary filmmaking first-hand and engage directly with filmmakers and industry professionals.
Other festival collaborators include veteran documentary producer Emily Osborne and filmmaker and Show&Tell founder Keith Ochwat. Daytime and after-hours programming for festival guests will be announced in the coming weeks.
The full schedule and ticket information for the first Ojai Documentary Film Festival is available on its website.