Ojai Documentary Film Festival 2024 lineup
The inaugural Ojai Documentary Film Festival will run October 26-30 at the historic Ojai Playhouse, featuring a slate of acclaimed documentaries and
The inaugural Ojai Documentary Film Festival will launch this October as a new annual event dedicated to documentary storytelling. It will run over five days, from October 26 to 30, at the historic Ojai Playhouse, featuring a wide-ranging slate of documentaries and series.
The festival will celebrate nonfiction in all its forms, including vérité, hybrid, experimental, and unclassifiable works. It will feature contemporary releases and influential works from the past. The event seeks to offer audiences the chance to discover extraordinary films, meet filmmakers, and engage with people shaping the documentary landscape.
Organizers and venue revival
The festival stems from a collaboration between Hotel El Roblar owners Eric Goode and Jeremy McBride, and David Berger. Berger recently acquired and relaunched the historic Ojai Playhouse, which has become a frequent awards season destination.
Filmmaker backgrounds and vision
Eric Goode and Jeremy McBride are the filmmakers behind the Emmy-nominated docuseries Tiger King and Chimp Crazy, and the HBO documentary Monsters of God. Goode stated that the best documentaries introduce audiences to unknown worlds where truth is often stranger than fiction. He noted those films are collaborative efforts, and their creators rarely get to sit in a room with their audience.
Jeremy McBride said the idea is to take the best documentary work of the year and share it in a thoughtful, experiential way. He believes event-driven programming is the future of cinema, extending each film beyond the screen with food, drink, and live music. McBride thinks of Hotel El Roblar and the Playhouse as one entity, so the night carries from dinner to the bar to a seat in the theater.
David Berger emphasized that an independent theater is only as strong as its programming and the community that shows up for it. When they restored the Playhouse, they wanted it to be a mix of past, present, and future. Berger said there is nothing like sitting in a dark room with your neighbors, sharing the same story at the same moment. McBride added that Berger brought back the collective experience of going to the movies in Ojai, and they wanted to build on it.
Film selections and special screenings
The festival will present a diverse lineup of featured films and special revival screenings with filmmakers in attendance. The slate includes the Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner Nuisance Bear by Jack Weisman and Gaby Osio Vanden, with the filmmakers appearing in person.
| Film Title | Director(s) | Distributor/Note |
|---|---|---|
| Nuisance Bear | Jack Weisman & Gaby Osio Vanden | MUBI, Sundance winner, filmmakers in person |
| 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 Can See Everything | Nathan Fielder & Lance Oppenheim | A24 |
| The Bend in the River | Robb Moss | Netflix, Moss in conversation with Lauren Greenfield |
| Boatbuilders | Luke Lorentzen | Filmmakers in person |
| The Best Summer | Tamra Davis | Davis in person |
| The Story of Documentary Film, Chapters 1-3 | Mark Cousins | |
| Musk | Alex Gibney | Bleecker Street |
| The History of Concrete | John Wilson | |
| Soul Patrol | JM Harper | Kino Lorber |
| Barbara Forever | Brydie O’Connor | Strand Releasing |
| Remake | Ross McElwee | Music Box |
Special revival screenings include The Queen of Versailles with Lauren Greenfield, followed by a signing of her new photography book. Other revivals are Punishment Park with Joan Churchill and Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell, introduced by Matt Wolf. Wolf said Arthur Russell did not follow the rules of genre or the conventional model of being an artist, and that is the spirit of this wonderful festival. He added he could not think of a better place to share his story with a new audience.
The festival will also feature conversations exploring the creative, legal, and financial realities of documentary filmmaking. The event will run over five days starting October 26 at the historic Ojai Playhouse.
