The Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival will mark its 35th year Oct. 9-17 with a slate of films featuring everything from an escaped owl to a trek up Machu Picchu, along with three honorees and two new programs for filmmakers, according to a news release.<\/p>\n
Oaklawn Racing Casino Resort is the presenting sponsor.<\/p>\n
Penny Lane’s “Wild Inside” will kick off the film screenings Oct. 9 at the Oaklawn Event Center. Nick Capezzera’s “The Other Side of Memory” will make its world premiere as the festival’s centerpiece selection Oct. 13 at the Arlington Resort Hotel & Spa, and Michael LaHaie’s “Bob and David Climb Machu Picchu” will close out the festival Oct. 16 at the event center, the release said.<\/p>\n
“Wild Inside” focuses on Flaco, the Eurasian eagle-owl that escaped from the Central Park Zoo in New York in 2023 after a hole was cut in his enclosure. Film participants and wildlife photographers Jacqueline Emery and David Lei will take part in a question-and-answer session after the screening.<\/p>\n
“The Other Side of Memory” follows Capezzera as he searches for his Korean birth parents and attempts to “reconnect with a cultural heritage that he never knew,” the release said. “In seeking answers about his past, Nick’s journey leads to personal discoveries that reshape his understanding of family.”<\/p>\n
Capezzera will attend the film screening and participate in a Q&A afterward.<\/p>\n
Actors Bob Odenkirk and David Cross head to the trails in “Bob and David Climb Machu Picchu,” which follows the longtime friends as they discuss their relationship, comedy careers and the future.<\/p>\n
LaHaie will attend the screening and participate in a post-screening Q&A.<\/p>\n
HSDFF Executive Director Ken Jacobson said the festival’s 35th anniversary, Hot Springs’ 150th anniversary and the nation’s 250th anniversary offer an opportunity to look at history.<\/p>\n
“From a 30th anniversary screening of Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky’s ground-breaking documentary ‘Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills’ to our presentation of all 16 hours of Mark Cousins’ new landmark film, ‘The Story of Documentary Film,’ we look back in time to teach us where we have come from and to better understand our present day,” Jacobson said in the release.<\/p>\n
“We are also inspired by all that is new at this year’s festival. The inaugural Documentary Roundtable conversation, co-presented with Deadline, is our exciting new entry into the Oscar competition space and the Filmmaker Retreat is an exciting new program designed to showcase and support Mid-Southern and Southern stories and filmmakers,” he said.<\/p>\n
This year’s honorary chair will be R&B and soul singer and actress Darlene Love. The festival will host the U.S. premiere of Barry Avrich’s “Darlene Love: I Know Where I’ve Been” on Oct. 10. The film chronicles Love’s six-decade career.<\/p>\n
“We are thrilled to have the sensational Darlene Love join us as our honorary chair,” Jacobson said in the release. “Her voice will be the soundtrack of this year’s edition. 2026 is destined to be a breakout year for HSDFF.”<\/p>\n
This year’s honorees are documentary filmmaker and producer Joe Berlinger, and director, screenwriter and producer Yoruba Richen.<\/p>\n
Berlinger will receive the Brent Renaud Career Achievement Award before a 30th anniversary screening of “Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills,” which he directed with Sinofsky.<\/p>\n
Richen will receive the Impact Award during the Filmmaker Forum on Oct. 12. She will also attend a screening of her new documentary short, “Free Joan Little.”<\/p>\n
HSDFF will also launch its inaugural Documentary Roundtable at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 12 at the Arlington.<\/p>\n
Matt Carey, Deadline’s documentary editor, will moderate a discussion featuring representatives of four films competing for HSDFF’s Documentary Feature Film award.<\/p>\n
Panelists are Liani Greaves, producer of “Once Upon a Time in Harlem”; Micha\u0142 Marczak, director of “Closure”; Poh Si Teng, director of “American Doctor”; and Biljana Tutorov, director of “To Hold a Mountain.” All four films will be screened during the festival, the release said, with participants taking part in Q&A sessions.<\/p>\n
Another new program, the Filmmaker Retreat and Summit, is scheduled for Oct. 10-13. Six documentary projects in progress from filmmakers based in the Mid-South and South will receive support and feedback.<\/p>\n
The program will include the “Petit Jean Documentary Summit: Supporting Nonfiction Storytelling in the Mid-South\/South,” a facilitated discussion at the Winthrop Rockefeller Institute on Petit Jean Mountain.<\/p>\n
“The endgame for the combined retreat and summit programs is to bolster a group of exciting, culturally enriching projects while at the same time, engaging a community of stakeholders in a discussion of how additional resources can be assembled to support nonfiction storytelling in the region,” the release said.<\/p>\n