By: Bridey Heing Category: FILM Date: 18.Jun.2014

Holbrook/Twain: An American Odyssey

 

The American Film Institute’s International Documentary Film Festival (AFI DOCS) begins today (Wednesday) in Washington, DC. Featuring screenings of both feature movies as well as shorts across four categories at venues around the city, including AFI’s Silver Theatre, this year the Festival celebrates its 11th year.

This year, the opening film is Scott Teems’s Holbrook/Twain: An American Odyssey (pictured above), which explores Hal Holbrook’s 60 year run in Mark Twain Tonight! The actor will personally introduce the movie at the Festival’s opening night. Other notable American selections include The Internet’s Own Boy, a feature-length documentary about controversial programming prodigy Aaron Schwartz, and Andrew Rossi’s compelling Ivory Tower, which examines the growing student debt crisis, and which premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival to deserved critical acclaim.

International selections include Denmark’s The Agreement, which goes behind the scenes during negotiations to bring Serbia into the EU; UK’s Virunga, about the threats to Africa’s oldest national park; and South Africa’s Soft Vengeance: Albie Sachs and the New South Africa, a biography of an exiled member of the ANC. The festival’s closing film is Life Itself, the new documentary about recently deceased legendary film critic Roger Ebert, based on Ebert’s eponymous memoir.

 

The Internet’s Own Boy

The Agreement

Soft Vengeance: Albie Sachs and the New South Africa

 

AFI DOCS will hold screenings from the 18th through the 22nd. Tickets available at afi.com/AFIDOCS.