Between the Rains and The Echo are among the big winners at the prestigious Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival in Arkansas.
Between the Rains, directed by Andrew H. Brown and Moses Thuranira, won Best Documentary Feature at the 32nd edition of Hot Springs, the longest running all-doc festival in North America. The film centers on the Turkana-Ngaremara community of Kenya, living with the intense effects of a warming planet.
The feature documentary jury said in a statement, “Through incredible images and extraordinary immersion into a rural area in northern Kenya, this stunning film tells a captivating coming of age story set in a community whose very existence is threatened by climate change.”
Jurors in that category (filmmaker Amman Abbasi; Niketa Reed, founder and executive director, “Arkansas Soul,” and documentary film consultant Michael Lumpkin) awarded Honorable Mention to the new Roger Ross Williams documentary Stamped From the Beginning, a feature based on the bestselling book by Dr. Ibram X. Kendi. They hailed the Netflix film as “both comprehensive and illuminating in its approach, that illustrates the history of anti-black ideologies and the severe impact they have had on generations of Black Americans.”
The Critics Prize jury (on which I served, alongside Variety’s chief critic Peter Debruge and Lauren Wissot, contributing editor at Filmmaker magazine and Documentary magazine) chose as its winner The Echo, directed by Tatiana Huezo. The film unspools in rural Mexico, offering a rare and immersive view of village life for several generations of families in the State of Puebla, in the east-central part of the country.
The critics jury praised The Echo “for the way it elevates and expands the vérité tradition, immersing audiences in a remote Mexican farming community without judging or romanticizing its subjects. Dedicating a year to this evocative enclave of barely 100 inhabitants, the director emerges with a riveting and thoroughly cinematic portrait of a place inaccessible to audiences by any means but by screen.”
In the short form categories, Best Short Documentary was awarded to Between Earth & Sky, directed by Andrew Nadkami. The jury (made up of composer, musician and sound artist Amos Cochran, New Orleans Film Society’s Zuri Obi, and filmmaker Miranda Yousef) extolled the film “for its tender and inspiring portrayal of living beings growing through their scars.”
The shorts jury gave a Special Jury Mention to Iyabo E. Kwayana’s By Water, praising the film for “its bold and imaginative approach to deeper human truths.” The PBS Reel South Short Award went to In Exile, directed by Nathan Fitch, a film “which explores the U.S.’s nuclear legacy in the Pacific through the lens of members of the Marshallese community in Arkansas.” Fitch received a $1,400 award and distribution on Reel South’s platforms.
The Matt Decample Audience Choice Awards were claimed by a trio of films:
- The audience award for best feature went to 1946: The Mistranslation That Shifted Culture, directed by Sharon “Rocky” Roggio.
- The Last Repair Shop, directed by Ben Proudfoot and Kris Bowers, won the audience award for best short.
- The Audience Choice Award for Best Southern Feature or Episodic went to A Town Called Victoria, a three-part documentary series directed by Li Lu. The series, which revolves around an arson attack on a mosque in a small Texas town, premieres on PBS stations on November 13.
The festival noted the 32nd edition of Hot Springs – the first under the leadership of Executive Director Ken Jacobson — “was marked by innovation, including the addition of a two-day Filmmakers Forum, a storytelling theme that ran throughout the film festival, including a new live storytelling event, called ‘True Stories,’ personal appearances by Honorary Chair Mary Steenburgen, honorees Sky Hopinka and Academy Award-winner Diane Becker, a musical performance by world renowned musician Kishi Bashi, and several screenings packed with near standing room only audiences.”
Jacobson said in a statement, “This year marked a renewed commitment by our entire festival team and Board to the fully in-person version of the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival that generations of audiences, filmmakers and guests have embraced so passionately over the years. Through a wide range of impactful events — from ‘True Stories,’ our first live storytelling event, to the Southern Storytellers screening and panel, and the world premiere of the episodic series A Town Called Victoria — we put a bright spotlight on the art and craft of nonfiction storytelling, with a special emphasis on the unique stories and artists of the South and Mid-South regions.”
Jacobson added, “We were thrilled with the enthusiastic response by our audience and the personal connections they made with our attending filmmakers and special guests, including beloved Arkansan and Honorary Chair Mary Steenburgen. These award-winning films are a fitting representation of the thoughtful and dynamic filmmaking that this year’s Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival presented from our first screening on Opening Night to our final Closing Night presentation.”