Doc Chicago Set for Saturday November 5, Here’s the Full Schedule

Documentary filmmakers from across the Midwest will be en route to Downtown Chicago next weekend. The schedule for this year’s DOC CHICAGO – the free mini-conference for and by Midwest documentary filmmakers – has been announced! DOC CHICAGO will take place at the Chicago Cultural Center on Saturday, Nov 5, noon-4:30pm. The event is free to attend, but RSVP required.

Click here to RSVP.

Founded in 2019, DOC CHICAGO is an annual gathering where the regional documentary community can connect, learn, and share ideas. This year’s DOC CHICAGO will feature several panels plus “conversation circles,” where attendees can talk directly to leading local documentary filmmakers in a casual small group setting. 

Presenters include a range of creative practitioners from editors Leslie Simmer (Director of Editing, Kartemquin Films) and Rubin Daniels Jr. (Unapologetic, Philly D.A.) to producers like Will Miller (The Territory) and Nicole Bernardi-Reis (Algren, Radical Grace) and filmmakers Jiayan “Jenny” Shi (Finding Yingying) and Donald Conley (Matriarch), plus Zayd Ayers Dohrn, whose outstanding documentary podcast Mother Country Radicals won the Audio Storytelling category at the 2022 Tribeca Film Festival. Presenters bios available here. 

Capping off the day is a DOC CHICAGO Short Film Showcase at the Gene Siskel Film Center which presents a thought-provoking, diverse collection of Chicago-produced short documentaries by Donald Conley, Lori Felker, Tom Krawczyk, Dinesh Sabu, and Erika Valenciana. Separate admission applies.  

DOC CHICAGO is a program of Percolator Films, a 501c3 non-profit media arts organization, and is presented with support from the Chicago Film Office/Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs (DCASE) and from Northwestern University’s MFA in Documentary Media Program.