2022 marked another banner year for documentary cinema. They have inspired us, informed us, and taken us on unforgettable journeys. Documentarians have given us second looks at entertainers we thought we knew. They’ve examined systematic inequalities and looked inward at themselves. They’ve told personal stories that cover vast expanses of the human condition. 

READ MORE: The 25 Best Films Of 2022

This year we at The Playlist have expanded the list to twenty documentaries, from ecological pleas to a reconsideration of the film canon to portraits of artists of singular talent and vision.

Continue reading The Best Documentaries Of 2022 at The Playlist.

Margaret Brown entranced audiences at the Sundance Film Festival with “Descendant,” her documentary about the historic discovery of a lost slave ship in 2019. The movie made such a splash at Sundance that it won a Special Jury Prize. Now, it gets another screening at the New York Film Festival before it premieres exclusively on Netflix.

READ MORE: ‘Descendant’ Review: Stunning Documentary Presents A Layered History Of The Clotilda Slave Ship And Africatown [Sundance]

Here’s the film’s official synopsis, courtesy of Netflix:

Documentary filmmaker Margaret Brown (“The Order of Myths,” “The Great Invisible“) returns to her hometown of Mobile, Alabama to document the search for and historic discovery of The Clotilda, the last known ship to arrive in the United States, illegally carrying enslaved Africans.

Continue reading ‘Descendant’ Trailer: Margaret Brown’s New Doc Screens At NYFF On October 1, Hits Netflix On October 21 at The Playlist.

Early in Margaret Brown’s exquisite new documentary “Descendant,” Africatown, AL resident Joycelyn Davis calls out the possible narrative pitfalls of chronicling the recovery of the Clotilda, the last known slave ship to arrive in the United States in 1860 — 50 years after the international slave trade was abolished. Just after a town hall in which marine archeologist Dr. James Delgado and his team introduce efforts aimed at recovering the long-lost ship, Davis remarks, “I don’t want the momentum of the story to be focused on the ship” before pausing to consider the influx of attention, money, and, ultimately, confrontations that could come with the Clotilda’s discovery.

Continue reading ‘Descendant’ Review: Stunning Documentary Presents a Layered History of the Clotilda Slave Ship and Africatown [Sundance] at The Playlist.