Hamptons International Film Festival Announces 2019 SummerDocs Films

The Hamptons International Film Festival (HIFF) SummerDocs series returns to the East End for its 11th year with an astounding selection of documentary screenings. The series kicks off with Maiden, directed by Alex Holmes, on June 29; followed by Cold Case Hammarskjöld, directed by Mads Brügger, on July 20; and, finally, Circus of Books, directed by Rachel Mason, on August 24. Following each screening, HIFF Co-Chairman Alec Baldwin and HIFF Artistic Director David Nugent will lead conversations with the director and additional guests.

“With fascinating documentaries that showcase topics including a brave group of female sailors, a wild and intriguing investigation into a plane crash from over 50 years ago and a straight couple’s story of owning a gay porn shop, our audience will once again get a peek at some of the best non-fiction work of the year,” Nugent says.

Additional HIFF summer programming includes a Now Showing presentation of Framing John DeLorean with a post-screening Q&A with Baldwin, who stars in the film, and directors Don Argott and Sheena M. Joyce on Saturday, June 8 at 8 p.m. at Guild Hall, and a special screening of the live documentary A Thousand Thoughts with a performance by the Kronos Quartet on Friday, June 21 at 8 p.m. at Guild Hall.

“We are proud of how the SummerDocs series has grown over the last 10 years,” Baldwin says. “Bringing exciting documentaries, featuring powerful stories, to our festival community is now a significant part of our programming.”

Tickets for the screenings are available at hamptonsfilmfest.org. Read more about each SummerDocs film below.

MAIDEN
Saturday, June 29 at 7 p.m. at Guild Hall
In 1989, the very idea of a competitive all-female sailboat crew was nearly inconceivable to the manly world of open-ocean yacht racing. Tracy Edwards proved them wrong. With the help of 24-year-old skipper Edwards, her second-hand racing yacht Maiden and her seasoned crew, she proved to be an able competitor in the famously grueling race, besting male crews in their class. By the time her team returned to their starting point after 32,000 miles of global racing, they had shocked, inspired and transfixed the sailing world and the British nation. Tracy Edwards was awarded the 1990 Yachtsman of the Year Award, the first woman ever to receive the accolade, and was named a Member of the Order of the British Empire.

COLD CASE HAMMARSKJÖLD
Saturday, July 20 at 7 p.m. at Guild Hall
In 1961, United Nations secretary-general Dag Hammarskjöld’s plane mysteriously crashed, killing Hammarskjöld and most of the crew. With the case still unsolved 50 years later, Danish journalist, filmmaker and provocateur Mads Brügger leads an investigative to unearth the truth. Scores of false starts, dead ends and elusive interviews later, Brügger and his sidekick, Swedish Göran Björkdahl, begin to sniff out something more monumental than anything they’d initially imagined. In his signature agitprop style, Brügger becomes both filmmaker and subject, challenging the very nature of truth by “performing” the role of truth seeker.

CIRCUS OF BOOKS
Saturday, August 24 at 7 p.m. at Guild Hall
For over 35 years, the gay porn shop, Circus of Books, served as the epicenter for LGBT life and culture in Los Angeles. Unbeknownst to many in the community it served, the store was cultivated and cared for by its owners, Karen and Barry Mason—a straight couple with three children. This documentary is an intimate portrait of the Masons and their journey to become one of the biggest distributors of hardcore gay porn in the United States. Their story unfolds through the lens of their daughter, filmmaker and artist Rachel Mason.