Joseph E. Aoun, a leader in higher education policy and a renowned scholar in linguistics, is the seventh President of Northeastern University.
President Aoun has strategically aligned the University’s research enterprise with three global imperatives—health, security, and sustainability. Northeastern’s faculty focus on interdisciplinary research, entrepreneurship, and transforming academic research into commercial solutions for the world’s most pressing problems. During President Aoun’s tenure, the University has realized a 189 percent growth in external research funding, along with approximately 1,500 patent applications filed by faculty and students.
GlobeDocs celebrates the true stories told in documentary films, and the artists and visionaries who bring them to life. In October 2021, the 7th Annual GlobeDocs Film Festival will take a hybrid approach, with both in-person and virtual offerings, to prioritize safety and bring the GlobeDocs community together wherever we are. As always, each film will be accompanied by an engaging conversation with Globe journalists and film directors and producers.
- At all in-person screenings for GlobeDocs Film Festival 2021, we will require proof of vaccination or a negative Covid-19 test upon entry to the theatres.
- We will require all attendees to wear a mask while inside the theatres.
- All films will have a limited capacity to ensure proper space between parties.
- Between each film, we’ll ensure the theater is properly cleared out and emptied to avoid any overlap in our audiences.
Most screenings will be offered both virtually and in person. However, certain films will only be available as one or the other. To view our virtual film offerings, click here. To see our in-person schedule of screenings, view our schedule above.
How long do I have to watch the virtual screenings, and will they be offered during the same time as the in-person film festival?
To learn more about all of our virtual screenings, click here.
The GlobeDocs Film Festival is a five-day documentary film festival designed to engage, promote, and celebrate film and production talent. The festival, which takes place in select theaters across Boston, is specifically curated to include lively, hosted post-film conversations with Boston Globe journalists to turn screenings into an opportunity for the community to come together and have an open dialogue.
With GlobeDocs, The Boston Globe furthers its reach as an organization dedicated to shedding light on the truth by presenting the work of filmmakers near and far who are also focused on telling important stories, large and small.
The seventh annual festival will take place from October 13 to October 17, 2021.
JULIA brings to life the legendary cookbook author and television superstar who changed the way Americans think about food, television, and even about women. Using never-before-seen archival footage, personal photos, first-person narratives, and cutting-edge, mouth-watering food cinematography, the film traces Julia Child's 12-year struggle to create and publish the revolutionary Mastering the Art of French Cooking (1961) which has sold more than 2.5 million copies to date, and her rapid ascent to become the country’s most unlikely television star. Betsy West and Julie Cohen (award-winning directors of RBG) have crafted an empowering story of a woman who found her purpose – and her fame – at 50, and took America along on the whole delicious journey.
THE RESCUE chronicles the dramatic 2018 rescue of 12 Thai boys and their soccer coach, trapped deep inside a flooded cave. Academy Award-winning directors and producers E. Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin (Free Solo) reveal the perilous world of cave diving, the bravery of the rescuers, and the dedication of an entire community that made great sacrifices to save these young boys. With exclusive access and never-before-seen footage from the rescue, the film tells the story of the imagination, determination and unprecedented teamwork displayed during this heroic edge-of-your-seat mission with life-or-death stakes. In English and Thai with English subtitles.
Interweaving lecture, personal anecdotes, interviews, and shocking revelations, criminal defense and civil rights lawyer Jeffery Robinson draws a stark timeline of anti-Black racism in the United States, from slavery to the modern myth of a post-racial America. After many years as a practicing lawyer, Robinson started looking at our Nation’s background and was shocked by how deeply encoded white supremacy and the oppression of Black Americans is in that history. For the past 10 years, Robinson has been sharing what he learned. In WHO WE ARE: A CHRONICLE OF RACISM IN AMERICA, Robinson is asking all of us to examine who we are, where we come from, and who we want to be.
FREE RENTY tells the story of Tamara Lanier, an African American woman determined to force Harvard University to cede possession of daguerreotypes of her great-great-great grandfather, an enslaved man named Renty. The daguerreotypes were commissioned in 1850 by a Harvard professor to "prove" the superiority of the white race. The images remain emblematic of America’s failure to acknowledge the cruelty of slavery, the racist science that supported it and the white supremacy that continues to infect our society today. The film focuses on Lanier and tracks her lawsuit against Harvard, and features attorney Benjamin Crump, author Ta-Nehisi Coates and scholars Ariella Azoulay and Tina Campt.
Directors Rex Miller and Sam Pollard explore the enduring legacy of tennis great and humanitarian Arthur Ashe and CITIZEN ASHE is as elegant, meaningful, and poignant as the life he lived. Ashe’s widow, brother, friends from his childhood in Richmond to his Grand Slam tournament playing and coaching days, as well as confidantes that nurtured his personal evolution from sports legend to global activist, describe the key events that shaped Ashe’s quiet determination to ‘use what he had to do what he could.’
Dark clouds hang over the cornfields of Storm Lake, Iowa, which has seen its fair share of change in the 40 years since Big Agriculture came to town. Residents there confront a changing community as global forces threaten their precarious existence. Enter Pulitzer-prize winner Art Cullen and his family-run newspaper, The Storm Lake Times. Day-in and day-out, the Cullens deliver local news and biting editorials on a shoestring budget for their 3,000 readers. Come hell or pandemic, they’ll fight to preserve this town they call home. Directors Levison and Resius embed with Cullen to give a real-time look at quality journalism that is at risk, yet willing itself to survive as there’s simply too much at stake.
Adventurer, filmmaker, inventor, author, unlikely celebrity and conservationist: For over four decades, Jacques-Yves Cousteau and his explorations under the ocean became synonymous with a love of science and the natural world. As he learned to protect the environment, he brought the whole world with him, sounding alarms more than 50 years ago about the warming seas and our planet’s vulnerability. In BECOMING COUSTEAU, two-time Academy Award nominated filmmaker Liz Garbus takes an inside look at Cousteau and his life, his iconic films and inventions — and the man who inspired generations to protect the Earth.
In English and French with English subtitles.
In a divided America, TV host and activist Van Jones works across party lines on landmark criminal justice reform and a more humane response to the addiction crisis. While trying to pass a bipartisan bill that would bring thousands of incarcerated people home early and working with a polarized Congress, Jones is condemned by the right for his progressive beliefs — and by the left for working with conservatives. THE FIRST STEP reveals an intimate portrait of an activist’s isolation and internal struggles as he fights to make change in a divided nation drawn into a historic struggle for freedom and justice.
On Sept. 9, 1971, inmates at the Attica Correctional Facility took 39 guards as hostages, demanding more humane treatment and better conditions. For four days, the world watched as news cameras covered the story from both the outside and inside the prison. Coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the uprising, Emmy-winning director Stanley Nelson and producer/co-director Traci Curry’s ATTICA examines one of the most shocking incidents in U.S. history. With revelatory interviews with former prisoners, family members of hostages, and journalists – along with archival footage and never-before-seen tapes – ATTICA goes beyond the headlines to capture the personalities, emotion, and tragedy in a wake-up call about the need for prison reform and the responsibilities of justice.
BOUNTY
Three Penobscot families decide to enter the building where their ancestors death warrants were signed. BOUNTY lifts the veil on the reality and brutality of settler colonialism with Boston's Old State House as its hub.
THE PANOLA PROJECT
A retired office administrator in rural Alabama fights for the health and safety of her often overlooked community, convincing many of the residents in her town to take the covid vaccine.
SNOWY
Snowy, a four-inch-long pet turtle, has lived an isolated life in the family basement. With help from a team of experts and his caretaker, Uncle Larry, we ask: Can Snowy be happy, and what would it take?
SOMERVILLE FOR ALL
Members of the community come together and create an illuminated lantern walk to bring attention to gentrification and housing affordability in East Somerville, Massachusetts.
SENIOR PROM
At an LGBTQ retirement home, the annual “senior” prom takes on a whole new meaning – a celebration of the lives and legacies of resistance of the eldest queer generation.
1995 was the year of Alanis Morissette. Her groundbreaking album “Jagged Little Pill” delivered a rawness and emotional honesty that resonated with millions. Featuring intimate interviews with Alanis herself and exclusive archival material, JAGGED explores how she came to be the empowered woman so many admire, and what happens when a 21-year-old becomes a worldwide phenomenon. Director Alison Klayman (Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry, The Brink) has crafted a riveting exploration of a young woman’s meteoric rise through the music industry while staying true to herself.
BERNSTEIN’S WALL follows Leonard Bernstein on his lifelong journey to define his role as one of America’s most important musical figures, while fighting to create social change and inspire political activism through his work. From his roots in Boston to his spectacular career in NYC at the New York Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein was a vulnerable and conflicted artist who struggled to balance his ambitions, religion, sexuality, and the family he deeply loved. Told in Bernstein’s own voice and featuring never before seen archival footage, filmmaker Douglas Tirola has created an intimate portrait and moving look at one of the 20th century’s most prominent icons.
FLEE tells the incredible story of Amin Nawabi as he grapples with a painful secret he has kept hidden for 20 years, one that threatens to derail the life he has built for himself and his soon to be husband. Recounted mostly through animation to director Jonas Poher Rasmussen, he tells for the first time the story of his extraordinary journey as a child refugee from Afghanistan and his struggle to find the true definition and meaning of home. Winner of the Grand Jury Prize for Documentary World Cinema at Sundance. In English, Danish, Russian, Dari and Swedish with English subtitles.