Doc5 Comes Alive in Second Season

Doc5 Comes Alive in Second Season

Dr. Anthony Fauci is the subject of one of the documentary films being screened at Middleburg’s Doc5 Festival.

By Carina Elgin

Doc5 Middleburg, a five-day festival featuring carefully

curated new documentary films, is coming back to the Middleburg Community Center from September 14-18.

During the event’s pilot year in 2020, COVID protocols demanded limited attendance and careful social distancing. While aware that some restrictions will apply again this year, organizers are ready to build off that success and bring five more engaging films to town.

For Doc5 co-founder Tom Foster of The Plains, the goal is to bring the community together to celebrate multiple points of view, where differences of opinion are respected, valued and viewers learn not only from the films, but also from each other.

“Docs have the ability to stretch the viewers beyond their normal daily lives,” Foster said. “They introduce new ideas and new ways of thinking, and often challenge conventions. With a quality doc, you can sit down and within five minutes be in the midst of a journey to Antarctica, or living with a nomad in rural Macedonia. They can even take us underwater, to hang out with an octopus.”

The Chicago Media Project (CMP), which works with and funds some of the best documentarians in the world, hosts the Doc10 all-documentary film festival in Chicago. They also sponsor various Doc5 events around the country, including Middleburg’s.

The highly anticipated movies chosen For Doc5 Middleburg will include After Antarctica, Ailey, and Fauci. Friday evening’s showing has yet to be announced. Saturday features a special “closing night dinner” with CMP founders, and the movie, Paper and Glue.

In 2022, Doc5 Middleburg will be a springtime festival, with films shown outside on the grassy amphitheater of the Middleburg Community Center. In bad weather, the ballroom will be appropriately configured.

With only one film per day for five days, and audiences capped at 150, conversation will be encouraged in an intimate setting.

“There are times when a film ends and the discussion takes off,” Foster said. “Suddenly the film itself takes a back seat. Having the crowd come alive, engage and jump into conversation is what Doc5 is all about.”

Details: www.doc5filmfest.org and, coming soon www.piedmontfilmclub.com.