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# New York’s Best Documentary Festival Makes Its Return
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/art-of-the-real-2022-lincoln-center-documentaries/
- Published: 2022-03-30T20:40:22.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T15:06:09.000Z
- Description: After 2020’s virtual festival and 2021’s severely abridged edition, Art of the Real is back with a full slate of exciting experimental nonfiction.
- Author: Dan Schindel
- Tags: Film, Art of the Real, Documentary, Film at Lincoln Center, New York, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-large, #Import 2025-11-24 09:22 (2021, 2022, part 2)

Film at Lincoln Center's [Art of the Real](https://www.filmlinc.org/festivals/art-of-the-real-2022/?ref=hyperallergic.com) is only on its ninth edition, but in its short lifetime it has become the the most exciting documentary-focused film festival in New York. An exceptionally curated event, it brings together the most formally inventive and boundary-pushing recent works of nonfiction from across the globe — many of which are so experimental and creatively arranged that some viewers might not even consider them nonfiction. But that's a feature, not a bug, and is a huge part of the appeal for anyone hungering for something different. After the pandemic forced the 2020 festival to go virtual and the 2021 to unfold in a severely abridged form, Art of the Real is making a full-fledged comeback for 2022.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2022/03/jing-xu-main-still-4-1-min-1600x900-c-default.png)

From *A Marble Travelogue* (2021), dir. Sean Wang

One of the more boundary-stretching titles is Serbian filmmaker Dane Komljen's [*Afterwater*](https://www.filmlinc.org/films/afterwater/?ref=hyperallergic.com)*,* composed of three segments that each follow a trio of subjects and characters as they navigate around lakes. The first, which follows present-day students on a camping trip, is shot digitally; the second, possibly set in the past, is on 16mm; the third, featuring characters dressed in retro-future costumes, is is shot on videotape. The film's varied use of settings and different languages emphasizes the common elements in human relationships to the natural world. In [*Come Here*](https://www.filmlinc.org/films/come-here/?ref=hyperallergic.com), Anocha Suwichakornpong (who has a deft, underrated knack at infusing mundane scenes with a hypnotic layer of unreality) follows a quartet of young people as they visit the Burma Railway, a site of extensive forced labor during World War II. It is a near-literal spin on encountering the past, with the ensuing queasiness manifested through some supernatural elements introduced to the plot. (Continuing the locomotive theme, the film will be showing with [Peter Tscherkassky’s short *Train Again*](https://hyperallergic.com/after-a-year-off-experimental-film-returns-to-toronto-film-fest/)*.*)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2022/03/jing-xu-come-here-4-_c_-electric-eel-films-diversion-1-1600x900-c-default.jpg)

From *Come Here* (2021), dir. Anocha Suwichakornpong

Other films in the program approach social issues commonly addressed in docs, but from oblique angles. In [*Footnote*](https://www.filmlinc.org/films/footnote-2/?ref=hyperallergic.com)*,* Zhengfan Yang captures the surreal mixture of violence and banality in the United States by overlaying footage from his balcony in Chicago with audio from a police scanner. [*A Marble Travelogue*](https://www.filmlinc.org/films/a-marble-travelogue/?ref=hyperallergic.com)*,* directed by Sean Wang, explores the sometimes-absurd conventions of contemporary globalization by accompanying pieces of marble as they are quarried in Greece, transported to China, made into chintzy keepsakes, and then shipped back to Europe. With [*When There Is No More Music to Write, and Other Roman Stories*](https://www.filmlinc.org/films/when-there-is-no-more-music-to-write-and-other-roman-stories/?ref=hyperallergic.com), Éric Baudelaire combines the personal and political by filtering the radical activism in the US and Italy during the 1960s and '70s through the experiences of composer Alvin Curran.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2022/03/cabo-1-1600x900-c-default.jpg)

From *We (Nous)* (2020), dir. Alice Diop

The festival has also arranged a spotlight tribute to Alice Diop, a French director of Senegalese descent who's made a name for herself with her incisive *vérité*\-style films. Her trio of features here each scrutinizes a different social issue in France through a specific character or set of characters — typecasting and the limits of using art to transcend class in [*The Death of Danton*](https://www.filmlinc.org/films/the-death-of-danton/?ref=hyperallergic.com), medical care for refugees in [*On Call*](https://www.filmlinc.org/films/on-call/?ref=hyperallergic.com), and everyday immigrant life along a commuter train route in [*We (Nous)*](https://www.filmlinc.org/films/we-nous/?ref=hyperallergic.com). It's a testament to Art of the Real's vibe that these are among the most straightforward films in its lineup. For documentary lovers with adventurous tastes, the festival's return is most welcome.

[*Art of the Real 2022*](https://www.filmlinc.org/festivals/art-of-the-real-2022/?ref=hyperallergic.com) *will take place March 31 - April 7 at Film at Lincoln Center (theaters along 65th Street between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue, Manhattan).*