Melissa Silvestri

Josh Freed is a piece of work. The first-time filmmaker ends up making his first film a documentary where he is the unlikable star. In it, he continually dicks around women for his own selfish reasons, while thinking of himself as both the unlikely “player,” and the sweet, modest type. He freely admits to always having had issues with relationships and dangerous patterns, yet it only makes his film, Five Weddings and a Felony, frustrating to watch.

His name may not be as well-known as Stephen Sondheim, but Richard Foreman is a legendary freak of a genius. A playwright whose abstract plays defy definition, his shows of absolute madness and confusion have both turned on and weirded out audiences since the 1960s. Ryan Kerrison’s documentary mindFLUX examines the life of this strange and unusual artist, who has touched the lives of many of the most celebrated theater artists in New York City.

With studios full of fifty years’ worth of their life’s work, it seems hypocritical that an institution devoted to the arts would throw out many of the people who are living works of art. Lost Bohemia, directed by photographer and longtime resident Josef “Birdman” Astor, pays tribute to these singular individuals losing their livelihood to big business.

It's business as usual for legendary Werner Herzog -- the prolific documentary and narrative filmmaker (My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done, The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans) utilizes a technology that we would normally associate with fiction films, and applies it to the soulful and mesmerizing 3-D documentary. With the help of archeologists in the south of France, Herzog's Cave of Forgotten Dreams visits the Chauvet Cave, which is populated with not only a damp and quiet eeriness, but cave drawings of long-extinct animals and pictorial depictions of ancient mankind.

Prominently featured in the inaugural edition of the DOC NYC Film Festival, documentarian Errol Morris brings his TIFF-premiered title that reminds us of the filmmaker's curiosity for the fringe characters that populate this world. Joyce McKinney is better known in England as a 1970s tabloid fixture for her bizarre involvement in kidnapping her fiancé from Mormon missionaries, and tying him to her bed to have a “proper” honeymoon.