DOC NYC 2026: 13 Art Films on Artists' Legacies and Resistance

DOC NYC returns to venues across New York City from November 11 through November 29, and its 17th edition includes 13 art documentaries on our watchlist. The selections, viewable in person or online, take up a recurring question: how should an artist's image live on after death?

Frida Kahlo's face answers that question one way. Museum gift shops stock it on mugs, tea sets, T-shirts, and decorative tapestries. She is at once a political icon, a feminist celebrity, and a global household brand. The festival lineup asks whether that commerce can coexist with the politics and the life behind the work.

What does the commercial afterlife of an artist look like?

Director Trisha Ziff takes the question head-on in Frida: The Girl Just Doesn't Go Away, screening at Village East by Angelika, 181-189 2nd Avenue in the East Village, on November 14 and 16. Ziff taps into the commercial fascination with Kahlo and traces how the painter's image has taken on a distinct life, detached from her motivations and her work. Kahlo becomes, in the process, a case study in how posthumous imagery defines legacy.

How does a film honor a living tradition under threat?

The Hummingbird Paints Fragrant Songs (2026), directed by Èlia Gasull Balada and Matteo Norzi, screens once, at SVA Theatre, 333 West 23rd Street in Chelsea, on November 11. The documentary profiles Indigenous artist Sara Flores of the Shipibo-Konibo people.

The film grew out of a decade-long collaboration between the directors and the painter, a span during which Flores began to receive international recognition. Working from her home in the Peruvian Amazon, Flores sources natural dyes and paints intricate geometric patterns with striking symmetry. Her practice channels Kené, the visual and matrilineal language of the Shipibo-Konibo, and she treats each work as a form of resistance against environmental, political, and social ills.

What does this change for audiences?

The two films frame the festival's broader preoccupation in complementary terms. Ziff looks backward, at an image consumed worldwide long after its owner's death. Gasull Balada and Norzi look outward, at a living artist whose tradition confronts present threats. Together they show documentary's capacity to portray communities under pressure and to narrate art's most idiosyncratic stories with care.

For viewers who cannot reach the venues, the festival's online program extends access beyond the city. The full slate of 13 selected films spans portraits, legacies, and communities, with tickets available through the festival's site.