March 21-27, 2025

Hello, friends! 

This will be my last newsletter for a couple of weeks: I’m thrilled to say I'll be headed to Copenhagen to attend CPH: DOX, one of the world’s largest documentary film festivals, hosting an average of 200 films annually each spring. It’s always exciting at the start of each year, beginning the search for our Doctober films, and while I saw some wonderful documentaries and narrative films at the Sundance Film Festival in January, this trip to Copenhagen will really kickstart the Doctober mission.  Last year, the CPH: DOX festival included No Other Land, Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat, and Black Box Diaries, all of which Jane Julian and I ultimately also selected for Doctober and which all went on to garner Oscar nominations, with No Other Land taking home the prize. The CPH: DOX line-up this year likewise looks absolutely fantastic, and I can’t wait to see what treasures await me there. My only regret is that Jane, my invaluable Doctober programming partner, won’t be with me: she’ll be continuing the Doctober hunt here in the U.S. in other ways, and we’ll pool our findings when I return. October will be here before we know it! 

And, finally, soberingly appropriate to our current national moment, on March 27 at 11:00 am and 5:30 pm, we’ll be screening White with Fear, a selection in our new series “Doctober Presents,” which is a year-round extension of the Pickford’s very own Doctober, the Pacific Northwest’s largest documentary film festival. The “Doctober Presents” series will offer notable documentaries outside of the festival's usual tenure in October, and with the series, you can expect to find the same engaging films you'd find during Doctober—complete with filmmaker Q&As, panel discussions, and more. =

White with Fear is a powerful documentary about "the decades-long strategy of politicians and media outlets to amplify racial divisions and white victimization for power and profit.” It's a documentary that will not necessarily be a surprise to anyone who has been paying attention, but the film does a superb job of laying out the current media modes and the political strategies and of linking the current attacks on things like immigration, "DEI," "CRT" to much earlier kinds of historical attacks that were also meant to amplify racial divisions, attacks like those spearheaded by Richard Nixon. Notably, the film also illuminates the collective, societal problems surrounding media literacy and information bubbles, a landscape in which false, harmful messaging thrives, and where the truth often seems lost amidst the noise. 

It’s a tough documentary to watch in many ways, particularly at a time when many of us feel bombarded and wearied by the relentlessness of what we see every day in the news, but ultimately, it is a film for those who feel ready for engaging–by way of a community screening and discussion–with some of the most urgent issues of the day and for understanding the history and modes of the political and media tactics we see so constantly around us. 

And to help us engage with and process the film and its subjects, Professor Cathy Wineiger of the WWU Political Science Department, will join us after the 5:30 pm screening for a post-film discussion. We’re so grateful to Prof. Wineiger for giving us her time in this way and helping us find a path to strength through community. 

My newsletter will return on April 11 after my Doctober-scouting Copenhagen trip. Until then, see you at the movies, friends! 

Melissa