Gibney Tells DOC NYC the Hard Work Is Just Starting

Documentary maker Alex Gibney used the opening day of the DOC NYC festival to say that the difficult part of his work is still ahead. Speaking on 11 November, a week after the US midterm elections, he called the moment "glorious" and said, as Deadline reported, that "the hard work for us has just begun."

Gibney also received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the festival's Visionaries Tribute luncheon at Gotham Hall in midtown Manhattan. He was not the only honouree. Filmmaker-sound recordist JT Takagi received a Lifetime Achievement award at the same event, and Stephen Maing was given the Robert and Anne Drew Award for Documentary Excellence. Raney Aronson-Rath, editor-in-chief and executive producer of Frontline on PBS, received the DOC NYC Leading Light Award.

Much of Gibney's speech focused on his latest film, Musk. The four-hour documentary looks closely at the life, business empire and political influence of Elon Musk, the Tesla chief and SpaceX founder. It premiered at the Venice Film Festival and was released in theaters on 9 October by Bleecker Street.

At the tribute, Gibney told the audience that "the money behind MAGA has not gone away." He also said that filmmakers now work in a world where Musk and "the tech bros" are trying to define and control the landscape, according to Deadline's account.

His advice to filmmakers was blunt. He urged them to say "f-k the algorithms" and to work together to build a new ecosystem. The aim, he said, is to protect individual expression and free speech while still getting films in front of audiences.

Festivals like DOC NYC are often where documentaries first meet buyers and viewers, so the question Gibney raised is a practical one. How a finished film reaches people is a matter of distribution, platforms and money, and those are the parts of the industry he said need rethinking.

The festival continues through the coming days, with the honours and screenings spread across the schedule.