The 2026 Festival Lineup Includes Award-Winning Documentaries and Festival Stand-Outs with Filmmakers in Attendance

April 2, AUSTIN, TX— The Austin Film Society announces the lineup for its annual AFS Doc Days film festival, featuring nine new non-fiction films, all Austin premieres, and special appearances by filmmakers. The Opening-Night Film Selection is Who Moves America, which follows UPS union members as they prepare for contract negotiations, drawing their inspiration from the historic 1997 general strike. Oscar®-nominated producer Yoni Golijov (All the Beauty and the Bloodshed) will attend the screening to discuss the film. An opening-night reception will follow the film presentation at 7:30 p.m.

The festival will take place at the AFS Cinema from April 30 to May 3, featuring a diverse selection of films ranging from stories about a remote fishing village in Maine and SpaceX’s headquarters to a Guinean circus performer. Purchase a festival pass to attend all nine films or individual tickets for specific films.

A complete list of film screenings and descriptions can be found below, on the AFS website here, or by visiting austinfilm.org. 

This year’s festival lineup includes a number of celebrated breakout works. The lineup features Pete Muller’s Berlinale selection, Bucks Harbor, about fishermen in Maine; Julien Élie’s (dir. Soleils Noirs) DOC NYC Grand Jury Prize-winning film about SpaceX’s Texas headquarters, Shifting Baselines; Sundance competition film Closure by Polish filmmaker Michał Marczak (All These Sleepless Nights); a youth-friendly screening of Marjolijn Prinsabout’s Fantastique about a 14-year-old Guinean acrobat with big dreams; Barlow Jacobs’ stunning 16mm feature The Voyage Out, following an elk hunt in Montana, and several 2026 Sundance award winners: Abby Ellis’ The Lake (Sundance Impact for Change Award), about the looming environmental devastation from the draining of Utah’s Great Salt Lake; Adam and Zack Khalil’s Aanikoobijigan [ancestor/great grandparent/great-grandchild] (Sundance Next Audience Award) about the repatriation of Native American artifacts and J.M. Harper’s Soul Patrol (Sundance Best Director Award) that dives into the struggles of the only all-Black special ops unit in the Vietnam War.

AFS’s Doc Days festival is an opportunity for Austin’s filmmaking and film-loving community to celebrate and discuss the art of non-fiction filmmaking with up-and-coming and established documentarians. A number of films presented during previous AFS Doc Days festivals have gone on to receive major awards recognition, including Academy Award® nominations. Past AFS Doc Days films receiving Oscar® nominations include: Of Fathers and Sons (2017), Minding the Gap (2018), Hale County This Morning, This Evening (2018), American Factory (2019), Flee (2021), The Eternal Memory (2023) and Sugarcane (2024). 2026 will mark the seventh edition of the annual festival of non-fiction cinema in Austin.

The Opening-Night Film Selection of this year’s AFS Doc Days program will be Who Moves America directed by Yael Bridge and produced by Yoni Golijov (All the Beauty and the Bloodshed). The screening will be followed by an in-person Q&A with Golijov and an opening-night reception open to ticketholders and full-festival pass holders beginning at 7:30 p.m.

The Closing-Night Film Selection for this year’s AFS Doc Days festival will be Soul Patrol, attended by its 2026 Sundance Film Festival Best Director-winning director J.M. Harper who will participate in a post-screening Q&A.

Other films with filmmaker appearances include Bucks Harbor with director Pete Muller, Closure with director Michał Marczak, The Voyage Out with director Barlow Jacobs and special guests, Aanikoobijigan [ancestor/great grandparent/great-grandchild] with producer Jacque Clark and Soul Patrol with director J.M Harper. Additional guests will be announced in the coming weeks, and updates can be found at austinfilm.org.

The AFS Doc Days film festival takes place in conjunction with the AFS Doc Intensive, a multi-day, invitational workshop for early to mid-career Texas documentary feature filmmakers poised for career leaps. The program is designed to run concurrently with the festival to promote networking and community building among Intensive participants and the professionals participating in AFS Doc Days. The AFS Doc Intensive includes a variety of panels and mentorship meetings with established documentary filmmakers, works-in-progress screenings with group feedback sessions and community-building social engagements, all of which are instrumental in providing filmmakers with creative feedback, resources and momentum for their projects.

AFS Doc Days is supported in part by an Elevate Grant of Austin Arts, Culture, Music, and Entertainment.

The full AFS Doc Days lineup continues below, and a complete list of all film screenings is announced here and on our website at ​austinfilm.org.​ Individual ticket prices are on sale, and full-festival passes are available at 15% off the full-ticket purchase price. AFS Members receive additional discounts on passes and individual tickets. The AFS Doc Days pass includes one ticket to each AFS Doc Days film screening and the opening-night reception.

 

AUSTIN FILM SOCIETY: AFS DOC DAYS 2026 FESTIVAL LINEUP

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Thursday, April 30

WHO MOVES AMERICA

Yael Bridge, USA, 2026, DCP, 87 min.
April 30 | 6 PM | AFS Cinema
Featuring producer Yoni Golijov in person.
As 340,000 United Parcel Service workers prepare for contract negotiations that could lead to a strike, younger members of the union turn to the lessons of the 1997 general strike that halted shipping in the United States. This poignant and powerful film about work, organizing, and life viscerally illustrates the dynamism of collective action and the contemporary pressures faced by the American working class. Our Opening Night selection. 

BUCKS HARBOR

Pete Muller, USA, 2026, DCP, 98 min.
April 30 | 9 PM | AFS Cinema
Featuring director Pete Muller in person.
In this unforgettable film, director Pete Mueller combines portraiture and ethnography to capture the lives of a few unique characters: men who define themselves by their work in the remote fishing village of Machiasport, Maine.

Friday, May 1

SHIFTING BASELINES

Julien Élie, Canada, 2025, DCP, 100 min. In English, French, and Spanish with English subtitles.
May 1 | 5:30 PM | AFS Cinema
Canadian filmmaker Julien Élie heads to Boca Chica, Texas, the headquarters of SpaceX, to meet the people who dream of humanity’s next frontier in a town transformed by space exploration. Meanwhile, exceptional scientists around the world warn about the existential impacts of the insatiable space race. This beautifully composed, exceptionally poetic, and engaging film was the winner of a Grand Jury Prize at DOC NYC. 

CLOSURE

Michał Marczak, Poland, 2026, DCP, 108 min. In Polish with English subtitles.
May 1 | 8:30 PM | AFS Cinema
Featuring director Michał Marczak in person.
In what is certain to become one of the most talked about documentaries of the year, a desperate father faces an interminable quest to find out what happened to his teenage son, who seems to have vanished without a trace. A selection of the Sundance Film Festival and winner of Best Documentary at the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival.

 

Saturday, May 2

FANTASTIQUE

Marjolijn Prins, Belgium/Netherlands/France, 2025, DCP, 71 min. In Susu and French with English subtitles.
May 2 | 1 PM | AFS Cinema
Fanta is a 14-year-old in Guinea with an incredible talent: she trains as a contortionist with a troupe of renowned acrobats who invite her to try out for an international tour. Torn between family pressures and her dreams, Fanta must light her own path. A joyful, sensitive, and riveting West African coming-of-age story, FANTASTIQUE is a delight for audiences of all ages, including youth who read subtitles well.
*Youth friendly.

 

THE LAKE

Abby Ellis, USA, 2025, DCP, 88 min.
May 2 | 3:30 PM | AFS Cinema
Featuring special guests in person.
Salt Lake City, Utah, imminently faces an unimaginable environmental catastrophe: the draining of the Great Salt Lake. THE LAKE embeds itself with scientists, government staffers, and politicians who throw themselves into the center of the crisis where religion, land rights, politics, and science collide. Winner of a Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. 

 

AANIKOOBIJIGAN [ancestor/great-grandparent/great-grandchild]

Adam Khalil and Zack Khalil, USA/Denmark, 2026, DCP, 80 min. In English and Anishinaabemowin with English subtitles.
May 2 | 6:30 PM | AFS Cinema
For many years, Native American repatriation specialists have worked to return ancestral remains that were stolen by Western museums and collectors. This revelatory film tells the tale of this repatriation work, weaving in and centering Native American history, science, and thought from an imaginative and deeply personal point of view. Winner of an audience award at the Sundance Film Festival. 

 

Sunday, May 3

 

THE VOYAGE OUT

Barlow Jacobs, USA, 2025, DCP, 99 min.
May 3 | 3 PM | AFS Cinema
Featuring director Barlow Jacobs in person.
With only pack goats and the gear they can carry, four people head into the Montana wilderness on a guided elk hunt. There, over bonfires and under the open sky, each hunter wrestles with what has driven them into the wild. A feat of 16mm filmmaking, this film explores humanity’s place in nature so profoundly that it feels like a journey into the depths of one’s own mortal soul. 

 

SOUL PATROL

J.M. Harper, USA, 2026, DCP, 100 min.
May 3 | 6 PM | AFS Cinema
Featuring director J.M Harper in person.
The Vietnam War’s only all-Black special operations unit reunites to tell their stories for the first time. Entering the war at the height of the Civil Rights Movement, where they endured the double traumas of war and racism, these men hold a piece of that era’s history that is all their own. SOUL PATROL takes a fresh and delicate approach to bringing their memories to life, sharing a critical piece of American history. Winner of the Best Director award at the Sundance Film Festival.

 

About Austin Film Society
Founded in 1985 by filmmaker Richard Linklater, AFS creates life-changing opportunities for filmmakers, catalyzes Austin and Texas as a creative hub, and brings the community together around great film. AFS is committed to racial equity and inclusion, with an objective to deliver programs that actively dismantle the structural racism, sexism and other bias in the screen industries. AFS supports filmmakers from all backgrounds towards career leaps, encouraging exceptional artistic projects with grants and support services. AFS operates Austin Studios, a 20-acre production facility, to attract and grow the creative media ecosystem. Austin Public, a space for our city’s diverse mediamakers to train and collaborate, provides many points of access to filmmaking and film careers. The AFS Cinema is an ambitiously programmed repertory and first run arthouse with broad community engagement. By hosting premieres, local and international industry events, and the Texas Film Awards, AFS shines the national spotlight on Texas filmmakers while connecting Austin and Texas to the wider film community. AFS is a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. More at austinfilm.org.

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