Tue 10/6-Sun 10/11
For the 17th year, the Chagrin Documentary Film Festival will take over venues in and around downtown Chagrin Falls (most within walking distance) for six days of 75 documentary films appealing to a vast range of interests and tastes — short and full-length films, amusing, entertaining ones and intensely serious ones, covering everything from nature to sports to disaster, human triumph to human tragedy. They include films by noted filmmakers and newcomers (including students) showing their first feature film. One focus will be America’s 250th anniversary, celebrating its history, communities and citizens, but they come from all over the world. And some are hyperlocal: there’s Coventry P.E.A.C.E. Park: A New Beginning (a potentially controversial topic!) directed by Kara White, and Guice Mann —The Chaos Leprechaun Wizard, directed by Matthew Harris, about the self-taught, AsiaTown-based, engagingly friendly hippie artist/musician.
The festival opens on Tuesday October 6 with the Midwest premiere of the 2026 release, Hanging by a Wire, directed by Mohammed Ali Naqvi. It tells the story of the rescue of eight people stranded above a deep valley in a cable car the Himalayas in 2023 as the cables fail. I will not be seeing this film. Just writing about it makes me queasy! (It screens again on Thursday for those impervious to heights.)
There are films about the “War on Poverty,” and about the significance of the Lorraine Motel where Dr. King was assassinated; a short about a guy who impersonates musician Michael Bublé and a film about an ethnic cleansing of Armenians (not the big one in 1915-16: ANOTHER one), which includes a conversation with members of the local Armenian community; a program of environmental shorts, a film about selling Girl Scout Cookies and another about the side effects of kratom, and Behind the Beard, about men and women who work as professional Santas.
The festival includes more than screenings. There are filmmaker talks, panels, meet-and-greets and social get-togethers. And there’s an awards ceremony on Saturday morning. For a complete schedule and ticket information go to www.chagrinfilmfest.org.