The Maysles Documentary Center, founded by legendary filmmaker Albert Maysles (1926-2015), “fosters documentary film for a more equitable world.” Maysles’ classic documentary, Grey Gardens — which he directed with his brother David Maysles, Ellen Hovde, and Muffie Meyer – is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year.
More on this year’s honorees:
ORWELL: 2+2=5. Academy award nominated filmmaker Raoul Peck’s Orwell: 2+2=5 details the life of famed author George Orwell and uses Orwell’s writings to draw lessons in our current political climate. The film premiered at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival and is one of the very few political documentaries addressing our current moment that will get a substantial theatrical release this fall. Peck’s I Am Not Your Negro screened at the Maysles Documentary Center in Harlem as part of its acclaimed Oscar-nominated run.
Time magazine said “ORWELL: 2+2=5 feels like the boldest documentary anyone could make right now” and called the film “exhilarating.” “Poignant and galvanizing” wrote The Hollywood Reporter. With echoes of Orwell’s classic novel, 1984, the film illustrates the power of truth-twisting doublethink of media and government in totalitarian regimes.
THE PERFECT NEIGHBOR. Winner of the Directing Award for U.S. Documentary at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival and coming to Netflix in the fall, The Perfect Neighbor explores the 2023 killing of Ajike Owens, a black woman, by her white neighbor in Florida, after a seemingly minor dispute. Using bodycam footage from dozens of police visits, the film bears witness to a tight-knit community navigating one neighbor’s relentless harassment. But her hostility takes a sinister turn when it escalates into a fatal crime. The film explores the vulnerability and impact of the controversial Stand Your Ground gun laws when individuals feel emboldened by the law to act on their fear and prejudice. Roger Ebert wrote, “I don’t think there was a documentary in the Sundance program this year more buzzed about than Geeta Gandbhir’s excellent The Perfect Neighbor.”
SEEDS. Winner of the Grand Jury Award at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, Seeds is director Brittany Shyne‘s moving portrait of centennial farmers in the geographical south. Using lyrical black and white imagery, this meditative film examines the decline of generational black farmers and the significance of owning land. Through these inter-generational stories, we see the cycles of inequity and embedded racism that persist to this present day, and the signs of hope and renewal with younger generations of farmers. “A languid, loving portrait of Black farmers in the South, Seeds is a mixture of celebration and lament,” wrote Variety.
