Utopia Film Festival

Greenbelt, Maryland • October 17-18, 2026


2021 Films

  • 2021 Films: Documentaries

Documentaries

A Date, With History
Director: Gaspar Gonzalez / USA
11 min. | Documentary Short

​In 1955, a black woman and a white man were arrested at a Miami, Florida hotel for violating the city’s strict segregation laws. A filmmaker’s investigation of the case offers an unexpected glimpse into the era’s complex social history.
Amber’s Halfway Home
Directors: Melissa Armstrong, Jason Pidgeon / USA 31 min. | Documentary Short
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While exploring conditions at animal shelters, this engaging short doc celebrates a woman who saved the lives of 2000 dogs in one year.
Beating Super Bugs: Can We Win?
Director: William Mudge / USA
68 min. | Documentary Feature

​Antibiotic-resistant bacteria, or Super Bugs, pose ominous threats to world health. Leaders in economics, government and the pharmaceutical industry reveal their coordinated counter-attacks in this important documentary.
Bicentennial Bonsai: Emissaries of Peace
Directors:  Paul Awad, Kathryn O’Sullivan / USA
35 min | ​Documentary Short

In 1975, Japan gave 53 priceless bonsai trees to the United States in honor of the upcoming 1976 U.S. Bicentennial. Using interviews and archival footage, this short film considers how we might rediscover our shared humanity with other nations.
Ecstasy & Death: Keats and Shelley in Rome
Director: Nancy Rogers / USA
57 min. | Documentary Feature 
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Poet and spoken-word artist Jack Ramey brings the poems of Keats and Shelley to life while exploring the poets’ revolutionary era and its parallels to his own 1960’s memories of events at Kent State University, 
Every Moment
Director: Samantha deManbey / USA
20 min. | Documentary Short
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“Every Moment” is a twenty minute documentary about the life and art of Sahar Ghavimi. In 2016, Sahar emigrated from Iran with her family. The film explores Sahar’s work on three large art projects while documenting the challenges her immigrant family faced.
Extra Credit
Director: Angel Yau / USA
6 min. | Documentary Short
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In this short work, Yau explores how, as a child, she dealt with solitude, rejection and alienation.
Farmer Lee Jones & The Chef’s Garden
Director: Stephen Helstad / USA
8 min. | Documentary Short
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Take time out from your busy Utopia schedule to meet inspirational farmer Lee Jones and his impressive garden!
Free the Vote: The Past and Present of Restoring Voting Rights in Maryland
Director:  Amber Taylor / USA
40 min.​ | ​Documentary Short

Advocates for permitting the formerly-incarcerated to vote share their hopes and dreams of a Maryland where the right to vote is restored for every citizen.
From Durban to Tomorrow
Director: Dylan Mohan Grey / South Africa
34 min. | Documentary Short

Health advocates from around the world persevere, through victories and defeats, toward the goal of establishing a universal human right to health.

​​A foreign film with subtitles.
In A Whole New Way
Director: Jonathan Fisher / USA
32 min. | Documentary Short
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Ensnaring almost 4 million Americans, this short doc critiques the legal “probation” system. Has it evolved from offering the convicted a second chance to a practice that actually feeds mass incarceration?
The Militiaman
Director: David Peter Hansen / USA
32 min. | Documentary Short
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In the hills of rural Pennsylvania, the leader of a local militia must prepare his men for the turbulent political landscape of 2020 while warring with his own conscience.
Ourselves, in Stories
Director: Marjee Chmiel / USA
24 min. | Documentary Short
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For the last 25 years, independent comic book artists have sought to make their community more inclusive and to elevate under-represented voices. This short doc tells the story of how the community has changed.
Sensei Fran Kicks Ass
Director: Simone Fary / USA
20 min. | Documentary Short
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Attention seniors: keep the faith and keep moving. Fran Vall teaches Japanese martial arts, skiing and snowboarding. Not bad for an 80 year old!
The Purple Thanaka of the Angels
Director: Borit Yannick / Myanmar  
53 min. | Documentary Feature

Despite a bloody coup, the so-called “Z” generation responds to the bullets and atrocities of the Burmese regime with artistic ideas and unwavering determination.

​​A foreign film with subtitles.
*The Rumba Kings
Director: Alan Brain / Peru
95 min. | Documentary Feature
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A documentary about the Democratic Republic of the Congo, an  African nation that fought coionial oppression, found freedom, and forged a new identity through music.

​​A foreign film with subtitles.
Umoja
Director: Justin R. Brown / USA
25 min. | Documentary Short.

​Adoptee Frank-Antoine Marzin was born in Vietnam and adopted by a French couple, He searched for decades to find his birth parents. 

​A foreign film with subtitles.
Unmarked
Directors:  Brad Bennett, Chris Haley /
USA
​41 min. | Documentary Feature
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Throughout the South, many historic African-American and unmarked burials of the formerly enslaved have been almost lost to time. But some of those with personal connections to those graves have fueled a new wave of preservation efforts.
Wandering: a Rohinga Story
Director: Melanie Carrier, Olivier Higgins / Canada
88 min. | Documentary Feature
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In 2017, 700,000 people of the Rohingya Muslim minority fled Myanmar to escape genocide through asylum in Bangladesh. But the world’s biggest refugee camp is almost out of space and time.

​A foreign film with subtitles.
Who cares about DC? 
Director: Stephen Kolb / USA
​65 min. | Documentary Feature
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Activists fighting for Washington D.C. statehood share the history of D.C.’s  lack of Congressional representation, and their battle for fairness.
*Pre-selection Films
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​2021 Films - Continued (Narrative shorts, Features, Animations, Works by Young) →

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