Films by CalArtians have been selected for Doc Fortnight 2026, the 25th anniversary edition of The Museum of Modern Art’s annual festival celebrating trailblazing new documentary cinema from around the world. The festival opened yesterday, Thursday, Feb. 26 and runs through Thursday, March 12 in MoMA’s Roy and Niuta Titus Theaters in New York.
Doc Fortnight 2026 opens with Aaron Brookner and Rodrigo Areias’s Nova ’78 and closes with Sofia Coppola’s (Art 94) Marc by Sofia. The full lineup includes five world premieres, 13 North American premieres, and four US premieres.
In addition to Coppola, CalArtians presenting at this year’s festival are Xiao Zhang (Film/Video MFA 24), Charlotte Zhang (Film/Video BFA 21), James Benning, faculty in the School of Film/Video, and Mike Stoltz, former School of Film/Video faculty.
词藻飞回大地深处 (Words Fly Back to the Black Earth)
Xiao Zhang
Zhang presents her film, 词藻飞回大地深处 (Words Fly Back to the Black Earth), in the Doc Fortnight Shorts 3: Back to Earth program. In the 19-minute film, a New York premiere, the impact of dam construction on the environment is rendered on a poetic minor scale through diary entries and a dialogue between the filmmaker and her grandmother.
The program screens:
- Sunday, March 8 at 2 pm
- Wednesday, March 11 at 4 pm
Tycoon
Charlotte Zhang
Zhang makes her North American premiere with Tycoon, an 89-minute feature. MoMA describes the film as “a true shot in the arm, and one of the year’s most maverick debuts. A paranoid, speculative hybrid film set on the eve of the 2028 Olympics, Tycoon imagines an LA infested by cockroaches, ridden by ICE raids, and in the throes of a meat shortage, all of which provides an opportunity for a gang of friends and would-be hustlers to try to take revenge on the hostile world around them.” The festival’s press release notes Zhang among the “exciting debuts by emerging filmmakers” in this year’s edition.
The film screens:
- Saturday, March 7 at 7 pm
- Tuesday, March 10 at 6:30 pm
Eight Bridges
James Benning
Benning debuts Eight Bridges, an 82-minute feature receiving its North American premiere. MoMA describes the film as “the conclusion of an unofficial trilogy that began with his beloved Ten Skies and 13 Lakes, Eight Bridges is the legendary James Benning’s latest exercise in looking and listening.” The film observes eight structures that connect land, water, and sky, ranging from the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco to the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, rendered in Benning’s characteristic painterly style.
The film screens:
- Sunday, March 8 at 4:30 pm
- Wednesday, March 11 at 4:30 pm
Pinktoned
Mike Stoltz
Stoltz presents Pinktoned, a 10-minute short receiving its world premiere as part of Doc Fortnight Shorts 2: Sight Lines. The film places unauthored, faded 35mm stills from the 1970s that Stoltz found at a rummage sale alongside his own pseudo-surveillance footage of LA passersby seen from his window.
That program screens:
- Saturday, March 7 at 4:30 pm
- Monday, March 9 at 4:30 pm
Marc by Sofia.
Sofia Coppola
The film is an intimate portrait of Coppola’s longtime friend, the American designer Marc Jacobs. From MoMA: “Part time capsule, part mood board, the film evokes the designer’s inimitable student days at Parsons, his legendary grunge collection for Perry Ellis, his storied eponymous brand and boundary-pushing at Louis Vuitton, all the way to his present outlook—all with the genial ease befitting an iconic friendship.”
The film closes Doc Fortnight 2026 on Wednesday, March 11 at 7 pm.
For the complete schedule and ticket information, visit moma.org/film.
