DOC NYC’s 2026 programme brings LGBTQ lives into focus through films about a non-binary runner, a Vietnamese-American family and a long-term partnership between experimental filmmakers. The documentaries also look at dating apps, community and care, making the festival’s queer selection a vivid mix of intimate stories and wider social questions.
Essential Takeaways
- Sport under scrutiny: Kick follows runner Nikki Hiltz as athletic ambition meets public debate about identity and bodies.
- Family and belonging: Mai American explores a queer filmmaker’s relationship with his Vietnamese refugee mother.
- Art over decades: Illuminations portrays filmmakers Nathaniel Dorsky and Jerome Hiler, partners in love and creative work for more than 60 years.
- Digital romance, real consequences: Love Apptually examines the emotional and social effects of dating apps.
- Community on screen: The programme also includes films about Khawaja Siras in Pakistan and lesbian helplines in Ireland.
Queer stories give DOC NYC a personal edge
A runner pushed into the glare of public debate, a son trying to understand his mother, and two filmmakers devoted to making images by hand: DOC NYC’s LGBTQIA+ selection is strongest when it brings large questions down to the scale of ordinary lives.
The festival’s official listing describes Kick as a documentary about queer joy, athletic ambition and public scrutiny. Directed by Julia Schwalb, it follows Nikki Hiltz and Emma Gee, with Hiltz’s journey at its centre. The film’s focus on sport and the policing of bodies makes its subject feel immediate without reducing a person to a talking point.
That balance matters. Sports can be a source of purpose and connection, but public attention can also bring pressure that has little to do with the work of running. Kick puts that tension at the heart of its story.
Mai American looks for understanding across generations
In Mai American, queer filmmaker Kevin Truong turns towards his mother, a Vietnamese refugee who came to the United States. DOC NYC describes the film as an exploration of belonging, family history and the ways the past stays present.
Memoirs, paintings and conversations help mother and son approach their shared history. The premise carries a recognisable ache: loving someone doesn't mean having easy access to everything they've lived through, particularly when language and memory shape what can be passed on.
Rather than treating identity as a neat answer, the film makes room for the complicated work of listening. That's an intimate scale for a story about migration and belonging, and often the most revealing one.
Two filmmakers show what devotion looks like
Nathaniel Dorsky and Jerome Hiler have been partners in love and art for more than 60 years, according to DOC NYC. Illuminations, co-directed by Patrick Shen and Brandon Vedder, follows the pair as they film with a Bolex camera and make work by hand.
The festival presents their analogue practice as a tribute to craft and artistic devotion. There is something quietly compelling in that image: cinema not as a quick product, but as a physical process shaped by time, tools and attention.
For viewers drawn to experimental film, Illuminations offers a portrait of people whose shared life and creative work are closely intertwined. Its premise invites a simple question: what does it mean to keep making art, together, across decades?
Dating apps come under the microscope
Shalini Kantayya's Love Apptually takes on the search for connection through dating apps. DOC NYC says the documentary combines personal testimony, expert perspectives and statistics to consider the psychology and consequences of app-based dating, from rejection and despair to data misuse and violence.
The film's breadth gives it plenty to examine, but the personal stories are what make the subject tangible. Dating platforms are often discussed as a convenient way to meet people; this documentary asks what happens when that search becomes entangled with the systems and pressures built around it.
That doesn't make every digital connection suspect. It does make the film's central question worth sitting with: when an app helps people seek intimacy, who is shaping the terms of that search?
Community and care round out the programme
DOC NYC's wider LGBTQIA+ selection reaches beyond the films' central profiles. The Nobles follows three Khawaja Siras in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, who run a café that serves as a gathering place and sanctuary. The festival describes the film as a portrait of a community with a distinct gender identity and a long cultural history.
Meanwhile, Lesbian Lines looks back at underground lesbian helplines in Ireland. Its account draws on call logs, archival material, dramatic reconstructions and former volunteers' recollections to recover a history of listening and solidarity.
Together, these films give the programme a broader texture: alongside individual lives, they make space for the places and networks that help people find one another. The DOC NYC screenings and online run offer different ways to explore that varied selection.
Closing Line
Whether you're drawn to sport, family or film craft, DOC NYC's queer stories offer plenty to reflect on.
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