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When I open my Zoom session with Chicago producer Young Chop, his display photo is a picture of him shirtless, flashing a wad of cash. “Boy, that ain’t never your Zoom picture!” his manager Jessie “Jay Boogie” Green jokes. Chop flashes a beaming grin when he turns his camera on, riding in the passenger seat while traveling through his native Chicago. His trademark locs are gone. Instead, he’s rocking a small Afro. He says he took the money-flashing photo at 18, in 2012, after reaping the rewards from his work with Chief Keef,...

It seems pretty clear these days that governments around the world often exploit the poor by uprooting them from their homes to build flashy high-rise buildings or even temples, all in the name of “progress” and they do not even consider the situation of the helpless people they displace or show any real concern for their well-being. In the movie Bangkok Breaking: Heaven and Hell, directed by Kome Kongkiat Komesiri, this exact situation takes place, in a small housing village in Thailand, the government signs a deal with a construction company called Idea Tech, led by CEO Mr. Wichai to build a world-class community complex, but to do that, they plan to kick out the people who’ve been living there for ages. Obviously, this created a lot of chaos among the locals, and the villagers started to protest. They had a feud with the police sent by the government,...

Doc NYC is known for its 15-feature film shortlist and for its annual Visionaries Tribute luncheon, which attracts the who’s who of the docu community from both coasts.

But, while the festival, which begins on Nov. 8, is a key campaign stop for filmmakers hoping to garner a spot on the Oscar documentary shortlist, it has also become a place where more documentarians are choosing to premiere their work.

This year 33 films out of the 253 featured on the main slate will have their world premieres at the fest.

Many of those films debuting at Doc NYC are profile docus including: “June,” a profile of June Carter Cash; “The Cowboy and the Queen,” about Queen Elizabeth II’s friendship with a California horse trainer; “Candace Parker: Unapologetic,” the story of the WNBA superstar; “Ashima,” about Ashima Shirashi, the Japanese-American rock climber who set world records in her teens; “Shari & Lamb Chop,...