Oscar-qualifying documentary festival Doc Edge has revealed the first 16 titles for its 2026 edition, launching its 21st year with a lineup that spans conflict reporting in Gaza, feminist resistance in Iran, AI intimacy, Hollywood scandal, and Indigenous environmental guardianship in Aotearoa.
The opening slate, announced ahead of the full program reveal on 15 May, offers a strong early indication of the range Doc Edge is pursuing this year, balancing locally rooted New Zealand stories with internationally resonant nonfiction features shaped by political urgency, personal loss and institutional scrutiny.
The festival will run in Auckland from 24 June to 12 July and in Wellington from 15 to 26 July, alongside an immersive exhibition program. Auckland will also host the festival’s industry events and awards from 29 June to 1 July, bringing together filmmakers, distributors and sector guests from across New Zealand and overseas.
Among the New Zealand titles are four world premieres. Finding Honk, directed by Eldon Booth, follows Hayden Pere as he attempts to fulfil his dying father’s final wish, only to be drawn into a family history marked by buried secrets and unresolved danger. Isabel Corfiatis’ Music and the Mystical Experience centres on sound engineer Michael Sutherland, who gathers 20 New Zealand musicians to explore music’s role in psychedelic therapy and healing.
Robert Cavanah’s There’s a Hole in My Bucket, narrated by Benedict Cumberbatch, tracks Royd Tolkien as he works through a 50-item bucket list left behind by his brother Mike after his death from Motor Neurone Disease. Also world premiering is Unlikely Kin, directed by Kim Webby and Michael Jonathan, in which a father and son uphold Māori guardianship through stranded whale harvesting and the protection of endangered species.
The international selection broadens the frame further. Rory Kennedy’s The Trial of Alec Baldwin, screening as an international premiere, revisits the fatal on-set shooting case that placed celebrity, legal accountability and public judgment under intense scrutiny. Sharon Liese’s Seized examines the police raid on the Kansas newspaper, the Marion County Record, turning toward questions of press freedom and state overreach in the U.S.
Other prominent titles include Inside Gaza by Hélène Lam Trong, an Asia-Pacific premiere that follows AFP journalists reporting from inside the war zone while shut off from international media access, and Raha Shirazi’s A War on Women, which reframes the 2022 Iranian uprising through the longer history of feminist resistance. Chouwa Liang’s Replica, premiering in New Zealand, looks at young Chinese women turning to AI companions in search of emotional intimacy, while Andreas Pichler’s Elon Musk Unveiled – The Tesla Experiment promises testimony from confidants, whistleblowers and former senior Tesla staff.
The slate also includes documentaries on choreographer Jiří Kylián, Fidel Castro’s daughter Alina Fernández, competitive young dancers, Sámi resistance to wind-power development and the environmental memory embedded in Nuxalk territory.
