Full Frame Documentary Film Festival’s 2026 Thematic Program, titled “Extremely Rich Theater: Staging, Performance, and Elasticity in American Nonfiction Film” will address a central question: How can staged scenes and performance lead a viewer to recognize more deeply what is real and/or true?

Alone / Director: Garrett Bradley (2019 Creative Capital Awardee)
This stirringly poetic documentary puts a human face on the ravages of the American carceral state as a conflicted young woman contemplates marrying her imprisoned boyfriend.

America / Director: Garrett Bradley
Inspired by the earliest surviving feature film with an all-Black cast and through a series of vignettes rooted in New Orleans, America challenges the idea of Black cinema as a wave or “movement in time,” proposing instead a continuous thread of achievement.