The Wexner Center's 10th annual festival of creative nonfiction filmmaking, with a programme of short and feature documentaries and filmmaker Q&As.
Unorthodocs returns to the Wexner Center for the Arts from October 22 to 26, marking the festival's 10th year. It's the center's annual showcase of creative nonfiction filmmaking, and the format is what keeps people coming back: every featured film plays on a single screen in an intimate setting, often with the filmmakers there in person. Chris Stults, the curator of film, describes it as a chance to discover documentaries you might not have heard of yet, followed by discussions with the filmmakers and subject experts. This year's edition is part of the 2026 FotoFocus Biennial: The Long View.
The program opens with Classic American Docs, a three-film series revisiting defining American documentaries, starting with Barbara Kopple's Harlan County USA. A good chunk of the lineup is brand new: Patrick Bresnan's First They Came for My College, Dawn Porter's When a Witness Recants, Adam and Zach Khalil's Aanikoobijigan, Brydie O'Connor's Barbara Forever, David Greaves' Once Upon a Time in Harlem, Poh Si Teng's American Doctor, Lana Daher's Do You Love Me, Felipe Bustos Sierra's Everybody to Kenmure Street, and Sam Green's The Oldest Person in the World all come out in 2026. Mila Turajlić is represented twice, with Non-Aligned Newsreels: Fragments from the Debris, which has been in the works since 2023, and The Other Side of Everything from 2017. There's also a free Unorthodocs Shorts program, with Q&As featuring Bresnan, Turajlić, O'Connor, Porter, and Poh Si Teng.
One of the highlights this year is Barbara Forever, executive produced by Kristen Stewart, which looks at the life and work of Barbara Hammer, a pioneering lesbian filmmaker and longtime friend of the Wexner Center. The organizers note that festivals like Unorthodocs are often the only way audiences get to see urgent, innovative films that struggle for distribution.
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Festival passes are $45 for the general public, $36 for Wex members and adults 55+, and $18 for students. Individual tickets are $12, or $8 for members, $9 for adults 55+, and $6 for students. The whole thing runs October 22 to 26 at the Wexner Center for the Arts, part of The Ohio State University in Columbus.
