Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival

The Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival is back next month.

Mary Zunick with the Film Festival board said one of the exciting developments for this year is the film festival's adding more screenings and events at the Arlington.

"The film festival and the Arlington share a lot of history, and it will be wonderful to have it back as one of our main hubs for people to see movies and enjoy our events," Zunick said.

On Opening Night, 'Patrick and the Whale' gives audiences a rare view – with amazing cinematography - of the whale’s world under the sea.

The Centerpiece films include 'The Exiles', which reconnects the Icon Award honoree Christine Choy, with a group of Chinese dissidents who sought asylum in the states following the Tiananmen Square massacre at that time. And 'All That Breathes' is about two brothers who have made it their mission to care for and rehabilitate birds of prey known as kites.

Closing Night is a country music lover's dream: 'The Return of Tanya Tucke'r - Featuring Brandi Carlile has the legendary Tanya Tucker returning to the big stage.

The Career Achievement honoree is very special not just to documentary film fans but also locally. The late Brent Renaud along with his brother Craig Renaud, won almost every major award in television journalism, before Brent was killed in the Ukraine in March of this year. He won a Peabody, and their series 'Off to War' was the first time a group of soldiers had been filmed for an entire deployment at war. Brent also co-founded the Little Rock Film Festival, was a visiting distinguished professor of journalism ethics at the University of Arkansas, and a Harvard Nieman Fellow.

Going forward the award will be known as the “Brent Renaud Career Achievement Award.”

The Festival begins October 7th and runs through the 15th.

For more information, visit their website.