The Full Frame Documentary Film Festival is an event held in Durham, NC, and is celebrating its 27th year beginning on April 3. This year, the event will feature 34 feature-length documentaries and 15 short documentaries. The festival will last for four days and will open with the documentary film, Prime Minister, which originally debuted at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival and details the life of New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. There are 16 total documentary films from Sundance’s 2025 film festival.

Following its return in 2024, Full Frame had to close during COVID. After the worldwide shutdown and during 2023, it entered a period of financial struggle where the festival had to be put on hold. The Full Frame co-director Emily Foster commented on the return last year by saying,

“We were blown away by the enthusiastic reception to the festival’s in person return.  The success of the 2024 festival was driven by the incredible energy of our audiences and filmmakers, who are truly the heart of Full Frame. The overwhelming support from the documentary community, our partners, and the broader film industry created an atmosphere that was both inspiring and energizing.”

14 feature-length documentary films out of the total 34 will be out of competition in the Full Frame’s invited category. There were over film 1,000 submissions in total, and this year’s 49 films are from 30 different countries.

This year, Full Frame is continuing its special thematic program by inviting a filmmaker named Yance Ford this year based on his film, The Weight of a Question: Documentary and The Art of Inquiry.

Full Frame qualifies for the Academy Award short documentary film and includes a wide range of panel discussions from filmmakers.

Sadie Tillery, who is the co-director and artistic director for Full Frame discussed in her interview with Variety her love of documentaries as follows,

“I am drawn to documentary films that ask me to test and stretch my preconceived notions and surface-level understandings. Simply put, I watch films to grow, as I believe many audiences do.”