Hindsight Film Festival, Set for March 4th-8th, 2026 in Savannah, GA
- America’s first major festival for historical documentaries
- Exclusive Preview of clips from Ken Burns’s new series, Emancipation to Exodus
- Opening night screening of American Pachuco: The Legend of Luis Valdez, with Valdez in person
- Saturday screening of Steal This Story, Please! with Amy Goodman
- “Second Look” screening of Coup 53 (2019), with editor Walter Murch
- 50th Anniversary Screening of Harlan County, USA with Barbara Kopple
SAVANNAH, Ga., Jan. 29, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Acclaimed filmmaker Ken Burns joined The Better Angels Society today to announce the Hindsight Film Festival, America’s first major national film festival exclusively for historical documentaries, set for March 4th-8th, in Savannah, GA. In an announcement video on the festival’s website, Burns states, “the inaugural Hindsight Film Festival will showcase the kind of films that I love, ones that make you say ‘I had no idea about the history that connects us all.'”
The festival is sponsored by The Better Angels Society, a non-profit dedicated to telling stories about American history through documentary films to inspire lifelong learning, promote civic engagement, and encourage civil discourse. The program will include several of the 2025 Library of Congress Lavine/Ken Burns Prize for Film finalists, including the winner, American Pachuco: The Legend of Luis Valdez (Sundance World Premiere 2026) and runner-up, Diamond Diplomacy. The Prize for Film, which is awarded by the Library of Congress in partnership with The Better Angels Society, recognizes the best late-stage U.S. history documentaries each year and provides $350,000 in funding to six films.
Festival founder and director Pat Longstreth was selected for the 2023 Better Angels Lavine Fellowship for his film The Day That Shook Georgia. Longstreth said, “While attending festivals with my film over the last few years, I noticed a growing array of creative historical documentaries. But they only make up a small portion of the total program, and they rarely get top billing.” Longstreth has been working to make Savannah, GA the new home for historical documentaries, with year-round screenings and now the first five-day festival of its kind.
The festival opens on Wednesday, March 4th at 11am, with a free public screening of Behind the Lines, which captures American history through war letters and was narrated by Annette Bening, at the National Museum of the Mighty Eighth Air Force.
The festival will also feature an exclusive preview of clips from Emancipation to Exodus, the upcoming PBS series from Ken Burns, David McMahon, Sarah Burns, and Erika Dilday, with co-director McMahon attending in person. The four-part series, slated to air in 2028, explores the Black experience in America from Emancipation to the Great Migration, including Reconstruction, a turbulent era that remains among the most misunderstood and misrepresented periods of our past.
Based at the Otis S. Johnson Ph.D. Cultural Arts Center, and other venues around town, the festival will showcase 15 feature films and 30 short films. The festival staff have spent the last year working with renowned filmmakers and major distributors to find the most compelling and inspiring non-fiction stories being told right now, like Steal This Story, Please! with the Oscar-nominated filmmakers, Carl Deal and Tia Lessin, and Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman attending.
Passholders will have access to expert panel discussions, history tours, a Sunday awards lunch, and a 50th Anniversary screening of Harlan County, USA (1976) with two-time Oscar-winning director Barbara Kopple in person, followed by a Q&A moderated by George Dawes Green, celebrated novelist and the founder of NPR’s The Moth. With a full slate of Oscar, Emmy, and Peabody winning filmmakers, the event is shaping up to be a dynamic gathering for anyone looking to explore our shared past from fresh perspectives.
The official schedule and film guide will be announced this week. Tickets and passes are available for purchase on the festival website. You can follow Hindsight Film Festival on Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube. For photos use this link.
See you on March 4th in Savannah!
About The Better Angels Society
The Better Angels Society is a non-profit organization that supports outstanding American history documentaries to inspire lifelong learning, promote civic engagement, and encourage civil discourse. The organization advances this mission by raising funds to support individual films in partnership with public media, ensuring that these films are completed, broadcast, promoted, and shared with wide audiences, along with complementary education and outreach resources and programs. Through the annual Library of Congress Lavine/Ken Burns Prize for Film and Better Angels Lavine Fellows, The Better Angels Society provides additional resources, mentorship, and recognition to emerging and established filmmakers. The organization is also building the next generations of historical documentary filmmakers through innovative partnership programs that provide young people, ages 14-22, with the inspiration and training to make their own American history documentaries while also building their skills in critical thinking, communications, civics, and history.
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SOURCE The Better Angels Society
