The new festival fills a void left by AFI Docs, the celebrated documentary showcase that began as Silverdocs at the American Film Institute’s Silver Spring theater in 2003. Sitney, who directs the Film and Media Studies program at Georgetown University, helmed AFI Docs for nearly a decade. In 2022, the documentary festival merged with the film institute’s Los Angeles-based AFI Fest, shutting down a central part of Washington’s film scene.

DC is a crucial venue for documentary films, Sitney and festival co-founder Jamie Shor agree, because of the large number of journalists, politicians, advocates, and activists who are many of the festival attendees. When documentary producers come here, they find an informed audience able to boost and respond to their work.

“People come to DC to marshal their forces,” Shor says. “What we represent here are amplifiers. People who can shout from the rooftops: ‘this is a valuable and important piece of art that you should pay attention to.’ ”