King of the Night
2018 · 7m · USA
Directed by Molly Brass, Anne Hollowday
Genres: biography, documentary
Tones: contemplative, tender
A Palestinian refugee with no family of his own becomes a father figure to the community gathered at New York City's last remaining chess shop.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Everyone expects the refugee narrative to be about displacement and trauma—Brass and Hollowday just... ignore that script entirely and film a man teaching chess to strangers like it's the most natural story in the world, which somehow makes it weirder and truer.
A formally restrained portrait that understands the documentary tradition of patient observation; the filmmakers trust the intimacy of the chess shop itself to carry the emotional weight, letting space and ritual do what voiceover might fumble.
The genius move is shooting the hands—the actual physical grammar of teaching someone to play, fingers guiding pieces—which transforms what could've been sentimental into something tactile and earned.