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Drift: The Climber's Documentary Comes to DOC NYC

DRIFT, Deon Taylor's documentary on photographer Isaac Wright, won Best Breakthrough Documentary in San Diego and has its New York premiere at DOC NYC on November 15 and 17.

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Isaac "Drift" Wright photographs cities from places no one is supposed to stand: the tops of skyscrapers, cranes and bridges, reached at night with a camera in hand. A US Army special operations veteran, he learned "to cope with PTSD and depression through urban exploring and documenting cities from unseen perspectives through photography." At the end of 2020 he was arrested for that work and held for 4 months without bond. His collection Where My Vans Go, on Ethereum, follows his shoes across the country, planted high above rooftops, cranes and bridges, under a line that sums up the practice: "If you never climb, you never see the view. This is the climb."

Now there is a film. DRIFT, directed by Deon Taylor, screened at the San Diego International Film Festival on October 16 at AMC 14 UTC La Jolla, and on October 21 Wright posted that it "Took home an award," with a photo of the trophy: Best Breakthrough Documentary. The festival calls him "equal parts artist, athlete, and outlaw," and says the film reveals "a former Army veteran grappling with the invisible aftermath of war." Wright is credited as a cinematographer alongside Ronan Killeen, and as an executive producer.

The New York premiere is at DOC NYC, in the American Stories section, running 107 minutes. The first screening is Sunday, November 15 at 2:10 PM at Village East by Angelika, followed by a Q&A with Taylor, producers Roxanne Avent Taylor and Inbal B. Lessner, and Wright. The second is Tuesday, November 17 at 1:45 PM at IFC Center, with a Q&A with Wright. The festival's Karen McMullen calls it "a powerful depiction of resilience, race, and art's transformative power." Announcing the dates on October 10, Wright wrote: "There is a very long run ahead for the documentary but New York is an important stop."

His feed this month reads like the film's subject talking back. On October 19 he posted self-portraits on bridges across the US, small figures against fog, steel and city light. On October 21 he described climbing to the crown of a tower at sunset, watched by office windows on every side, and the question that sends him up each time: "do I want to be safe or do I want to be truthful?" A day earlier he wrote that it seemed "nearly impossible to tie something as spontaneous, vast and ultimately unknowable as the creative spirit down to something as rigid and structured as an algorithm."

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