Doctober 2023 Is Coming - Starts October 5th

This year, Doctober celebrates its 16th year of spotlighting ground-breaking nonfiction cinema.

Save the date! Doctober—the PNW’s premiere documentary film festival is back at Pickford Film Center on October 5th through 26th.

Doctober is the largest documentary film festival in the Pacific Northwest, happening each year in the heart of downtown Bellingham, WA amidst the panoramic wonders of Mt. Baker and the North Cascades. We squeeze over 30 different documentaries into one month with special guests, filmmaker Q&As, community panels, and parties. Every day is a different experience—whether it be the untold saga of the pioneering Black astronauts in the NASA space program; or an examination of the regenerative farming movement in the fierce and hopeful fight against climate change; or the mysteriously twisting story of two Swedish sisters discovering a third sister they long believed to be dead—there’s something in the festival for everyone. Each story is shared among legions of documentary fanatics who’ve been filling our seats since the festival’s debut in 2006, when it began a West Coast iteration of the infamous True/False festival in Columbia, MO.

Event Details:

Festival Name: Doctober

Dates: October 5th to 26th, 2023

Location: Pickford Film Center, 1318 Bay St. Bellingham, WA

Website: pickfordfilmcenter.org/doctober

Founded in 1998, the Pickford Film Center serves the Whatcom community by screening independent films 365 days a year, producing and presenting the annual Doctober film festival, the Bellingham Children’s Film Festival, numerous film series and special events. The Pickford offers free documentary film showings to all Whatcom middle schools through Doc-ED and partners with students and schools for many other events during the year.

We acknowledge that Whatcom County is located on the unceded territory of the Coast Salish Peoples. They cared for the lands that included what we’d call the Puget Sound region, Vancouver Island and British Columbia since time immemorial. This gives us the great obligation and opportunity to learn how to care for our surrounding areas and all the natural and human resources we require to live. We express our deepest respect and gratitude for our indigenous neighbors, the Lummi Nation and Nooksack Tribe, for their enduring care and protection of our shared lands and waterways.