Join us as we open the 2026 season for the Port Jefferson Documentary series with our spring slate of award-winning, provocative and impactful films.

Natchez is a lush film that explores the meaning of history through the lens of this one small town on the Mississippi River - a town that reinvented itself through historical tourism, but which now faces a reckoning of who and what has been left out of that historical record. The director, Suzannah Herbert will join the conversation via Zoom. 

Democracy Noir follows three women (an elected official, an LGBTQ2+ journalist and a nurse) in Hungary as they deal with the "illiberal" democracy currently ruling that country.  The director Connie Field will join the event via Zoom.

The Little Things That Run the World brings the audience into the miniature world of insects and explains the critical and vital role that they play in sustaining a healthy environment.  April brings Earth Day and Arbor Day observances; Little Things provides the opportunity to bring the community together and join a panel of local experts and organizations working to support the beauty and productivity of our environment sharing ideas on how to support pollinators from the farm to the Village parks to residential landscaping.

The PJDS Spring slate closes with Mistress Dispeller.  Love and betrayal are universal themes yet there are fascinating cultural differences influencing the ways in which people react.  Mistress Dispeller follows a middle-aged couple in China as they deal with these age-old challenges in this eye-opening and gorgeously photographed film.  As Tolstoy famously wrote in Anna Karenina, “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”