US PREMIERE Visiting a Chechen community that escaped the unrelenting wars of their homeland and settled in nearby Georgia, filmmaker Déni Oumar Pitsaev ponders pressure from his divorced parents about returning to live among his own people and raise a family. While the pull of roots is undeniable, Déni wonders whether his Muslim family and […]
WORLD PREMIERE The Sunset Marquis is the legendary go-to for rock ’n’ roll royalty to cool their heels in Los Angeles, especially in the sex, drugs, and bad behavior heyday of the 1970s and ’80s. Pure gold is mined out of recollections from Ringo Starr, Slash, Cyndi Lauper, Sharon Osbourne, Sheryl Crow, Dave Grohl, Bruce […]
US PREMIERE Following acclaimed Syrian clarinetist Kinan Azmeh as he travels from Beirut to Amsterdam to NYC, Half Moon examines the role of art in times of crisis. As Syria’s devastating displacement looms in the background, Kinan collaborates with fellow musicians and mentors, reflecting on exile, identity, and music theory. Featuring stunning performances and intimate […]
NYC PREMIERE In 1999, a World Trade Organization conference in Seattle is met with 40,000 protesters rallying against the advancement of globalization. An ideological melange of activists with a variety of agendas, including anarchists, pro-labor organizations, and environmentalists, disrupts the trade talks with the hope of bringing attention to the societal dangers of unchecked globalization. […]
NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE Beautifully composed and subtly unsettling, Unanimal interrogates the entangled, often contradictory relationship between humans and animals. Narrated with calm detachment by Isabella Rossellini, the essay film offers a critical yet poetic historical lens on the evolution of our cohabitation with nonhuman life. It creates space for viewers to question the ways we […]
US PREMIERE This year’s opening night film invites us into a world where sensitive, passionate people gather not just to participate in a public competition but to be seen, to connect, and to honor a shared craft. At the Masters of Musical Whistling festival in Hollywood, founder and force-of-nature Carole Anne Kaufman (aka the Whistling […]
NYC PREMIERE The story of a student uprising on a Montreal university campus sheds light on the often-overlooked history of anti-Black racism in Canada. Through vivid archival footage and firsthand accounts from former student protestors, now in their 80s, the film reveals the experiences of Black Canadians who, alongside West Indians who migrated north seeking […]
WORLD PREMIERE Guided by professional hunter Marc Warnke and survival expert Callie Russell, struggling tech entrepreneur Mansal Denton sets out on an eight-day remote wilderness expedition in search of elk, along with answers to some of life’s biggest questions. Shot on gorgeous 16mm, this introspective film follows our complex trio as the trials of the […]
NYC PREMIERE An unvarnished chronicle of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s yearslong fight for journalistic freedom. Pulling no punches, the film frames Assange as a martyr, imprisoned and surveilled for daring to expose the transgressions of scheming governments, oligarchs, and ideologues. Featuring CCTV footage from his arduous confinement, this sweeping collage brings together the facts of […]
NYC PREMIERE Mass media brought the unvarnished violence of the Vietnam War into homes across the globe. No singular photo was as devastatingly impactful as the harrowing image of Phan Thi Kim Phuc, known as Napalm Girl. Photographer Nick Ut received a Pulitzer Prize, but did he actually take the photo, or was it a […]