WORLD PREMIERE Purchasing a house together in 1950s NYC, three female artists defied societal norms and prioritized their art over traditional roles as wives and mothers. Through interviews with the women, now in their 90s, as well as their grown children, the film explores the emotional complexities of being an artist and a parent. A […]
US PREMIERE With words like “acorn” and “otter” vanishing from a dictionary, Lost for Words begins a lyrical meditation on language, care, and the more-than-human world. Through poetry and acts of conservation like rewilding and path-building, the film asks how naming fosters knowing, caring, and change. With painterly cinematography and evocative soundscapes, this essayistic work […]
WORLD PREMIERE Physicist David Keith, a leading and controversial figure in solar geoengineering, seeks to test his planetary-cooling technology after decades of research and theorization. His journey unfolds amid fierce debates over the ethical, political, and environmental implications of reflecting sunlight to slow global warming. Activists warn that the technology could delay fossil fuel reductions […]
NYC PREMIERE When her father, a farmer and activist, disappeared in 1992, filmmaker Ángela Carabalí was just 7 years old. Decades later, a dream in which he asks Ángela to find him sparks a journey of remembrance and reckoning. Blending family testimony, archival images, and Indigenous rituals, Carabalí confronts the silence of Colombia’s armed conflict. […]
NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE Pedro, a claims adjuster navigating Mexico’s corrupt insurance industry, spends his days probing tragedies while resisting pressure to manipulate the truth. Seeking escape, he turns to contemporary art and theater, befriending artist Miguel Calderón, only to confront a parallel world of vanity and deceit. Blurring observation, reenactment, and performance, the film intertwines […]
WORLD PREMIERE On the margins of Latin America’s largest city, Guarani Mbya elder Maria reclaims a devastated landscape and turns it into a flourishing garden. Through reforestation, medicinal rituals, and fierce advocacy for land rights, she becomes both a guardian of the Atlantic Forest and a vessel of her community’s wisdom. With lyrical intimacy, the […]
US PREMIERE A poignant and powerful story following Afghanistan’s female ambassador to Austria as she faces a life-altering decision in the wake of the Taliban’s return to power. Refusing to represent an oppressive regime, she bravely confronts the very forces that tore her country apart. Through her defiance, Manizha Bakhtari becomes a voice for Afghanistan’s […]
WORLD PREMIERE Zere Asylbek was 19 when she released a music video demanding respect for women in the largely conservative Kyrgyzstan. It was intentionally provocative, and Asylbek achieved what she set out to do: jolting the society into paying attention to the evils of the country’s deeply patriarchal and misogynist culture. Six years on, the […]
NYC PREMIERE Gorgeously rendered through picturesque cinematography, Always offers a meditative portrait of an adolescent wannabe poet in rural China. Director-cinematographer Deming Chen follows the protagonist from ages 9 to 13, capturing family life, both its hardship and resilience, without sentimentality. Poetry lives in both intertitles and luminous images of land, labor, and people. Expansive […]
WORLD PREMIERE DOC NYC alumnus Chuck Smith revels in 1960s sounds and the spirit of counterculture with this politically pointed look back at the volatile energy of protest and creation behind the avant-garde NYC band The Fugs (say it out loud!). Even as band members Ed Sanders, Ken Weaver, and Tuli Kupferberg found that fighting […]