WORLD PREMIERE Filmmaker Nadia Louis-Desmarchais tries to untangle the complex knot of race and identity that lies at the center of her life. As the daughter of a Haitian mother, adopted by a white family in Quebec, she uses her camera to illustrate an identity that is as intricate and beautiful as she is. Within […]
US PREMIERE An enigmatic portrait of an unconventional life lived with precision and vulnerability. Paul, who calls himself a “simp,” navigates mental health struggles through domestic service for dominant mistresses, finding purpose in cleaning as ritual and discipline. Online, his “Cleaning to Save My Life” philosophy transforms into a performance of self and a lifeline […]
NYC PREMIERE Collaging together home videos and phone conversations with her late father, filmmaker Karla Murthy creates a portrait of an immigrant who left everything familiar in pursuit of the American Dream. It is also a singular story of a specific kind of love, distinctive in its special joys and grief. A personal memorial but […]
NYC PREMIERE A dystopic aftermath of China’s one-child policy is a lopsided gender ratio. In a society with more men than women, a male loneliness epidemic looms as men struggle to find wives in a cutthroat dating market. As women find love in AI boyfriends, men—often of lower social class—hire dating coaches who, through their […]
WORLD PREMIERE Bodybuilder. Athlete. Gladiator. Shelley Beattie was a proud deaf woman and a graceful powerhouse whose impressive physique often obscured her human struggles. Reaching the height of her fame on American Gladiators as Siren, Beattie’s professional success masked her mental health battles from her family, friends, and partners. Director Irene Taylor joins forces with […]
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 Bertolt Brecht asked whether there would be singing in the dark times. In the throes of war, the United Ukrainian Ballet Company defiantly insists there will be dancing, too. Far from the land they call home, young dancers take quiet comfort from art. For a while, their work feels like the old days, […]
US PREMIERE In the harsh climate of the Chilean Tierra Del Fuego, Toto has labored for 40 years in the gold mines. The work is arduous, and after suffering a stroke at age 60, he fears his working days are numbered. With his father’s health and financial future at risk, his cowboy son, Jorge, devises […]
WORLD PREMIERE In the 1970s, Satish Bhaskar became a turtle walker: He walked nearly the entire coastline of India and the spectacular Andaman and Nicobar Islands in search of sea turtles. Carrying a camera and a notepad, he documented turtles’ nesting areas and tried to save them from extinction. Then the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami […]
WORLD PREMIERE A community of mothers in a Nigerian village struggle to persevere while grieving for their daughters, who were kidnapped by Boko Haram. Intertwining the stories of multiple families, the filmmakers show how life continues in the wake of unspeakable horror. At once cinematically gripping and emotionally stirring, this story of endurance shows the […]