Winner of the 2025 Sundance World Cinema Documentary Grand Jury Prize, Cutting Through Rocks is a stirring portrait of courage and conviction. In a remote Iranian village, Sara Shahverdi becomes the first elected councilwoman—with bold dreams of teaching teenage girls to ride motorcycles and halting child marriages. But when accusations question her motives, Sara finds […]
In 2024, ACLU lawyer Chase Strangio becomes the first transgender man to argue a case before the Supreme Court. Engaging with complexity, filmmaker Sam Feder does not shy away from criticizing traditional liberal-center publications like The New York Times and The Atlantic, whose continuously interrogative coverage of trans experiences has helped embolden 23 right-leaning state […]
In a remote Russian mining town, a primary school teacher covertly documents the state’s transformation of classrooms into recruitment grounds for war. Tasked with filming “patriotic education” sessions, he turns the lens on the indoctrination of youth, capturing moments of coerced loyalty and silent dissent. This intimate documentary offers a rare, unfiltered glimpse into the […]
At just three years old, Mariska Hargitay survived a car accident that claimed the life of her mother, Hollywood icon Jayne Mansfield. Intimately and poignantly, Hargitay sets out to consider the woman behind the legend. Through emotional interviews and never-before-seen home movies and photos, My Mom Jayne reveals a side of Mansfield rarely glimpsed by […]
One of the most radical and visionary authors of the 20th Century, George Orwell’s 1940s novels, such as 1984 and Animal Farm, foretold a chilling, all-too-believable authoritarian future. Acclaimed director Raoul Peck (I Am Not Your Negro), working with the Orwell Estate, seamlessly interweaves historical clips, Orwell’s diary entries, cinematic references, and dynamic modern footage to […]
Nearly 20 years after going off the air in scandal, NBC Dateline’s To Catch a Predator lured child predators to a TV set, before exposing and arresting them, as millions watched from their sofas. Masquerading as public service, the show became a hit—but today it is reviled as ugly exploitation for cynical spectacle, despite a […]
A powerful act of witness and remembrance, this urgent, deeply personal documentary unfolds through video calls between filmmaker Sepideh Farsi and 25-year-old Palestinian photojournalist and poet Fatma Hassona. Their connection bridges both geography and grief, offering a rare, unfiltered window into daily life inside Gaza. Hassona’s grace, resilience, and luminous spirit ground the film in […]
Directed by Geeta Gandbhir, The Perfect Neighbor is a haunting exploration of a neighborhood tragedy in Ocala, Florida. Through unfiltered police bodycam footage, the film chronicles the escalating tensions between Ajike Owens, a Black mother of four, and her white neighbor, Susan Lorincz, culminating in a fatal shooting. The documentary delves into the complexities of […]
In rural North Macedonia, when a farmer’s family departs for opportunity abroad and government policies render his land unsellable, he takes work in a landfill. There he rescues an injured white stork, forming an unlikely bond. Interwoven with a local folktale of transformation and loss, the lyrical film becomes a meditation on migration, aging, nature, […]
Disillusioned with politics, charismatic and engaging Noam Shuster Eliassi pivots to the world of stand-up comedy to communicate her “radical” message that Palestinians and Israelis deserve human rights equally. Amber Fares’ fascinating film, alternating between hilarity and bone-shaking gravity, intersperses clips from Noam’s funny stage performances with observational scenes of interactions with her parents and […]