WORLD PREMIERE The sight of rogue Santas gallivanting through the streets has become an NYC winter staple. While the revelry can feel like just a drunken lark, the origins of the festivities lie in something far more absurd. Born in the Bay Area from the same minds as Burning Man, Santacon grew from zany capitalist […]
NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE In 1977, television star David Carradine cast his estranged daughter Calista in Mata Hari with the ambitious intent to film over 15 years as she grew up. Following his death in 2009, David’s film remained unfinished, but he left behind a remarkable trove of footage. With Calista and David’s relationship increasingly strained […]
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 […]
WORLD PREMIERE Detroit has often been framed in a negative light, saddled with proclamations of crime and urban decay, but that isn’t the city that filmmaker Jeremy Xido calls home. After his family moved to the city during his youth, an African American family “adopted” Xido and his parents as part of their clan. In […]
WORLD PREMIERE In today’s America, children are taught how to prepare for school shootings through elaborate drills. As children continue to be gunned down in the country, this smart and heartbreaking film takes an acerbic and caustic tone, perhaps aptly fitting the mood of civilians disgusted with politicians who do nothing to change the country’s […]
WORLD PREMIERE A moving story of a son reconnecting with his Indigenous mother, who left him as a child to return to her tribe in the Amazon. As an adult, he seeks to rebuild their bond across distance, culture, language, and time. The story revolves around several hurdles they encounter, many of which are bureaucratic, […]
WORLD PREMIERE Delving into the past and not shying away from the dug-up pain, a young filmmaker speaks to her Mexican mother and Palestinian father about their trying journeys into the United States. In a society with rhetoric increasingly vilifying Mexicans and Palestinians, the filmmaker picks up her camera in a bid to address the […]
WORLD PREMIERE Growing up in the US, filmmaker Khoa Ha always knew her grandfather was a famous musician in her native Vietnam. What she didn’t realize was the magnitude of his popularity or the mystique that surrounded his real background. In excavating the story of the musician Y Vân, she not only discovers the man […]
NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE After living in darkness for nearly 40 years, Ian Nichols, a blind Anglican priest, becomes one of the first people in the world to receive an experimental bionic eye implant. At 76 years old, Nichols grapples with the profound change, as the groundbreaking scientific advancement offers hope alongside perplexing technical limitations. Audiences […]
NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE When we read profiles of courage in newspapers, we probably don’t read of Natalia Zubkova. A citizen journalist and mother, Zubkova is an army of one who first exposes and then fights the rampant corruption of the Russian government and its coal mafia, despite surveillance, harassment, and threats. In this investigative thriller, […]