Intertwining two nail-biting stories of dangerous escape attempts from North Korea, BEYOND UTOPIA shows us the reality of life in one of the most repressive totalitarian countries on Earth. Filmmaker Madeleine Gavin takes us on a harrowing journey, crosscutting between jaw-dropping cellphone video, and anguished cellphone audio, as she examines the high-stakes operation of an […]
When Russia escalated its war against Ukraine in 2022, Polish director Maciek Hamela bought a van and volunteered to drive Ukrainian refugees – mostly women and children – on their quest to escape. From his passenger seat we meet the vanloads of people forced to leave everything behind. Today, as the war stretches on, it’s […]
From the film’s opening monologue about a sex worker wrestling with a client over a gun, KOKOMO CITY is riveting. Filmmaker D. Smith makes a stellar debut as director, cinematographer, editor, and composer as she profiles four Black transgender sex workers in New York City and Atlanta. The women are raw and hilarious as they […]
Lawand is a deaf 5-year-old boy from Iraq whose extraordinary family goes to great lengths to move to England and enroll him at the Royal School for the Deaf Derby. There, he learns British Sign Language (BSL) and begins to blossom. But will the British government allow Lawand to stay and continue his education? Filmmaker […]
US PREMIERE Kurdish-Canadian filmmaker Zaynê Akyol interviews some members of the Islamic State in Syrian Kurdistan, as well as some of their wives, in the aftermath of the defeat of ISIS. “This absorbing and admirably even-handed documentary looks the beast in the eye to weigh the context, cost, and consequences of fundamentalism.” (POV magazine) – […]
A groundbreaking all-archival documentary film about Lady Bird Johnson, one of the most influential and least understood first ladies. Beautifully honed from 123 hours of Lady Bird’s intimate audio diary, the film brings her to life and reveals her as a shrewd political strategist who preserved natural resources for the American people through her policies […]
NYC PREMIERE A rundown halfway house in Ukraine houses the country’s most vulnerable—children cramped between precarious homes and the foster care system. Simon Lereng Wilmont documents fast-disappearing childhoods amidst ever-worsening political strife with great intimacy and access. As the film records how children suffer and survive violence and abandonment, the “orphanage” becomes a metaphor for […]
Aftershock puts a spotlight on the crisis of Black maternal deaths in the United States by focusing on the cases of two New York City mothers, Shamony Gibson and Amber Isaac, who died during childbirth-related complications in recent years. We watch how their bereaved families become activists on this issue. “Aftershock is a moving ode […]
During the 19 months before the Taliban retook Afghanistan, filmmaker Tamana Ayazi and Oscar-nominated director Marcel Mettelsiefen gained unique access to Zarifa Ghafari, the youngest female Afghan mayor. IN HER HANDS follows the 26-year-old Ghafari as she navigates multiple layers of political and personal turmoil, including a tense relationship with her father (a leader in […]
NYC PREMIERE For his 2015 Oscar-nominated film Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom, filmmaker Evgeny Afineevsky memorably captured the key moments of the Maidan Revolution in 2013-14 that ushered in pro-democracy political change. In his latest film, his subject is exponentially even more urgent, as Ukraine faces an existential threat when Russia launches its […]