October 24, 2023

THE CONTESTANT

NEW YORK PREMIERE In 1998, Tomoaki Hamatsu, an aspiring Japanese comedian who became known as Nasubi, participated in a reality TV program. His Sisyphean challenge: to live alone in an apartment and subsist entirely off what he could win in magazine sweepstakes until he reaches 1 million yen in prizes. As days turn to weeks […]

October 12, 2023

YOURS IN FREEDOM, BILL BAIRD

WORLD PREMIERE In an America where more and more women and trans people are losing legal bodily autonomy, the history of Bill Baird’s long fight for women’s right to abortion is as relevant as ever. Oscar-nominated filmmaker Rebecca Cammisa doesn’t just give us a portrait of Baird, but also creates a historical register of allyship […]

October 12, 2023

WHO I AM NOT

NEW YORK PREMIERE In South Africa, Sharon-Rose Khumalo and Dimakatso Sebidi, two intersex individuals, find strength and support in each other, while tackling their society’s misunderstanding and prejudices about their bodies. – Jaie Laplante “A call for empathy and understanding – in the end, difference is what you make of it.” (Screen)  The first screening […]

October 12, 2023

WE ARE FIRE! (DRAW FOR CHANGE)

INTERNATIONAL PREMIERE Maremoto (Mar) is a young illustrator in Mexico City struggling to make sense of a town where 11 women are murdered daily, and 95,000 people have gone missing, with no one held accountable. Her feminist drawings support her community in dealing with the emotional trauma left by the femicides and galvanize them to […]

October 12, 2023

THE COST OF INHERITANCE

WORLD PREMIERE The decades-long debate surrounding reparations is fraught, mired in racial tension and the semantics of restorative justice. While the national conversation remains stalled due to legislative inaction, communities across the country examine their histories and take it upon themselves to arrange their own form of reparations. This detailed investigation of restitution presents accounts of […]

October 12, 2023

THE COWBOY AND THE QUEEN

WORLD PREMIERE Monty Roberts, a California horse trainer nearing 90 and showing no signs of slowing down, recounts his life with horses, starting from his earliest days working in Hollywood westerns of the 1940s. Repelled by the accepted style of “breaking a horse’s spirit,” Roberts developed his own gentle approach to human interaction with horses in […]

October 12, 2023

SOUTH TO BLACK POWER

WORLD PREMIERE  In his provocative 2021 book, The Devil You Know: A Black Power Manifesto, New York Times opinion columnist Charles M. Blow calls for a “reverse Great Migration” of African Americans from the North back to the South to upend today’s political power structures while reclaiming the land and culture they left behind. South […]

October 12, 2023

SOMEONE LIVES HERE

INTERNATIONAL PREMIERE It’s not every day that one citizen cuts through big city bureaucracy the way carpenter Khaleel Seivwright did in the first winter of quarantine in Toronto. Moved by the plight of the growing numbers of the unhoused who could not find space in official shelters, Seivwright built small, life-saving, one-room homes and left […]

October 12, 2023

SHAKEN

WORLD PREMIERE Nigel and Dayna are a happy couple with a young family when they encounter a nightmare scenario: their baby, Emily, experiences a frightening seizure. But what comes next is truly Kafkaesque. After Emily is rushed to the hospital and stabilized, a doctor claims that her episode could only be the result of severe […]

October 12, 2023

RIGHT TO FIGHT

INTERNATIONAL PREMIERE A rousing look at the genesis of women’s boxing, with archival footage and shocking stories adding extra punch. In the 1970s, a group of pioneering pugilists sought to change the sport’s sexist bureaucracy by organizing bouts between the best female boxers of the era. The furious fists of Marian “Lady Tiger” Trimiar, Cathy “Cat” […]