Unexpected environments. A Beautiful Waste (USA, 6 min., Jon Kasbe) explores NYC’s vibrant sewer system, while men reflect on their time living in the tunnels under Lost Vegas (USA, 24 min., Steve Birnbaum). White Blaze (USA, 22 min., Brian Bolster) profiles a trail angel who helps Appalachian Trail hikers. An artist becomes walking artwork to […]
Collectors, curiosity seekers, and compulsives. Flutter (USA/Canada, 8 min., Dara Bratt) explores a lonely retiree’s love of butterfly collecting, while Bug People (USA, 15 min., Paul Meyers) examines our odd aversion to insects. Tango (Brazil, 6 min., Louis Robin) questions racetrack attendees about gambling. Discarded photos lead to a search for vaudeville performers Derby & […]
NYC PREMIERE Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi’s observational film is a stunningly shot sensory immersion into the Grand Magaal, an annual Muslim pilgrimage which finds a million Sufis traveling to the holy Senagalese city of Touba to honor their ancestral leader and his code of non-violence. The three-day spectacle presents a unique and essential look at Islam—one […]
NYC PREMIERE Acclaimed at the Sundance Film Festival, John Akomfrah’s new film is an emotionally charged portrait of cultural theorist Stuart Hall. A complex and deeply insightful thinker about subjects as diverse as feminism, Marxist methodology, migration and American hippies, the 82-year-old, Jamaican-born Hall is one of the most inspiring voices of the post-war Left. […]
As construction began on Ground Zero, with new towers being raised in a symbolic rebirth from 9/11, artist and filmmaker Marcus Robinson documented the entire process. Stunning time-lapse photography, paintings, drawings and, most affectingly, interviews with the men and women working on the site capture both the physical enormity of the six-year task and the […]
NYC PREMIERE New Yorker Lucky Torres hides a lifetime of abuse and abandonment behind an angry, tattooed exterior. Growing up in foster care after their mother left them, Lucky and her sister Fantasy have struggled with stability all their lives. While her sister has settled down, Lucky still hasn’t found her way. But despite being […]
NYC PREMIERE After Nina Leichter committed suicide, her daughter, Kathy, returned to the New York City apartment in which she was raised and found a hidden box of audiotapes. Nearly two decades later, she is finally ready to listen to the messages her mother left behind, which provide frank insight into a strong and beloved […]
US PREMIERE On the streets of São Paulo, Brazil a new form of graffiti was born. Like wildfire, the works of artists like Os Gêmeos, Nunca and Nina spread through the streets of the city, and then to art galleries and museums around the world. But when a new law against visual pollution threatens to […]
US PREMIERE A mysterious nanny, who secretly took over 100,000 photographs that were hidden in storage lockers and discovered decades later, is now considered among the 20th century’s greatest photographers. Maier’s strange and riveting life and art are revealed through never before seen photographs, films, and interviews with dozens who thought they knew her. An […]
US PREMIERE The World Famous *BOB*, Dirty Martini, Tigger!, Mat Fraser, Julie Atlas Muz, Bunny Love, Bambi the Mermaid, James Habacker and Rose Wood use satire and their own bodies to send up conventional notions of body image, gender, and sexuality in their modern burlesque performances. New York underground filmmaking legend Beth B enters their […]