2013 AUDIENCE AWARD WINNER WORLD PREMIERE Director Michael Kleiman follows Peruvian families living in remote regions as their children experience the One Laptop per Child program, gaining access to the Internet for the first time. Web considers both the benefits and complications that arise from digital connections. Alongside the poignant and sometimes humorous local stories, […]
The never-broadcast prologue to Oliver Stone’s epic, ten-hour Showtime series The Untold History of the United States (“I cannot recommend it highly enough,” enthused The Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald) deepens the provocative filmmaker’s exploration of how the United States became an empire. Focusing on events in the lead-up to World War II, this two-hour segment applies […]
NYC PREMIERE This funny and sometimes bizarre exploration of the Icelandic Phallological Museum shows a very different side to penis envy. Siggi, the museum’s curator, has spent decades collecting every mammal’s member save one— the human’s. Enter Páll, a now-ancient legendary Icelandic adventurer and lothario, willing to donate his upon death; and Tom, an oddball […]
WORLD PREMIERE Director Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) applies his playful imagination to animating a series of conversations with the esteemed linguist, philosopher, political commentator and activist Noam Chomsky. At the heart of these talks is Chomsky’s theory of the emergence of language. In this intellectual feast, Gondry uses drawings to make […]
NYC PREMIERE Partners Emily Pilloton and Matt Miller seek to affect change through design. When they bring their innovative curriculum to struggling Bertie County, NC, they not only teach practical problem-solving and construction skills to their high school students, but offer hope for business rebirth in the form of a final project that will benefit […]
NYC PREMIERE At the International High School at Lafayette, a Brooklyn public high school dedicated to newly arrived immigrants from all over the world, five teenagers strive to master English, adapt to families they haven’t seen in years, and create a future of their own while coming of age in a new land. Their journey […]
US PREMIERE In a culture that has overwhelmingly embraced the dictum “sex sells,” why does the concept of virginity still hold sway? Using her own experiences, filmmaker Therese Shechter humorously explores the chimerical nature of the idea, and how it’s been used to control women’s sexuality and sense of self-worth. The result, drawing from the […]
NYC PREMIERE Bypassing the breastmilk vs. formula debate, Dana Ben-Ari’s film instead looks at the practical, societal, and biological realities faced by women who choose to breastfeed. Why are so few nursing mothers able to breastfeed exclusively? What has made a natural biological act into a taboo public activity? Where can an adoptive mother turn […]
2011 AUDIENCE AWARD WINNER Ballet students, ages 9-19, travel to New York City from all over the world to compete for awards and scholarships in the Youth America Grand Prix. New York-based director Bess Kargman follows six students from diverse backgrounds in the US, Italy, Colombia, and Sierra Leone as they strive to achieve their dreams. Even if […]