WORLD PREMIERE | Blues and folk singer Karen Dalton was a prominent figure in 1960s New York. Idolized by Bob Dylan and Nick Cave, Karen discarded the traditional trappings of success and led an unconventional life until her early death. Since most images of Karen have been lost or destroyed, the film uses Karen’s dulcet melodies […]
WORLD PREMIERE | Ruth Finley, a pocket-sized woman of immense determination, has been the queen of the fashion industry since the 1930s. As a young mother, Ruth created the iconic pink Fashion Calendar, a publication that continues to organize and marshal American fashion today. Featuring Bill Cunningham, Carolina Herrera, Nicole Miller, Diane von Furstenberg, and more, […]
INTERNATIONAL PREMIERE | Whistleblower. Iconoclast. Pariah. In the 1970s, former NYPD Detective Bob Leuci was instrumental in taking down New York City’s most corrupt police unit after turning informant on his own squad. After decades of speculation—both laudatory and condemning—concerning his motivations to come forward, Leuci tells his side of the story. This film has English language […]
WORLD PREMIERE | Filmmaker Nancy Buirski (The Loving Story) tells the story of a lasting bond formed between an unjustly arrested Black man, Gary Duncan, and Richard Sobol, his young Jewish attorney. In 1966, 19-year-old Duncan faces the white supremacist court system in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, for daring to touch a white boy’s arm. Standing united, […]
In the midst of the most devastating attack in American history on US soil, President George W. Bush finds himself in a South Florida classroom with a group of elementary school children. Nearly 20 years later, filmmaker Elizabeth St. Phillip follows these now-grown students and their journey into young adulthood. With their formative years framed […]
Through his pioneering band, Mothers of Invention, as well as his solo work, Frank Zappa embraced a variety of genres, from rock and jazz to experimental and classical music, ultimately producing more than 60 albums in a career spanning four decades. An outspoken critic of the status quo and staunch defender of free expression, he […]
WORLD PREMIERE | What can history tell us about the present? Filmmakers Petra Epperlein and Michael Tucker (Karl Marx City) search for answers, taking inspiration from Sebastian Haffner’s 1978 German best-selling book The Meaning of Hitler. Shot in nine countries, the film explores what Hitler means in the current waves of white supremacy, antisemitism, and the weaponization […]
INTERNATIONAL PREMIERE | A chronicle of the life of saxophonist Ronnie Scott, from poor, Jewish kid growing up in 1940s East End, London to the owner of the legendary night club, Ronnie’s. Glorious clips from performances by jazz greats spanning decades—Dizzy Gillespie, Sarah Vaughn, Ella Fitzgerald, Jimi Hendrix, Nina Simone, Van Morrison, Chet Baker, and […]
NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE | When a young London-born Nigerian music fan makes the shocking discovery that many Nigerian musical icons don’t possess copies of their own recordings, he returns to Lagos to re-record them. This film chronicles the music—from juju to Afrobeat and everything in between—and its parallels to Nigeria’s socio-political evolution from the colonial 1950s […]
Runner Up: Audience Award DOC NYC 2020 WORLD PREMIERE | Beginning in 1980s New York City, this film chronicles the love story between dancers Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane, the diverse dance company they founded, and the painful devastation of AIDS on the arts community, as told through the company’s signature performance piece D-Man in […]