NYC PREMIERE Amy Goodman “believes that journalism put to its highest use can be the greatest force for good that the world has ever seen,” says her former colleague Dave Isay in Steal This Story, Please! It’s the reason that Goodman and her signature show Democracy Now! (celebrating its 30th year in 2026) are revered […]
US PREMIERE A complex power structure of casteism, oppression, and corruption governs the lives of Dalit poppy farmers. Vardibhai, older and traumatized by casteist abuse, believes the way out is through hard work and resilience. Her son Mangilal chooses the political route to organize and agitate toward a resistance. The Hot Docs Best International Feature […]
NYC PREMIERE The dynamic co-founders of Black Voters Matter, Cliff Albright, April England Albright, and LaTosha Brown, travel across the country in their beloved “Blackest bus in America” to mobilize Black communities ahead of the 2020 election. Undeterred by COVID-19 and voter suppression tactics, they empower grassroots activists with passion, courage, and heart. Punctuated by […]
NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE Jo, a trans man, meets Allie, a trans woman—and sparks fly. As the relationship of these two New Yorkers evolves through busy careers, raising children, and their ongoing gender transitions, the couple makes plans to get married—“the most traditional progressive wedding” ever, proclaims their presiding minister. Having come so far as individuals, […]
NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE In the aftermath of Mosul’s destruction by ISIS, Bashar Salih and his family sift through the ruins of their ancestral home, salvaging fragments of life, culture, and memory. As they dig through debris, confront looters, and debate selling architectural relics to a passionate collector, the film meditates on the tension between rebuilding […]
NYC PREMIERE Tadashi Nakamura’s film about his father, pioneering filmmaker Robert A. Nakamura, is both historically resonant and rooted in personal experience. In charting his father’s legacy as a filmmaker and activist, the younger Nakamura confronts his struggles with identity. More than a biopic of a great man, this is a story of a resilient […]
WORLD PREMIERE Delving into the past and not shying away from the dug-up pain, a young filmmaker speaks to her Mexican mother and Palestinian father about their trying journeys into the United States. In a society with rhetoric increasingly vilifying Mexicans and Palestinians, the filmmaker picks up her camera in a bid to address the […]
NYC PREMIERE Nigerian-born British image-maker Misan Harriman has garnered accolades for his powerful photographs of grassroots protests against climate change inaction, Gaza atrocities, George Floyd’s murder, and more. Yet even as his images provoke palpable reactions, as a self-described person of privilege, Harriman shares his doubts about his work’s effectiveness in discussion with such human rights […]
WORLD PREMIERE Zere Asylbek was 19 when she released a music video demanding respect for women in the largely conservative Kyrgyzstan. It was intentionally provocative, and Asylbek achieved what she set out to do: jolting the society into paying attention to the evils of the country’s deeply patriarchal and misogynist culture. Six years on, the […]
WORLD PREMIERE Amid Gaza’s devastation, an intimate portrait follows a man and his cat, offering a quiet, human glimpse into survival, companionship, and the personal cost of collective violence. – Murtada Elfadl The first screening will be followed by a Q&A with editor Jeremiah Bailey-Hoover. All in-person screening venues provide sound amplification headphones upon request […]