US PREMIERE Tobi is a 16-year- old Hungarian teen who recently came out as a transgender man to their supportive family. As they start to look beyond the gender binary, Tobi’s mother Éva struggles to comprehend new LGBTQIA+ identities. What matters most is how the family grows from their awkward missteps through caring communication. Alexa […]
NORTH AMERICAN PERMIERE Children of dead ISIS members have been left to wallow in abject neglect in refugee camps, in penance for their parents’ “sins.” Protagonist Patricio Galvez sets out to free his own grandchildren from Syria’s hellish al-Hol camp, putting up a lonely and heart-rending fight against a wall of bureaucracy and the grief […]
NYC PREMIERE Oscar-winning filmmaker Eva Orner (Taxi to the Dark Side) focuses on the “Black Summer” of 2019-2020 when bushfires ravaged her home country of Australia. But the film’s lessons apply to any country where political will is more focused on burning fossil fuels than stopping the climate crisis that makes wildfires worse. Australia is […]
NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE Journalist and activist Masih Alinejad is the voice of millions of Iranian women rebelling on social media against the forced use of the hijab. Exiled in the United States, Masih uses her freedom to lead one of the largest acts of civil disobedience in today’s Iran and amplify the protest in her […]
US PREMIERE A peek into the vibrant lives of an assortment of centenarians from across the globe—an antique seller, a practicing physician, a former comedian, a drummer, a farmer, and a sex therapist. Filmmaker Heddy Honigmann shares the stories, histories, and life philosophies of these delightful, active, sharp-minded elders. In our youth-obsessed culture, this engaging […]
WORLD PREMIERE In 2019, Nepalese mountain climber Nirmal “Nims” Purja set out to do the unthinkable by climbing the world’s fourteen highest summits in less than seven months. (The previous record was eight years). He called the effort “Project Possible 14/7” and saw it as a way to inspire others to strive for greater heights […]
This unflinching look at the human-caused famine in Yemen follows health care workers Dr. Aida Alsadeeq and Nurse Mekkia Mahdi as they work to save the lives of hunger-stricken children in two therapeutic feeding centers, against the backdrop of a forgotten war. (Courtesy of RYOT / Vulcan). This film has English language closed captioning available. […]
2020 SHORT LIST SHORTS: SPECIAL JURY RECOGNITION FOR COURAGE UNDER FIRE In the fall of 2019, a proposed bill allowing the Chinese government to extradite criminal suspects to mainland China escalates protests throughout Hong Kong. Unfolding across a year, this film captures the determination and sacrifices of the protesters, the government’s backlash, and the passage […]
In the lush pastoral hills of Eastern Bosnia, two old women share solitude. The care they have for each other is not composed of words, but rather their daily conduct. They are in a conversation with the land, welcoming the voices of nature, and the songs of a memory that is dying out. This […]
On the 50th anniversary of the first new totem pole raising on British Columbia’s Haida Gwaii in almost a century, Haida filmmaker Christopher Auchter steps through history to revisit the day that would signal the rebirth of the Haida spirit. (Courtesy of New York Times Op-Docs / POV / National Film Board of Canada) This […]