October 8, 2015

SHORTS: A FEW OF MY FAVORITE THINGS

Stories for the whole family. Cone Phones (USA, 6 min., Heidi Gelover) snap, crackle and pop in a city playground. Avery’s twin brother, Xander, is her Little Hero (USA, 10 min., Marcus McDougald, Jennifer Medvin). An Emirati boy dreams of being the first claymation artist from his homeland in Made of Clay (UAE, 10 min., […]

October 8, 2015

TEEN PRESS

NYC PREMIERE Teen Press takes audiences inside Santa Barbara Middle School for a semester to witness the selection, training and inner-workings of a teenage press corps.

October 8, 2015

CITY OF GOLD

NYC PREMIERE City of Gold profiles Pulitzer Prize- winning restaurant critic Jonathan Gold and his relationship to Los Angeles. In writing about food, Gold also covers the city’s thriving immigrant culture. He devotes the same passion to small family-run ethnic restaurants that other critics give to haute cuisine. The film includes appearances by New York […]

October 8, 2015

CLAUDE LANZMANN: SPECTRES OF THE SHOAH

NYC PREMIERE In 1973, French journalist Claude Lanzmann set out to make a documentary about the Holocaust. After twelve long years, he finally released the nearly ten-hour-long Shoah to critical acclaim. For the first time, the 89-year-old auteur reflects on the challenges he faced to realize his vision. Adam Benzine combines fascinating unused footage from […]

November 10, 2014

THE CULT OF JT LEROY

WORLD PREMIERE JT LeRoy burst onto the literary scene in the late 1990s, attracting a devoted following through stark tales of poverty, abuse and underage prostitution in books like Sarah and The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things. His was a rags-to-riches story, with his own tortured life inspiring his writing—or so he claimed. Drawn into LeRoy’s inner […]

October 7, 2014

EMBEDDED

NYC PREMIERE Sebastiano’s passion is documenting war. But at what cost? His award-winning photographs from Syria and Afghanistan are widely published. His girlfriend, Gessica, who is proud of him, fears for his life constantly and struggles to understand Sebastiano’s drive to work in combat zones. This short documentary is a mixture of compelling verite and […]

October 7, 2014

THE SILLY BASTARD NEXT TO THE BED

NYC PREMIERE President Kennedy handles a scandal over some pricey bedroom furniture in the last summer of his presidency. This is part of the SHORTS PROGRAM: LOST + FOUND

October 7, 2014

MERCHANTS OF DOUBT

In his breakthrough documentary Food Inc., director Robert Kenner investigated how corporations affect what we eat. Now he reveals how corporations affect what we think, exploring the shadow world of experts who stake claims contrary to scientific consensus. Their past efforts have spread confusion and delayed action over cigarettes and toxic chemicals. Now their main […]

October 7, 2014

LIFE ITSELF

Acclaimed filmmaker Steve James pays tribute to the late Roger Ebert and to the love of movies. Using Ebert’s memoir as a launching point, James adroitly traces the Pulitzer Prize- winning critic’s career, demonstrating how Ebert, with TV sparring partner Gene Siskel, popularized film criticism for the masses. Folded into the film is the story […]

October 7, 2014

E-TEAM

Katy Chevigny and Ross Kauffman’s breathtaking film chronicles the dangerous but life- affirming work performed by the Human Rights Watch Emergency Team, or E-Team, a compelling group of intrepid investigators willing to enter hostile territories to document crimes against humanity that might otherwise go unreported. Allowing outside filmmakers to follow them for the first time, […]