NYC PREMIERE What does a woman do when political institutions police every aspect of her life, from the way she dresses to what she does for a living? Filmmaker Farahnaz Sharifi takes her 8mm camera and records an alternate life, one lived behind closed doors where her family and friends choose for themselves. This powerful […]
US PREMIERE Choreographer and dancer Hadar Ahuvia interrogates the Zionist mythologies she learned as a child using Israeli folk dance-inspired contemporary dance as a point of entry. Seeking to understand the meaning behind traditional dance, which can be weaponized to oppress and marginalize, Hadar explores the complexities of the Palestinian and Israeli relationship with the […]
NEW YORK PREMIERE Khaiber Akbarzada is on the verge of becoming Afghanistan’s champion of buzkashi, the popular national sport where men on horseback compete for control of a goat carcass. The looming exit of U.S. forces from the country puts the buzkashi superstar at risk as his prominent status makes him a target for the […]
U.S. PREMIERE Filmmaker Chloé Aïcha Boro returns to her homeland, Burkina Faso, after the death of her uncle, killed while on a pilgrimage to Mecca. Boro documents the aftermath in her family’s compound as a rift about the estate develops between family members who embrace traditional Islamic law and those who would follow Burkina Faso’s […]
WORLD PREMIERE In 2015, three young Muslims were murdered in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. 36 SECONDS documents the heartbreaking aftermath in that community, and reflects on what it means to be Muslim in the American South, where the country’s gun laws and Islamophobia intersect. Through the devastation and heartbreak of the film emerges a portrait […]
NYC PREMIERE In 2005 at Guantanamo Bay, US Air Force JAG Attorney Yvonne Bradley volunteered to defend Binyam Mohamed who was facing a death penalty. She soon finds her world flipped upside down, as she uncovers the harrowing truth about the US legal system and questions whether some detainees are truly terrorists. Bradley’s captivating story […]
WORLD PREMIERE After the death of her mother 18-year-old Sahar is left in charge of her poor, mentally disabled father in an isolated village in Iran. Sahar dreams of attending university and becoming a doctor, but extended family insist she play the role of caretaker unless her father remarries. This warm and intimate observational portrait […]
US PREMIERE Iranian hip hop artists collect sounds from different neighborhoods to create rhythm, music, and lyrics, all while hiding from the authorities that want to shut them down. – DeWitt Davis This screening will be followed by a Q&A with Director Knutte Wester. This screening is being played as part of the SHORTS PROGRAM: […]
What does care look like and how can we take care? The caretakers answer this question. (Total Running Time: 94 MIN) Post Mortem Berlin | Director: Anton von Heiseler Experience the final moments of care administered to a human body before cremation. -Samah Ali (GERMANY, 27 MIN) Rat Tail | Director: Chad Sogas Director Chad […]
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 […]