“You are now entering my universe. I am the lens, the subject, the authority.” So begins the narration of filmmaker Rebeca “Beba” Huntt in this stunning debut that traces her coming of age in New York City. As the child of a Dominican father and a Venezuelan mother, Beba crosses through multiple cultures as she […]
Aftershock puts a spotlight on the crisis of Black maternal deaths in the United States by focusing on the cases of two New York City mothers, Shamony Gibson and Amber Isaac, who died during childbirth-related complications in recent years. We watch how their bereaved families become activists on this issue. “Aftershock is a moving ode […]
WORLD PREMIERE Gazi “Dusty” Simelane and Linda “Stones” are country music singers living in Swaziland. The film captures their wondrous ten-day road trip through the American south, gifting us with great music and leaving us questioning the intersectional issues of race, power, and whether any demographic can lay claim to country music, or any other […]
NYC PREMIERE Challenging the monolithic idea of immigrants and processes of immigration, Vivek Bald and Alaudin Ullah’s IN SEARCH OF BENGALI HARLEM relates the specific history of Bengali Muslim immigrants who arrived in mid-20th century Harlem, often marrying into Black American families. In this fascinating uncovering of New York (and American) history, in a post- […]
NYC PREMIERE The “muck” here refers to the rich soil in the small south Florida town of Pahokee, where folks fish, hunt rabbits, and play a whole lotta football. Co-directors Bhawin Suchak and Pahokee native Ira McKinley introduce us to the Deans, highlighting the everyday lives of this loving family and their close-knit community. This […]
NYC PREMIERE Incarcerated for ten years for dealing drugs, self-taught classical painter George Anthony Morton returns to his hometown of Kansas City to confront his damaged relationship with his mother, who has serious legal problems of her own. As George explores African influences on realism and the style of the Dutch Old Masters, filmmaker Rosa […]
WORLD PREMIERE Using his camera as a “weapon against injustice,” Chinese-American photographer Corky Lee brought art and politics together through his decades-long documentation of the Asian American experience. The Queens, NY native captured all aspects of the AAPI experience, from Lunar New Year to street protests, from Pakistani Independence Day to Diwali and more, uplifting […]
WORLD PREMIERE: Each summer in the woodlands of New Hampshire, aspiring Kris Kringles convene at Santa Camp. When three “nontraditional” recruits join the ranks of their fellow Clauses, they begin an uphill battle in the struggle for acceptance. After camp, our newly minted Santas return home with hopes of changing their own communities’ relationship with Santa Claus. – Brandon Harrison The first screening will […]
After Sherman director Jon-Sesrie Goff turns his lens towards the South Carolina’s landscape, the notion of home, a community of friends and loved ones, his father, Reverend Dr. Norvel Goff, and himself. Expertly deploying personal and historical archival footage, observational and experimental techniques, the film is a poignant polyphonic exploration about how systemic racial discrimination […]
Filmmaker Sierra Pettengill begins with footage filmed by the US military in the 1960s of dress rehearsals for show-of-force responses to the domestic unrest that was unnerving America at the time. The material’s horrifying implications quickly settle in, however, as Pentengill digs deep into other archival material to answer the question of how these large-scale […]