NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE Seventeen octogenarian Franciscan nuns take care of each other in this beautifully observed and often humorous portrait. In their convent in Spain, the nuns fulfill their religious duties and go about their quotidian tasks as the world outside continues to change. Revitalized by current Vatican policies and feeling the economic pressures of […]
This program presents two films appearing in our Short List: Shorts section recognizing some of the top documentary shorts films of the year. END GAME DIRS: Rob Epstein, Jeffrey Friedman A moving film about the passage from life to death, End Game is a portrait of the last days of those in palliative care in […]
NYC PREMIERE Marina has barely spoken to her sister, Tatiana, in 20 years, ever since Tatiana left Jerusalem to follow spiritual leader Gerondas to a monastery in Greece and became a nun. Wishing to understand her sister’s choice to surrender her freedom to a religious order, and compelled to reconnect, Marina seeks out Tatiana and […]
NYC PREMIERE In this winner of Best Film and Audience Award at Visions du Réel, filmmaker Jawad Rhalib documents diverse creative voices in the Muslim world—including his mother, a Moroccan dancer—who seek to free themselves from bonds of stereotypes and repression. The film forgoes conventional artist-profile tropes in favor of a weave of rehearsals, conversations, […]
Life, animated. Santa Is a Psychedelic Mushroom (USA, 6 min., Matthew Salton) embraces the shamanistic side of Christmas. Music & Clowns (UK, 7 min., Alex Widdowson) are Jamie’s greatest passions. Hiroshima survivor Akiko Takakura receives the spirits of her parents and is haunted by memories during Obon (Germany, 15 min., Andre Hoermann, Anna Samo). A […]
History is made, for better or worse. The Happiness Machine (USA, 24 min., Rebecca B. Blumhagen) profiles philosopher, inventor and farmer, Carl, who grew up a sharecropper on 22 acres in rural Iowa which he now hopes to pass on to his children as a gift of place. Using entirely archival footage, In the Absence […]
Students in The Documentary Project at Columbia Journalism School learn to write, film and narrate the stories of our time, from deadline reporting to profile writing and documentary features. Successful candidates have leveraged their work to include magazine features, NPR radio stories and newspaper articles. Columbia’s showcase includes: Born to Stay (USA, 24 min., Daniela […]
NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE After 9/11, Pakistan, an American ally in the global war on terror, is plagued by both homegrown and international terrorism. The small yet heroic Pakistani Bomb Disposal Unit is on the frontline of defense, defusing bombs, navigating land mines and grappling with suicide bombers, all while dealing with financial hardship and familial […]
NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE With his signature coif, extremist views against Islam and positioning as a populist candidate, politician Geert Wilders has been called the Dutch Donald Trump. With unprecedented access to the controversial figure, who has lived under armed guard for the past dozen years due to death threats against him, EuroTrump charts Wilders’ rise […]