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 […]
The states of the nation. Lonesome Willcox (USA, 12 min., Ryan Maxey, Zack Wright), Arizona has a single radio station, run by a live-in employee seen as an outcast by many of its townspeople. Sole Doctor (USA, 5 min., Paula Bernstein) profiles George’s Shoe Repair, a father-son shop that has served Portland, OR for over […]
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 […]
WORLD PREMIERE In the early 1900s, an African-American man named Reverend M.J. Divine began a religious movement that would reach over a million followers at its peak, crossing racial divisions and advocating for gender and economic equality. Despite his influence and achievements, Father Divine is little remembered today, dismissed by detractors as a con man […]
NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE Filmmaker Mohammed Naqvi is about to vote in Pakistan for the first time. When Mo was 19, General Pervez Musharraf staged a coup d’etat that saw him in power until his exile in 2008. With the country growing increasingly unstable and sectarian, Mo faces a difficult choice: should he back a religious hardliner […]