WORLD PREMIERE Blake Zeff is an investigative journalist who gets to the root of the student debt crisis. Following the stories of those most affected, Zeff ultimately zeroes in on the unexpected heart of the problem and exposes the rotten core of the country’s policymaking. Confronting powerful enablers and challenging lies, Loan Wolves is a […]
NYC PREMIERE A rundown halfway house in Ukraine houses the country’s most vulnerable—children cramped between precarious homes and the foster care system. Simon Lereng Wilmont documents fast-disappearing childhoods amidst ever-worsening political strife with great intimacy and access. As the film records how children suffer and survive violence and abandonment, the “orphanage” becomes a metaphor for […]
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 For 30 years, Chef Jimmy Lee Hill has dedicated himself to the gourmet culinary training program he leads at Lakeland Correctional Facility in Coldwater, Michigan. The pioneering program gives incarcerated men. a prestigious skill they can take back into the workforce and provides a sense of purpose as they serve their time. As […]
NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE Ithaka documents John Shipton, father of Julian Assange, in his tireless efforts to stop the British government from extraditing his son to the US to face espionage charges. While Assange’s health deteriorates in a British prison, Shipton wages a fight both political and personal as he works to build support so his […]
WORLD PREMIERE Far from the unfavorable images often espoused in pop culture, today’s teens are some of the most engaged, thoughtful, creative, courageous, and self-aware of any era. Filmmaker and middle-school educator Alexis Neophytides gifts us this survey of thirteen-year-olds from across the globe as they navigate the joys and complexities of that seminal age. […]
NYC PREMIERE Lea Najjar’s debut follows plumes of smoke from the devastating 2020 explosion in Beirut and guides us through the rooftops of the city where men play kash hamam with pigeons, luring them in, casting them away, watching them fly. In this cyclical motion, Najjar finds a resonance with the endless strife of living in […]
NYC PREMIERE Lydia Emily is a mural artist, teacher, single mother, and one of the innumerable Americans who are navigating an unforgiving healthcare system, as she lives with advancing multiple sclerosis, which threatens to put an end to her career. This inspiring film records Emily’s dedication to create amidst mounting debt and an ever-present sense […]
NYC PREMIERE Filmmaker Gabriela Cowperthwaite (Blackfish) returns with another explosive exposé. On a global scale, governments and uber-wealthy private investors move to secure control of the natural resources that will provide food and water to the world’s population for the next century and beyond, working either in the shadows or waging smokescreen wars to ruthlessly […]