NORTH AMERICAN Shortly after World War II, over 1,000 paintings were found in a cellar in southern France. The paintings were created by a young Jewish woman named Charlotte Salomon. She painted her turbulent life story in a unique creation called: ‘Life? Or Theater? – A tri color Operetta.’ This is playing as part of […]
NYC PREMIERE A fascinating exploration of history as reflected through a nation’s popular culture, John Pirozzi’s film excavates Cambodia’s lost era of American-inflected music. Just as traditional Cambodian songs took on a French colonial influence in the 1950s and ‘60s, the presence of US Armed Forces Radio during the Vietnam War inspired a fusion of funk, […]
NYC PREMIERE Recognizing the persistence of income inequality in South America, a group of activist economists join together to offer an alternative path to eliminating poverty: encouraging the poor to open savings accounts and thereby become active agents within the existing economic system. Fundación Capital partners with impoverished women to put their plan for financial […]
NYC PREMIERE Moved by the plight of desperate women in countries with restrictive reproductive rights, Dutch physician Rebecca Gomperts founded Women on Waves, which uses laws governing international waters to bring much-needed abortion and contraceptive services to those with no other recourse. Despite a quagmire of legal, religious, political and logistical obstacles, Gomperts and her […]
Santa Cruz del Islote is less than three acres large and is one of the world’s most densely populated islands. This remote but family-like community resides fifty miles from Cartagena, Colombia. Such isolation has provided a peaceful existence for generations, but sufficient resources are becoming increasingly scarce. This short documentary explores the daily lives of […]
NYC PREMIERE In equal measures inspiring and endearing, Leslie Chilcott’s film spotlights a group of Costa Rican village women who, seeking a way to offset the economically motivated flight of their husbands and sons from the community, form ASOMOBI, a coffee-growing collective—despite not knowing the first thing about growing coffee. Persevering through a steep […]
How does one claim an identity in a vacuum? Living in Poland, the four young women in Adam Zucker’s engaging film learned of their Jewish roots after growing up Catholic. Defining themselves through their difference, they feel like pioneers in a country that was once the epicenter of the Jewish world. But as life takes […]
WORLD PREMIERE A Tibetan teenager travels from Minneapolis to India to compete in a most unlikely beauty pageant. Long separated from their ancient homeland, Tibet’s exile community struggles to maintain a sense of tradition in the face of modernity, emblematic in the contradictions of the Miss Tibet pageant. While its suave organizer insists that he […]
NYC PREMIERE Exploring the intersection of economic development, environmental impact and globalization, Mark Grieco’s film is an intimate and richly observed portrait of Marmato, a rural mining town threatened with destruction. At the center of a new global gold rush, the Colombian government has imperiled Marmato by selling its mines to a Canadian company. With […]
NYC PREMIERE Offering animation fans a rare look inside Japan’s Studio Ghibli, this fascinating film profiles its most famous creators, Hayao Miyazaki (Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle), and his friendly rival and business partner, Isao Takahata (Pom Poko). As both men work on their swan songs—Miyazaki’s The Wind Rises and Takahata’s The Tale of The […]