Lawand is a deaf 5-year-old boy from Iraq whose extraordinary family goes to great lengths to move to England and enroll him at the Royal School for the Deaf Derby. There, he learns British Sign Language (BSL) and begins to blossom. But will the British government allow Lawand to stay and continue his education? Filmmaker […]
US PREMIERE Twenty-five years ago, Vidar Gylfason of the tiny fishing village of Hellissandur (population: 369) in West Iceland created a real-life field of dreams for his town by constructing a national FA Cup regulation soccer pitch, but no team ever set foot on the field. Now, Vidar’s spirited scion Kari is determined to bring […]
NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE Can people truly change? In Hanka Nobis’s engrossing observational film, she follows a 22-year-old Polish man named Antek as he goes from membership in a far-right, anti-LGBTQ group called The Brotherhood to, four years later, joining his girlfriend for a Gay Pride march he formerly protested against. What happens to Antek in those […]
US PREMIERE In the village of Kolofata on the Nigerian border, the Cameroonian military has been dispatched to guard villagers from attacks by the religious terrorist group Boko Haram. In this milieu, filmmaker Cyrielle Raingou follows three young children as they navigate lost innocence while growing up in constant fear. Having sparked international outrage in […]
U.S. PREMIERE Filmmaker Chloé Aïcha Boro returns to her homeland, Burkina Faso, after the death of her uncle, killed while on a pilgrimage to Mecca. Boro documents the aftermath in her family’s compound as a rift about the estate develops between family members who embrace traditional Islamic law and those who would follow Burkina Faso’s […]
US PREMIERE In Mexico City, a group of teenage gangsters collectively call themselves “Ernesto.” The camera shadows them elegantly, preserving their anonymity as they go about daily life, both victims and perpetrators all at once. Immersive, engaging, and brilliantly unsettling, the narrative exposes the mechanisms and entanglements that allow these worlds of violence to thrive […]
NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE A Ghanaian mother of five survives the perilous journey to Europe in search of a better life, only to return to her village to reunite with her children, much to the disdain of family and neighbors. Steadfast in her convictions of what’s best, first-time filmmaker Fatimah Dadzie tells her own unique story […]
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 […]
US PREMIERE Filmmaker and projectionist Rob Murphy’s jubilant love letter to film projection and cinema. In the age of digital projection, cinema on film is a rarity, in SPLICE HERE, film projectionists step out of the shadows to recount their tales of Cinerama projection, explosive nitrate film shows, and lost film prints. After Quentin Tarantino […]
US PREMIERE After a shocking discovery about the fate of an old friend, director Tin Dirdamal embarks on an entrancing train through Vietnam to visit him with his young daughter. Along the way father and daughter ponder unanswered questions, with the sights they encounter on their journey resonating with the depths of their philosophical insights. […]