US PREMIERE Yasmin is a refugee who escaped the civil war in Somalia when she was a baby. She now lives in Germany with her two children and her dad, Ibrahim, who was a famous soccer player back in Mogadishu. The rest of the family is dispersed around the globe, in Canada, Ethiopia and Italy. […]
Sil (10) and Merlijn (11) are about to go on a big adventure: they will visit a refugee camp at Lesbos and stay there for a week. Through their mothers, who both work there, they have heard stories about the children that live there. Now they want to see for themselves. What is it like […]
WORLD PREMIERE Three determined women in the Middle East lead the fight for gender equality and freedom in this empowering portrait of three agents of change. Politician Selay must travel through Afghanistan with armed security to protect her while educating other women about their rights. Yanar pushes for parliamentary reform in Iraq while running shelters for […]
NYC PREMIERE During the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, US military forces relied on local translators to provide the communication critical for mission success. Serving side by side with foreign soldiers, these loyal interpreters, invaluable to the Americans, are deemed traitors by Islamic extremists. After US troops withdraw, interpreters confront their fates: wait for promised […]
NYC PREMIERE Lon Landau is a promising Jewish stage designer whose life takes a turn during= World War II. He is held captive in a Belgian nazi camp, but decides to stay positive and do what he knows best: building dream worlds. LON is an ode to the power of imagination and how people maintain […]
NYC PREMIERE In this Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize-winning film, director Talal Derki (Return to Homs) returns to his native Syria and gains remarkably unfettered access to a radical jihadist and his family for two years. General Abu Osama raises his young sons to become Islamist fighters, but what if they just want to […]
23-year-old activist Nadia Murad has a horrifying personal story to tell. But her ability to relate it is a rare beacon of hope for her minority community of Yazidis. They were targeted by ISIS for systemic rapes and genocidal violence. As one of the few Yazidis who speaks to the Western press, Nadia carries their […]
WORLD PREMIERE Raf’aa flees Syria in the midst of the war, leaving behind her husband, Nazem, and their two sons in order to seek asylum in Europe. The family plans to follow her to Germany, but by the time Nazem and the boys make it to Greece, they find the borders closed. Confined to the […]
This program presents two films appearing in our Short List: Shorts section recognizing some of the top documentary shorts films of the year. THE GIRL AND THE PICTURE DIR: Vanessa Roth 80 years ago, Xia Shuqin witnessed the murder of her family during the Nanjing Massacre. The Girl and the Picture uncovers how an American […]
US veterans and active-duty service members come together through a workshop led by poet Seema Reza to combat their traumatic military pasts via the written word. Sharing fears, vulnerabilities and victories, their writing becomes a tool for empowerment and healing culminating in the live performance of a collaborative poem under the direction of Jeffrey Wright. […]