October 1, 2020

CRAZY, NOT INSANE

As a Jewish girl growing up in the 1940s, Dorothy Lewis was driven to understand what makes people into killers, leading her to become a psychiatrist specializing in serial killers. Now in her 80s, she shares her controversial insights with Oscar-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney. The film draws upon Lewis’s writings (read by Laura Dern) as […]

October 1, 2020

CAN YOU BRING IT: BILL T. JONES AND D-MAN IN THE WATERS

Runner Up: Audience Award DOC NYC 2020 WORLD PREMIERE | Beginning in 1980s New York City, this film chronicles the love story between dancers Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane, the diverse dance company they founded, and the painful devastation of AIDS on the arts community, as told through the company’s signature performance piece D-Man in […]

October 1, 2020

9TO5: THE STORY OF A MOVEMENT

The latest film from Oscar-winners Julia Reichert and Steve Bognar (American Factory , DOC NYC 2019) explores a pivotal but little remembered intersection of women’s rights and labor rights. In the early 1970s, secretaries and other female office workers were underpaid, undervalued, unable to advance, and often subject to sexual harassment. In the wake of […]

October 9, 2019

SHORT LIST SHORTS: IN THE ABSENCE + LITTLE MISS SUMO + STAY CLOSE

IN THE ABSENCE DIR: Seung-jun Yi When the passenger ferry MV Sewol sank off the coast of South Korea in 2014, over three hundred people lost their lives, most of them schoolchildren. Years later, the victims’ families and survivors are still demanding justice from national authorities. Courtesy of Field of Vision. (USA/South Korea, 29 MIN, […]

October 9, 2019

SHORT LIST SHORTS: LEARNING TO SKATEBOARD + ST LOUIS SUPERMAN

LEARNING TO SKATEBOARD IN A WARZONE (IF YOU’RE A GIRL) DIR: Carol Dysinger In the war-torn city of Kabul, a class of young girls from disadvantaged neighborhoods learns to read, write—and skateboard—in director Carol Dysinger’s love letter to a place she has filmed in for the last fifteen years. Courtesy of Lifetime Films/A&E IndieFilms. (USA/UK, […]

October 9, 2019

THE EDGE OF DEMOCRACY

2019 SHORT LIST: DIRECTING AWARD In 1985, Brazil reclaimed democracy after decades of military dictatorship. At the heart of the country’s democratic reforms was the progressive Workers’ Party, which elected Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva the nation’s president in 2002, followed by his protege, Dilma Rousseff, its first female leader, in 2010. But neither could […]

October 9, 2019

ADVOCATE

Israeli attorney Lea Tsemel has defended Palestinians in court for five decades, from nonviolent demonstrators to armed militants. To many Israeli Jews, Tsemel is a controversial figure, even a traitor, willing to defend the enemy, but she remains steadfast in her belief that her clients’ crimes are acts of resistance that must be heeded. Directors […]

October 9, 2019

BLOOMERS

Silk, cotton and lace go under the camera, as workers recount the history of the UK garment manufacturing industry.    

October 9, 2019

THE CAVE

Winner of the Toronto International Film Festival’s People’s Choice Award, The Cave takes us to a subterranean landscape that feels akin to the post-apocalyptic world of Mad Max. Warlords have made the earth’s surface uninhabitable in Syria, so medical workers led by the female Dr. Amani have created a hospital underground the city of Ghouta, […]

October 8, 2019

SHORTS: PUNK!

On bucking the system. (TOTAL RUNNING TIME: 78 MIN) Deborah Harry Does Not Like Interviews | Director: Meghan Fredrich Blondie’s Deborah Harry endures years of superficial and demeaning questions from journalists before turning the tables. (USA, 17 MIN) The Art of Making Money: This Guy Has Balls | Director: Nathan Truesdell A man attempts to use his handmade art […]