NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE Three children from the impoverished Venezuelan district of Las Brisas channel their pain and joy into music as part of a unique, government-sponsored orchestral music program, El Sistema. For ten years, as her native Venezuela gradually collapsed in the background, director Marianela Maldonado followed the students, developing an intimacy that gives their […]
US PREMIERE Leonie is a rising teen influencer living on the outskirts of Berlin. As her fame grows, her parents see the economic opportunity of social media and become her managers. The pressure to create content and appease brands soon blurs the lines of their relationship, however, as it begins to dominate all of Leonie’s […]
US PREMIERE As a suicidal 16-year-old Marusya Syroechkovskaya falls in love with a humorous grunge kid named Kimi. Fueled by drugs and music, the inseparable couple films the euphoria, anxiety and misery of their precarious existence under the shadow of their oppressive government. Captured over 12 years, this raw, exuberant, and moving love story, provides […]
WORLD PREMIERE Jeanette Lee, aka Black Widow, dominated pool halls and competitions in the ‘90s and early 2000s. The Asian American icon brought style, power and skill to the billiards scene. With her recent cancer diagnosis, Lee recounts growing up in NYC, her storied career and the hidden challenges she faced. Filmmaker Ursula Liang (9-Man […]
NYC PREMIERE The challenges of getting accepted to top colleges for today’s American high schoolers are captured by two Sacramento teachers in a new original musical theater production that speaks to the present moment like nothing else. As schools from Silicon Valley to West Virginia to The Bronx’s Fordham High School for the Arts mount […]
INTERNATIONAL PREMIERE An extraordinary and necessary essay film constructed entirely out of a vast archive of news footage from the ‘80s and ‘90s, OUR MOVIE (NUESTRA PELICULA) is a response to the violent history that imprinted itself on the director in her formative years in Colombia. Images of blood spatters, bullet holes, coffins, and Colombians […]
WORLD PREMIERE Using his camera as a “weapon against injustice,” Chinese-American photographer Corky Lee brought art and politics together through his decades-long documentation of the Asian American experience. The Queens, NY native captured all aspects of the AAPI experience, from Lunar New Year to street protests, from Pakistani Independence Day to Diwali and more, uplifting […]
WORLD PREMIERE Renowned experimental artist, Robert Irwin, explores human perception in a world that has expanded the presence of technology. Irwin’s unorthodox style led to a long career and life, including periods as a gambler and a cherished teacher. Through his art, Irwin questions consumerism, technology, and human nature. The film spans Irwin’s early work […]
NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE A group of young Ukrainian actors, each with psychological scars of the war in Donbas, are cast in an experimental theatrical production of Hamlet. As they confront Hamlet’s famous “To be, or not to be” soliloquy, the actors process their own dilemmas, mere months prior to Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion of their country. […]
NYC PREMIERE A young Brooklyn girl has suffered mysterious symptoms for years when her determined father stumbles upon a vicious medical debate: the existence of chronic Lyme disease. In 1975, the CDC and health insurance companies set guidelines still used today to deny the diagnosis and treatment for its debilitating symptoms. The film investigates the […]