THE ABSENTEES
WORLD PREMIERE A story of thousands of Rohingyas–a people persecuted at home and abroad–told through the voice of Raees, a refugee in Dubai.
Women Directors
SHORTS: EXPRESSIONS
Artists and their art. Sideshow of the Absurd (USA, 14 min., Tina DiFeliciantonio, Jane C. Wagner) profiles antique carnival attractions. Cindy Sherman: “Untitled Film Stills” (USA, 4 min., Douglas Sloan) puts the famed photographer’s early work into focus. Colors of Life (Japan, 14 min., Goro Ushijima) explores the Japanese practice of creating colors found in […]
SIDESHOW OF THE ABSURD
NYC PREMIERE Inspired by nostalgia for early 20th-century carnivals and freak shows, Sideshow of the Absurd is a cinematic exploration of a whimsical and fantastical exhibition.
WHAT HAPPENED, MISS SIMONE?
Popularly known as the “high priestess of soul,” Nina Simone was a singular talent. A classically trained pianist whose Carnegie Hall aspirations were thwarted by the prevailing prejudices of the 1950s, she instead triumphed with a singing career that blended gospel, pop and folk with classical music and songs that made her a civil rights […]
GAYBY BABY
NYC PREMIERE Gus is obsessed with wrestling, perhaps disturbingly so. Ebony is nervous about nailing her audition to a performing arts school. Matt, raised with religion, is flirting with atheism. Graham has to contend with his difficulties reading and a family move to Fiji. They’re all very different preteens, but they have one thing in […]
THE MELTING FAMILY
WORLD PREMIERE Nicole Groton’s candidly personal film chronicles the episodes that led a single nuclear unit to grow exponentially through seven divorces and remarriages, becoming a revealing portrait of modern-day families. Home videos anchor the filmmaker’s memories of a complex childhood, while family members deconstruct 20 years of romances, adulteries, births and unexpected deaths, and […]
WHY WE STAY
NYC PREMIERE A South Bronx community takes a stand against gentrification. This plays before the film TESTED.
FROM THIS DAY FORWARD
NYC PREMIERE On the eve of her own wedding, Sharon Shattuck seeks to understand the relationship between her parents in this revealing portrait of an unorthodox family. When she was in middle school, Shattuck’s father came out as transgender, taking the name Trisha, yet remained married to the filmmaker’s straight-identified mother, Marcia. With sensitivity and […]
ALWAYS TOGETHER
US PREMIERE Petr used to be an urbanite studying computer science, but when he met Simona, they set out for the Czech countryside to pursue dreams of a self-sufficient family outside mainstream society. After 25 years, settled in a caravan on a meadow with no running water or modern conveniences, their nine children struggle with […]
NO MÁS BÉBES
NYC PREMIERE When Latina immigrants checked into Los Angeles County hospital to give birth in the 1960s and ’70s, the last thing they expected was to leave sterilized. Was there informed consent, as the physicians who performed the procedures maintain, or was this part of an insidious, racially motivated plan to limit the population of […]