HEIGHTENED SCRUTINY

HEIGHTENED SCRUTINY

Short List: Features
89 min
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In 2024, ACLU lawyer Chase Strangio becomes the first transgender man to argue a case before the Supreme Court. Engaging with complexity, filmmaker Sam Feder does not shy away from criticizing traditional liberal-center publications like The New York Times and The Atlantic, whose continuously interrogative coverage of trans experiences has helped embolden 23 right-leaning state legislatures to enact new gender-affirming care bans. Informative, infuriating, and scary, Heightened Scrutiny progresses through a period of historic Republican spending on transphobic election ads—and the tragic implications for the trans community.

All in-person screening venues provide sound amplification headphones upon request with venue management. IFC Center can also provide a T-Coil loop for compatible devices.

Director: Sam Feder
Producer: Amy Scholder, Sam Feder, Paola Mendoza
Executive Producer: Laverne Cox, S. Mona Sinha, Bill & Ruth Ann Harnisch, Lisa Freeman, Sara Hinkle
Cinematographer: Martin DiCicco, Mariam Dwedar
Editor: Emelie Mahdavian
Composer: Jonathan Sanford
Language: English
Year: 2025
Activism
Community
Health and Wellness
Human Rights
Inequality
Law and Justice
LGBTQIA+
NYC
Politics
Social Issues

Event details

In-Person Date

Thursday, November 20, 2025 4:00 PM

Venue

Village East by Angelika

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Online Dates

Friday, November 21 - Sunday, November 30, 2025

Venue

Online Screening

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In China, Mrs. Li thought her personal life was on solid emotional ground, only to discover that her husband was having an affair with a younger woman. Unmoored, she hires an agency to help save her marriage without her husband’s knowledge. Unfolding like a novel, Mistress Dispeller provides intimate details with remarkable candor; the filmmaker’s conscientious and arduous process of gaining consent from all participants is among the film’s astonishing details.

The screening will be followed by a Q&A with director/producer/cinematographer Elizabeth Lo and producer Emma D. Miller.

All in-person screening venues provide sound amplification headphones upon request with venue management. IFC Center can also provide a T-Coil loop for compatible devices.

After taking us through the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in the Oscar-winning 20 Days in Mariupol, Mstyslav Chernov and his creative team give a perspective of the war more than a year on. Amid the failing counteroffensive, journalists follow a Ukrainian platoon on their mission to traverse one mile of heavily fortified forest and liberate a strategic village from Russian occupation. But the farther they advance through their destroyed homeland, the more they realize that this war may never end.



All in-person screening venues provide sound amplification headphones upon request with venue management. IFC Center can also provide a T-Coil loop for compatible devices.
Following up on her Oscar-nominated The Edge of Democracy, about the institutional corruption and populist mistrust plaguing Brazil’s democracy almost since its 1980s restoration, Costa explores the Christian fundamentalism seizing the nation’s political discourse. With stunning access to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, ex-president Jair Bolsonaro, and others, Costa distills the recent chaos of Brazil’s politics into a clear-eyed, deeply troublesome, and internationally resonant vision of brazen and unseen forces at work on a vulnerable population.



All in-person screening venues provide sound amplification headphones upon request with venue management. IFC Center can also provide a T-Coil loop for compatible devices.
A luminous and unflinching portrait of poet Andrea Gibson, following their journey after receiving a devastating cancer diagnosis. The emotional landscape of Maria, Andrea’s wife and caregiver, unfolds with quiet intensity as she balances her fierce love and the struggle to care for herself. In a moment of grace, Andrea receives hopeful news—and returns to the stage for what may be a final performance. A deeply affecting, unexpectedly joyful meditation on mortality, partnership, and the healing power of art.



All in-person screening venues provide sound amplification headphones upon request with venue management. IFC Center can also provide a T-Coil loop for compatible devices.
Directed by Laura Poitras (Citizenfour) and Mark Obenhaus (Steep), Cover-Up offers an unflinching look at the career of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh. Through a meticulous examination of Hersh's investigative work—spanning the Vietnam War, the Iraq War, and beyond—the film explores systemic deceptions perpetuated by the US military and intelligence agencies. Featuring Hersh's reflections and a wealth of archival materials, Cover-Up serves as both personal memoir and critical analysis of institutional accountability.



All in-person screening venues provide sound amplification headphones upon request with venue management. IFC Center can also provide a T-Coil loop for compatible devices.

Winner of the 2025 Sundance World Cinema Documentary Grand Jury Prize, Cutting Through Rocks is a stirring portrait of courage and conviction. In a remote Iranian village, Sara Shahverdi becomes the first elected councilwoman—with bold dreams of teaching teenage girls to ride motorcycles and halting child marriages. But when accusations question her motives, Sara finds her identity under siege. With intimacy, the film follows her fierce resolve to reshape tradition and reclaim agency.



All in-person screening venues provide sound amplification headphones upon request with venue management. IFC Center can also provide a T-Coil loop for compatible devices.

In a remote Russian mining town, a primary school teacher covertly documents the state's transformation of classrooms into recruitment grounds for war. Tasked with filming "patriotic education" sessions, he turns the lens on the indoctrination of youth, capturing moments of coerced loyalty and silent dissent. This intimate documentary offers a rare, unfiltered glimpse into the erosion of truth and the resilience of those who dare to resist, even at great personal cost.

The screening will be followed by a Q&A with director David Borenstein, co-director Pavel (Pasha) Talankin, and producers Helle Faber, Radovan Sibrt, and Alzbeta Karaskova.

All in-person screening venues provide sound amplification headphones upon request with venue management. IFC Center can also provide a T-Coil loop for compatible devices.

At just three years old, Mariska Hargitay survived a car accident that claimed the life of her mother, Hollywood icon Jayne Mansfield. Intimately and poignantly, Hargitay sets out to consider the woman behind the legend. Through emotional interviews and never-before-seen home movies and photos, My Mom Jayne reveals a side of Mansfield rarely glimpsed by the public—a mother, a friend, an artist—and a daughter’s moving search for connection, truth, and healing.



All in-person screening venues provide sound amplification headphones upon request with venue management. IFC Center can also provide a T-Coil loop for compatible devices.

One of the most radical and visionary authors of the 20th Century, George Orwell’s 1940s novels, such as 1984 and Animal Farm, foretold a chilling, all-too-believable authoritarian future. Acclaimed director Raoul Peck (I Am Not Your Negro), working with the Orwell Estate, seamlessly interweaves historical clips, Orwell's diary entries, cinematic references, and dynamic modern footage to craft both a definitive portrait of the writer and an entirely fresh take on his remarkably prophetic works.



All in-person screening venues provide sound amplification headphones upon request with venue management. IFC Center can also provide a T-Coil loop for compatible devices.

Nearly 20 years after going off the air in scandal, NBC Dateline’s To Catch a Predator lured child predators to a TV set, before exposing and arresting them, as millions watched from their sofas. Masquerading as public service, the show became a hit—but today it is reviled as ugly exploitation for cynical spectacle, despite a myriad of contemporary copycats proliferating on YouTube. Filmmaker David Osit contemplates the show’s impact on victims, the predation of exploitative TV, and viewer complicity in all levels of our "society of the spectacle.”



All in-person screening venues provide sound amplification headphones upon request with venue management. IFC Center can also provide a T-Coil loop for compatible devices.

A powerful act of witness and remembrance, this urgent, deeply personal documentary unfolds through video calls between filmmaker Sepideh Farsi and 25-year-old Palestinian photojournalist and poet Fatma Hassona. Their connection bridges both geography and grief, offering a rare, unfiltered window into daily life inside Gaza. Hassona’s grace, resilience, and luminous spirit ground the film in a quiet strength. Tragically, an Israeli missile strike killed Hassona and her family just one day after the film’s selection by the Cannes Film Festival. What remains is a poetic collaboration turned posthumous elegy—and a vital testament to the lives and stories that refuse to be silenced.



All in-person screening venues provide sound amplification headphones upon request with venue management. IFC Center can also provide a T-Coil loop for compatible devices.

Directed by Geeta Gandbhir, The Perfect Neighbor is a haunting exploration of a neighborhood tragedy in Ocala, Florida. Through unfiltered police bodycam footage, the film chronicles the escalating tensions between Ajike Owens, a Black mother of four, and her white neighbor, Susan Lorincz, culminating in a fatal shooting. The documentary delves into the complexities of race, gun laws, and community dynamics—offering a stark portrayal of systemic issues in America.



All in-person screening venues provide sound amplification headphones upon request with venue management. IFC Center can also provide a T-Coil loop for compatible devices.

In rural North Macedonia, when a farmer’s family departs for opportunity abroad and government policies render his land unsellable, he takes work in a landfill. There he rescues an injured white stork, forming an unlikely bond. Interwoven with a local folktale of transformation and loss, the lyrical film becomes a meditation on migration, aging, nature, and the ways kindness can persist in the hollow spaces left by change.

The screening will be followed by a Q&A with director/producer Tamara Kotevska and producer/cinematographer Jean Dakar.

All in-person screening venues provide sound amplification headphones upon request with venue management. IFC Center can also provide a T-Coil loop for compatible devices.

Disillusioned with politics, charismatic and engaging Noam Shuster Eliassi pivots to the world of stand-up comedy to communicate her “radical” message that Palestinians and Israelis deserve human rights equally. Amber Fares’ fascinating film, alternating between hilarity and bone-shaking gravity, intersperses clips from Noam’s funny stage performances with observational scenes of interactions with her parents and her Palestinian best friend—as Noam contends with a media environment and society attempting to pigeonhole her.

The screening will be followed by a Q&A with director/producer Amber Fares and editor/writer Rabab Haj Yahya.

All in-person screening venues provide sound amplification headphones upon request with venue management. IFC Center can also provide a T-Coil loop for compatible devices.