NEIGHBOURS OF THE BEAST

US PREMIERE In northern Italy’s Piedmont, generations of families have harvested fine wines for the world’s immense pleasure. Yet as the landowners age, their artisanal legacies are undergoing unprecedented stresses: Climate change threatens the health of their livelihoods, and many of their scions are abandoning familial inheritances for urban life. As unscrupulous foreign investors hover with malicious intent, Low Lies the Land finds ancestral strength in the steadfastness of patient time and the durability of intertwined vines. - Jaie Laplante

The first screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Emanuele Gerosa.

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.

WORLD PREMIERE What if plants are not passive resources but intelligent beings with complex ways of sensing, communicating, and responding to their world? Forester Suzanne Simard, botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer, and philosopher Paco Calvo combine scientific inquiry with radically different ways of understanding our relationship to nature. Through luminous macro imagery, time-lapse photography, and animation, Understory offers a revelatory invitation to see ourselves not above nature but interconnected within its astonishing web of life. - Ruth Somalo

The first screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Su Rynard and producer Nadine Pequeneza.

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.

NYC PREMIERE When Atlanta plans a massive police training facility known as “Cop City” on a city-owned forest, land defenders organize to stop its construction. After police kill environmental activist Tortuguita, the movement leaves the forest for City Hall, gathering thousands of signatures demanding that Atlanta voters decide the project’s future. Urgent and formally audacious, A City in the Forest captures the risks of collective resistance while asking who gets to determine the future of public land and public safety. - Ruth Somalo

The first screening will be followed by a Q&A with co-directors/co-cinematographers Lev Omelchenko and Nolan Huber, producer Ike Rofé, and editor Emily Yue.

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.

US PREMIERE Devon County farmers Derek Banbury and Derek Gow see the countryside very differently: One values productive farmland and his livestock, while the other believes restoring wild ecosystems is essential for the future. Over three years, their spirited disagreements evolve alongside changing landscapes, challenging long-held convictions. Funny, warm, and refreshingly open to disagreement, the film turns a debate about rewilding into a hopeful portrait of friendship, showing how dialogue can transform not only the land, but ourselves. - Ruth Somalo

The first screening will be followed by a Q&A with director James Dawson.

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.