THE ASCENT

INTERNATIONAL PREMIERE Many accounts of Cape Town’s Cape Flats fixate on its gangs, poverty, and systemic inequities that have scarred the neighborhood for decades. But it is also where the young Logan Maart meets Mark “Bull” Linden and tries to find a way out of the circles of her life through the unexpected sport of car spinning. The lives of the teacher and the pupil merge as both chase a reclamation of their pasts and presents. - Bedatri D. Choudhury

The first screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Julia Jansch, producer Sheena-Lee Hendricks, editor Rebecca Adorno, and protagonists Logan Maart and Mark Linden.

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 Filmmaker Rebeca Huntt’s blistering 2021 debut, Beba—a searing, often confrontational film—makes her an inspired choice to profile the cultural firecracker Megan Rapinoe, whose elite performance over nearly two decades in American women’s soccer has made her a global star. Huntt and Rapinoe are ideally matched in the film, which takes us through heroic athletic and activist milestones, including Rapinoe’s leading role in the precedent-shattering campaign to end pay inequality between men and women in US Soccer. Compared to the conventional sports documentary, Huntt’s candor as a director allows us into Rapinoe’s world with startling clarity. - Jaie Laplante

The screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Rebeca Huntt and producers Zoe Potkin and Kate Barry.

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.