America Right Now

Since 2011, Khalik Allah (Black Mother) has attracted global attention for his radiant portraits of the denizens of 125th and Lexington in East Harlem. In IWOW, Allah returns to the intersection to explore narratives of intimacy, voice, identity and personal transformation. Sometimes painful in its vulnerability, often extremely funny in its candor, and always visually extraordinary, Allah’s one-of-a-kind epic is a contemporary rethinking of the diary film: Gordon Parks meets Jonas Mekas. 

From celebrated filmmaker Alexandra Pelosi comes a visceral cross-country journey during one of the most tumultuous years in history. Placing viewers directly within the most consequential events of our era, American Selfie raises critical questions about the stark divisions in how Americans feel, and asks if it's possible to ever find a way to a more perfect union.

An urgent and vital documentary, Bulletproof explores the complexities of violence in our schools by looking at the ways we try to prevent it. The film travels across the United States, observing the longstanding rituals that take place in and around schools: homecoming parades, basketball practice, morning announcements. Unfolding alongside these scenes are a collection of newer traditions: lockdown drills, teacher firearms training, metal detector screenings, and school safety trade shows.

A Mexican-American teenage farmworker dreams of graduating high school, when ICE raids in her community threaten to separate her family and force her to become her family's breadwinner. Fruits of Labor is a lyrical, coming-of-age documentary feature about adolescence, nature and how ancestors paved the way. Director Emily Cohen Ibáñez documents life guided by the spirit world through her hardships and joys in modern America.

An incisive documentary exploring life and democracy in America's first Muslim majority city. The film follows Kamal Rahman, a Bangladeshi candidate for Mayor, Fadel al-Marsoumi, a 23 year old Iraqi immigrant for City Council, and the current mayor, Karen Majewski, Hamtramck’s first female mayor. Through the exploration of the city's rich history and this heated election, Hamtramck, USA wrestles with identity politics, power dynamics, and the immigrant experience in America.

Pennsylvania-born filmmaker Ephraim Asili has been exploring different facets of the African diaspora—and his own place within it—for nearly a decade. His feature-length debut, The Inheritance, is a vibrant, engaging ensemble work, a re-enactment of his own experience, that takes place almost entirely within the walls of a West Philadelphia house where a community of young people have come together to form a collective of Black artists and activists. 

This short documentary film captures the transformation of a young woman to the leadership of America’s most inspired anti-gun violence movement called #CocksNotGlocks. After concealed carry of handguns is legalized on the University of Texas campus, Jessica Jin posts clever humor on social media, and with the help of a tight-knit group of young female students, a movement is born: The Great Texas Dildo Revolt.

There's a new detective agency in Dallas, run by three exonerated men who all spent decades in prison. Their mission: to free other innocent people still behind bars.True Conviction follows these change-makers as they rebuild their lives and families, learn to investigate cases, work to support each other, and campaign to fix the criminal justice system.

What does the future look like from where we are standing? The focus of this extraordinary documentary – filmmaker Brett Story’s follow-up to her critically-acclaimed The Prison in Twelve Landscapes – is one city over one month (New York during August 2017), a month heavy with the tension of a new President, growing anxiety over rising rents, marching white nationalists, and unrelenting news of wildfires and hurricanes. Empathetic and incisive, The Hottest August offers a kaleidoscopic portrait of a nation at a unique moment in time.

Based on the acclaimed book by sociologist Michael Kimmel, Angry White Men offers crucial insights into why so many white American male voters seem to be so full of rage and hell-bent on smashing the political order. Drawing on extensive research, Kimmel elucidates the seismic economic, cultural, and political shifts that have transformed the American social landscape.

Named the best film of the year by The New York Times, Robert Greene’s extraordinary Bisbee ‘17 radically combines collaborative documentary, western, and musical elements to recreate a mass deportation of striking miners (mostly Mexican and Eastern European immigrants) that occurred in 1917. Greene confronts issues of immigration, unionization and environmental damage while linking a tragic moment in American history to our own turbulent times.

A political cartoonist known for his subversive and often controversial art, Mr. Fish’s work can be seen in publications like Harper’s, The Nation and the LA Times. In this revealing documentary, we are introduced to the dangerously funny cartoonist as he struggles to stay true to his creativity in a quickly changing political and economic climate.

Before its infamous demise, ACORN had been the largest community organization in the US, a national political powerhouse for the poor that transformed lives and communities. Featuring a wealth of archival footage, this is a comprehensive portrait of the organization and its founder, Wade Rathke, as well as an exploration of that much maligned & misunderstood occupation -- community organizing.

“In 1946, my great-grandfather murdered a black man named Bill Spann and got away with it.” So begins this acclaimed documentary which takes us on a journey through the American South – interweaving scenes from To Kill a Mockingbird and Rosa Parks’ investigation into the Recy Taylor case – to uncover the truth behind a horrific incident and the societal mores that empowered it.

From a women's correctional facility in the Pacific Northwest to a North Dakota oil field, Gray House deftly blends vérité footage, stunning landscapes, interviews with workers, and fictional elements – some of which involve actors like Denis Lavant (Holy Motors, Beau Travail) – for a prescient vision of modern-day America.

Assembled from over 100 hours of home movies shot by an unknown man of his family over a period of 7 years and uploaded to Youtube, Fraud is a daringly innovative work – a found footage thriller – that reveals one family’s struggle for the American Dream and the nature of truth in the internet age.

In this remarkable documentary, filmmaker Brett Story excavates the often unseen links and connections that prisons – and our system of mass incarceration – have on communities and industries all around us. Widely acclaimed, The Prison in Twelve Landscapes is an essential documentary, a portrait of our criminal justice system in which we never see a penitentiary.