Spring 2022

2022 Academy Award nominee for Best Documentary Feature. Nominated for Best Documentary by the Director's Guild, Producer's Guild, Independent Spirit Awards, and Gotham Awards, and winner of Best Documentary at the Tribeca Film Festival, Ascension explores the paradoxical pursuit of wealth and progress in China. This extraordinary documentary follows factory workers, middle class consumers and elites as they chase the elusive "Chinese Dream.”

76 DAYS

On January 23rd, 2020, China locked down Wuhan, a city of 11 million, to combat the emerging COVID-19 outbreak. Set deep inside the frontlines of the crisis in four hospitals, 76 Days tells indelible human stories at the center of this pandemic. These raw and intimate stories bear witness to the death and rebirth of a city under a 76-day lockdown, and to the human resilience that persists in times of profound tragedy.

LYNCHING POSTCARDS: TOKEN OF A GREAT DAY

From 1880 to 1968, over 4000 African Americans were lynched in the United States. Like picnics or parties, lynchings were often carnival-like events commemorated through photos and postcards. This film tells the story of how Black activists subverted these souvenirs, which were celebrations of white supremacy, in the fight against lynching.

ST. LOUIS SUPERMAN

2020 Academy Award Nominee for Best Documentary Short Subject. Bruce Franks Jr., a Ferguson activist and battle rapper who was elected to the overwhelmingly white and Republican Missouri House of Representatives, must overcome both personal trauma and political obstacles to pass a bill critical for his community.

CODED: THE HIDDEN LOVE OF J.C. LEYENDECKER

J.C. Leyendecker was one of the most prominent artists of his time, but his story is largely forgotten. Forced to keep his sexuality a secret, his coded imagery spoke directly to the gay community and laid the foundation for LGBTQ+ representation in advertising today.

HUNGER WARD

2021 Academy Award Nominee for Best Documentary Short Subject. Filmed inside two of the most active therapeutic feeding centers in conflict-ridden Yemen, Hunger Ward documents two women fighting to thwart the spread of starvation against the backdrop of a forgotten war. With unprecedented access within a sensitive conflict-zone, the documentary reveals the bravery of deeply committed doctors working in the middle of the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

AMERICAN SELFIE: ONE NATION SHOOTS ITSELF

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.

R.I.P. T-SHIRTS

Through the lens of a small t-shirt shop outside Washington D.C. and its young customers, R.I.P. T-SHIRTS intimately portrays the current spike in urban gun violence and its effect on Black youth in America.

FINDING YINGYING

Yingying Zhang, a 26-year-old Chinese student, comes to the U.S. to study. Within weeks of her arrival, Yingying disappears from the campus. Through exclusive access to Yingying’s family and boyfriend, Finding Yingying closely follows their journey as they search to unravel the mystery of her disappearance and seek justice for their daughter while navigating a strange, foreign country

BREE WAYY: PROMISE WITNESS REMEMBRANCE

A film by award-winning director Dawn Porter (John Lewis: Good Trouble, Rise Again: Tulsa and the Red Summer) that looks at how the art world responded to the death of Breonna Taylor by using art not only as a form of protest, but as a space to heal.

MY FATHER THE MOVER

Winner of Best Short Documentary at the Tribeca Film Festival. Alatha’s father calls himself a ‘Mover.’ Using African electronic Gqom beats he motivates kids in Khayelitsha, South Africa to find their superpowers. However, his daughter, Alatha, is still looking for her own powers. In an intimate moment together, this is all about to chang

THE MUSICIAN

Winner of Best Animated Short at the Tribeca Film Festival, The Musician is a gorgeous short work that follows a young musician and the love of his life, at the time of the attack of the Mongols, who are separated from one another.

A LIFE TOO SHORT

A Life Too Short is an exceptional documentary that examines the tragedy behind the killing of Pakistani women’s rights activist and social media star, Qandeel Baloch. Qandeel challenged conventional ideas with her open exclamations of women’s equality and agency.

GOING TO POT: THE HIGH AND LOW OF IT

Going to Pot: The Hight and Low of It is an insightful and amusing documentary that explores this rapidly growing industry through an irreverent approach to the misconceptions and promises of the marijuana explosion.

EACH AND EVERY DAY

A powerfuly moving and urgent documentary film, Each and Every Day speaks with nine young people who recount what led them to attempt suicide or have suicidal ideation, and how they worked to reclaim their will to live. Shot during COVID-19, the film provides a message of hope and resilience.

SABAYA

With just a mobile phone and a gun, Mahmud, Ziyad and their group risk their lives trying to save Yazidi women and girls being held by ISIS as Sabaya (sex slaves) in the most dangerous camp in the Middle East, Al-Hol in Syria. Sabaya is a powerful and exceptional work of documentary.

17 BLOCKS

In 1999, filmmaker Davy Rothbart met Emmanuel Sanford-Durant and his older brother, Smurf, during a pickup basketball game in Southeast Washington, D.C. Davy began filming their lives, and soon the two brothers and other family members began to use the camera themselves. Spanning 20 years, this story illuminates a national, ongoing crisis through one family's raw, stirring and deeply personal saga.

LIFT LIKE A GIRL

With the guidance of her relentless coach, a teen weightlifter emerges from a scrappy training camp in Egypt to compete at the championship level. Filmmaker Mayye Zayed intimately follows Zebiba and her coach in their challenging quest to win the next world championship over the course of four years while the stakes keep getting higher and their bonds deepen. Proving there is nothing that women can't do, the film observes the traditional gender dynamics that come into play with the male-dominated sport of weightlifting.

FUTURA

"A kaleidoscopic, open-ended collective portrait… a film that will be examined in the future for clues about what’s happening now" (NYT), Futura is an extraordinary documentary by a collective of three filmmakers known for their politically acute cinema — Pietro Marcello (Martin Eden), Francesco Munzi (Black Souls), and Alice Rohrwacher (Happy as Lazzaro) — who set out to interview a cross-section of their nation’s youth about their hopes, dreams, and fears for the future.

NORTH BY CURRENT

A visual rumination on the understated relationships between mothers and children, truths and myths, losses and gains. After the inconclusive death of his young niece, filmmaker Angelo Madsen Minax returns to his rural Michigan hometown, preparing to make a film about a broken criminal justice system. Instead, he pivots to excavate the depths of generational addiction, Christian fervor, and trans embodiment.

LANDSCAPES OF RESISTANCE

97-year-old antifascist fighter Sonja was one of the first female partisans in Yugoslavia and a member of the resistance in Auschwitz. By listening to Sonja’s stories, we travel through the landscapes of her revolutionary past, as her memories start to intertwine with the filmmakers’ own confrontation with the rising fascism in Europe today.

1970

1970. Striking workers in communist Poland demonstrate against price increases. In the dignitaries’ offices, tension and violent repression grow as the revolt intensifies. Using stop motion animation to bring the telephone recordings to life, Tomasz Wolski composes a highly precise and prodigious film that looks at labor and rebellion, but told from the perspective of the oppressors.

HORTON FOOTE: THE ROAD TO HOME

Chronicles the creative journey of acclaimed writer Horton Foote - a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and winner of two Academy Awards for screenwriting (Tender Mercies, To Kill a Mockingbird) - through his own eyes and voice at the end of his life. The documentary captures a personal and inside view of his life and work and it's connection his hometown.

GREY MATTER

A deeply human documentary dealing with personal aspects of the medical process, director Jan Louter follows two neurosurgeons during the treatments of various patients with brain disorders, a very intensive process for both surgeon and patient during which – besides life and death – personality, the essence of the patient, is at stake.

FRIENDS AND STRANGERS

Part absurdist comedy, part deep-seated satire of contemporary Australia as experienced by the young and affluent, Friends and Strangers follows twenty-somethings Ray and Alice as they navigate a series of increasingly awkward and comedic situations, from limp romantic encounters to bungled opportunities for professional growth.

LOS CONDUCTOS

Medellin, Colombia. Pinky is on the run. He has just freed himself from the grip of a religious sect. He finds a place to squat and a job in a t-shirt factory. Misled by his own faith, he questions everything. But as he tries to put back together the pieces of his broken life, violent memories return to haunt him, and ask for Revenge. Winner of the Best First Feature prize at the 2020 Berlin Film Festival.

HEALERS

By examining bodies and exploring the corners of the human psyche, Healers draws the contours of tomorrow's medicine, and weaves a portrait of a rapidly changing healthcare system. At the intersection of generations and practices, the film questions the vocation and profound meaning of caring for others, and focuses on the human dimension of medicine in a system undergoing great change.

BOREALIS

A unique cinematic documentary that travels deep into the heart of Canada’s iconic wilderness to explore how the plants and animals that live there communicate and survive the destructive forces of fire, insects, and human encroachment. Borealis calls on the voices of scientists, Indigenous people, and environmentalists to make clear the urgent need for greater understanding and alliances with the natural world.

PROFIT MOTIVE AND THE WHISPERING WIND (New 2k Restoration)

Presented in a new 2K restoration, Profit Motive and the Whispering Wind is a visual meditation on the progressive history of the United States as seen through cemeteries, historic plaques and markers. Loosely inspired by Howard Zinn’s ‘A People’s History of the United States,’ visiting the resting places of such famed figures as Malcolm X, Susan B. Anthony and Crazy Horse, alongside sites of pivotal struggles, such as the 1770 Boston Massacre.

FAR FROM AFGHANISTAN

An omnibus film by five American filmmakers and a collective of young Afghan media journalists, Far From Afghanistan forms a mosaic of cinematic approaches to take a critical look at the longest overseas war in U.S. history. Inspired by the 1967 collaborative undertaking, 'Loin du Vietnam', 'Far from Afghanistan' explores, through a mosaic of approaches, issues of shared responsibility, history and memory - all in a concerted effort to help accelerate political resistance to the war.

THE MAD SONGS OF FERNANDA HUSSEIN

Shot over a period of six years on a minuscule budget and with a cast of nonprofessional actors, The Mad Songs of Fernanda Hussein revisits the experience of the Gulf War through a reverse lens, focusing on the war's reverberations in America. Weaving three fictional stories alongside documentary footage, interviews and a singular concert performance, creates a multi-layered text that examines the lasting ramifications of the war on three characters in New Mexico.