Theology

In Afghanistan, an all-girl robotics team risk everything to prove they can build a name for themselves in the world. Working in secret under the Taliban regime and in a male-dominated cultural environment, the girls encounter enormous challenges. With exceptional access, Afghan Dreamers tells an insprirational story about an extraodinarily brave group of young women.

QUEER AND FRUM

A moving and powerful short documentary, Queer and Frum is the story of two former Orthodox Jews, Chaim Levin and Lieb Swartz-Brownstein, and their unique journeys to becoming openly queer. Shot in Orthodox neighborhoods of New York City, the documentary takes a deep look into Hasidic life and the experience of living with intersecting identities in a religious world.

THY KINGDOM COME

Initially intended as brief episodes for Terence Malick's To The Wonder which captured Javier Bardem (a parish priest in the film) talking with real-life residents of an Oklahoma town, this documentary project grew in scope as the townspeople, wholly aware that Bardem was a fictional priest, chose to share personal details of their lives. Thy Kingdom Come is a revelatory work in which unscripted conversations, shot by photographer and filmmaker Eugene Richards in beautiful widescreen, come to reveal the complexity of life in this small oil town.

LIGHT FROM LIGHT

Gifted with sometimes-prophetic dreams, Sheila (Marin Ireland) is asked to investigate a potential haunting. It’s there she meets Richard (Jim Gaffigan), a recent widower who believes his wife may still be with him. Beautifully shot in rural East Tennessee, Paul Harrill's acclaimed feature avoids jump-scare clichés of the ghost story in favor of a nuanced character study that focuses on buried traumas and unspoken emotions.

ANGELS ARE MADE OF LIGHT

A stirring and beautiful documentary from Academy Award nominated director James Longley (Iraq in Fragments), Angels Are Made of Light traces the lives of young students and their teachers at a school in the old city of Kabul. Interweaving the modern history of Afghanistan with present-day portraits, the film offers an intimate and nuanced vision of a society living in the shadow of war.

LOVERS OF THE NIGHT

A heartwarming and sublime documentary, this portrait of a monastery in rural Ireland focuses on seven elderly monks who reflect on faith, aging and the challenges they face with frankness and humour. Anna Frances Ewert's film is a wonder, an attempt to capture the heart of a place before it vanishes and to portray the yearning of the human spirit for the infinite in a transient world.

COCOTE

Questions of faith, tradition and honor course through de Los Santos Arias’ rapturous crime fable. Set in the Dominican Republic, Cocote follows a kind-hearted gardener, an Evangelical Christian, who has returned home to take part in traditional mourning rituals for his father's death, only to discover that he is expected to commit an unthinkable act.

THE BROKER

A tragicomic glimpse inside a traditional Iranian dating agency, The Broker introduces us to Mrs. Sadri and her cadre of female employees who are determined to find their clients a husband, at all costs. The documentary offers an acute reminder that the fiercest agents of the patriarchy aren't always men.

MY COFFEE WITH JEWISH FRIENDS

A new film from veteran filmmaker Manfred Kirchheimer is always a cause for celebration; with My Coffee, Kirchheimer uses a simple, humorous title as a screen to ask serious questions, from gender inequality to secularism to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, for a deeply thoughtful exploration of contemporary Jewish identity.

MIMOSAS

Winner of the Critics Week Grand Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, Oliver Laxe’s stunning new film, Mimosas, is a breathtakingly-shot Western that follows a mysterious caravan transporting a dying sheikh into the Moroccan Atlas Mountains.

A MAGICAL SUBSTANCE FLOWS INTO ME

Drawing on the work of German-Jewish ethnomusicologist Robert Lachmann (1892-1939), filmmaker Jumana Manna sets out in search of the musical diversity of historical Palestine in this magical documentary.

THE ILLINOIS PARABLES

Filmmaker Deborah Stratman recounts eleven episodes in American history — from the violent eviction of the Cherokee to the invention of the nuclear reactor to the murder of Black Panther leader Fred Hampton — to consider how societies are shaped by belief and ideology.

LOVE AND MARRIAGE IN KABUL

Mahboba Rawi, founder of Mahboba’s Promise, has dedicated her life to helping orphans, widows and schooling girls in Afghanistan. In this documentary, we follow her efforts to challenge centuries-old traditions to make a love marriage happen for a young couple.