Fresh arrivals, theater releases, and newly added cinema
In 1981 Allen Moore completed “The Shepherds of Berneray,” a study of the centuries-old crofting traditions of the island of Berneray, and a portrait of the Gaelic speaking people whose lives reflected the underpinnings of this heritage. Moore has continued a decades-long friendship with the islanders, and beginning in 2016, he spent 10 years revisiting the community to document what traditions have remained and how life has changed on the island. Weaving together 16mm outtakes from the late 1970’s with contemporary HD digital material, “Returning to Berneray” is a personal portrait of a place and a filmmaker’s relationship to it.
Yasha follows Hana, a young teacher driven to desperate measures after losing her job. In need of money for her son’s life-saving operation, Hana is willing to endure any hardship, humiliation, or consequence to give her child a chance to survive, and the film remains firmly focused on its protagonist’s relentless struggle throughout. Never saccharine or manipulative in its portrayal of maternal determination, this is a story that feels raw, tense, and authentic.
If thoughts opened up onto dreams, one would look up and see in a cloud resting on the hill crest, an elephant poised to butt a riverbank. Handmade crystals of argentum painted on old acetate in the dark. Hopes of seeing the light. Falls back apart on itself. An utterance of royal poet: for fame home left bids cloud voyage journey sail sky far away. Emulsion cracks, base cracks, held by tape on both sides. Palm leaves crumble and 4K scans are pointless, dust gets in anyway. When it rains snakes crawl up into the spines of trees and look closely when the lightning strikes you can see their scales shine in the moonlight.
A soldier lives in a small cloud of fear.
To the left, there is the city, but to the right, the river flows. What is a river when your thoughts are more rapid than everything else? Two poets, Natsumi Aoyagi and Nobunari Mizushita, are having a back-and-forth kind of conversation and trying to get closer to the river. They exchange three-liner poems with each line written at such length and speed that it could stretch to the length of the river. Or not.
Agent Abdulrahman has spent years counting the war dead and pinning photographs to a wall. In every photo, a pale man in purple watches from the back. That man belongs to the Family, a dynasty that elects one member each generation as the Sadness Prince. When a photograph of the Agency's own lobby turns up, Abdulrahman opens the Book of Agents and summons Ahmed Mazin, Agent 67.
Dai, a middle school student, wants to curse the person responsible for killing Norangi, a stray cat he dearly loved. With the help of Belzerok, a conversational AI, he attempts to summon Nekphoros, the legendary great demon of cats. However, his devout Catholic grandmother, Gyeongja, who lives with him, keeps interfering with the summoning ritual.
Bu Rani, a geprek chicken stall owner with a traumatic past of being falsely accused, unknowingly receives a fake 100,000-Rupiah toy bill. When her son attempts to spend the money at a local store, a wave of paranoia triggers an absurd neighborhood raid led by an overzealous RT chief. In a community fractured by distrust and untraceable cash, digital payment becomes their ultimate watermark of truth and redemption.
Multidisciplinary artist David Hartt (Canadian, born 1967) transforms John Vanderlyn's immersive historical painting, Panoramic View of the Palace and Gardens of Versailles (1818–19), into a dynamic contemporary installation, offering viewers the opportunity to explore questions of place and perspective.
Five friends from Chicago head into the woods for a weekend getaway with their coworkers. What begins as a chance to escape the everyday quickly turns terrifying when the group discovers that the legend surrounding their destination is far from a campfire story.
When everything changes overnight, a young couple must decide what comes next.
Of Times There Were Before is a portrait of Romila Thapar, one of the world’s most influential historians and public intellectuals. At ninety-four, having lived through much of the making of modern India, she stands at an unusual distance from the past she has spent a lifetime studying. The film began with a simple question: who is the person behind the historian’s name? Shot at her home in New Delhi, it is an attempt to encounter Thapar beyond the authority of her work and the public image built around it. What emerges is a portrait of a life still in conversation with its own time.
Short musical / experimental / collage film inspired and influenced by People Like Us' (a.k.a. Vicki Bennett) early short films.
Half a year has passed since Ralf Prange confessed his love to the woman of his dreams, Dörte, on New Year’s Eve. Now everyday life is setting in, and Prange feels like he’s losing control on all fronts. But Prange’s spirit of resistance has been awakened. With the help of his neighbor Horst, he hatches plans that are bound to lead to disaster...
Two Ukrainian teenagers and one Russian begin adult lives in France, where war divides and loneliness connects them.
Hidden Colors 6 examines overlooked stories of Black American resistance, resilience, innovation and cultural survival.
Michael Londra, host of the popular travel series Ireland with Michael, takes a spine-tingling journey through Ireland to uncover Samhain, the ancient Celtic festival that gave rise to Halloween. Blending rich history, haunting folklore, and modern traditions, the film reveals the origins of a holiday now celebrated in many parts of the world.