VERA Austrian Oscar Entry directed by Tizza Covi and Rainer Frimmel, is about the actress Vera Gemma who lives in the shadow of her famous late father, the Italo-Western actor Giuliano Gemma. She drifts through Roman high society, tired of countless plastic surgeries and superficial relationships. When, after a car accident, she takes the injured son of a working-class family to her heart, a moral parable unfolds that is as fascinating as it is tragic, trying once again to unite the rich with the poor, the lost with the found. The fact that contradictions are not only admitted but embraced…
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In Marry My Dead Body, Taiwan’s Oscar Entry, directed by Cheng Wei-Hao, one day a police officer finds a red wedding envelope, only to find out that the owner of the red envelope is in fact a ghost from the other side asking for the officer’s hand in marriage before reincarnation. What will happen when a human and a ghost form a special bond? Closing film to the 2022 Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival, the largest and the longest-running film festival in Taiwan, MARRY MY DEAD BODY transcends the boundaries of both death and gender! https://youtu.be/BCFyt7GkOmY?si=EsOc6a8alZZLY-tJ Cinema Without Borders: What…
BEHIND THE HAYSTACKS happens during the 2015 refugee crisis on the Greece-North Macedonia border and seen through the eyes of three morally culpable family members with overlapping and contradicting versions. A middle-aged fisherman living on Greece’s northern border, who is drowning in debt, starts to smuggle migrants across the border lake, in exchange for a hefty fee. His wife, a housewife and devout churchgoer, is seeking the truth in God’s Word, while their daughter tries to define her own life within an oppressive environment. Until a tragic incident strikes the family, pushing the three heroes to face their own personal…
Neither a conventional biopic nor a traditional concert film, JOAN BAEZ I AM A NOISE is a raw and intimate portrait of the legendary folk singer and activist that shifts back and forth through time as it follows Joan on her final tour and delves into her extraordinary archive, including newly discovered home movies, diaries, artwork, therapy tapes, and audio recordings. Baez is remarkably revealing about her life on and off stage – from her lifelong emotional struggles to her civil rights work with MLK and a heartbreaking romance with a young Bob Dylan. A searingly honest look at a…
From Signe Baumane, director of Rocks in My Pockets, comes a new award-winning animated feature about a spirited young woman determined to find love in the bewildering world. My Love Affair With Marriage follows Zelma on her 23-year quest for perfect love and lasting marriage set against a backdrop of historic events in Eastern Europe. Told from a woman’s point of view, the film blends historical, biological, societal, and emotional arcs with a lively sense of humor and musical numbers. This animated film for adults tackles the issues of love, gender norms, domestic violence, fantasies and toxic relationships to propel…
An essential memoir of fashion pioneer Bethann Hardison, INVISIBLE BEAUTY shines a spotlight on the singular and unapologetic Hardison, one of the fashion industry’s most influential icons who, as a pioneering Black model, modeling agent and entrepreneur, has pushed the boundaries of fashion culture and has been at the forefront of progress throughout her career. In her lifetime, Hardison has seen the pendulum swing toward and away from the Black model. At every setback, she spoke up and rallied her colleagues and clients in the industry to advance change. https://vimeo.com/869448513?share=copy Now in her 70s, the Brooklyn native is writing her…
Few have had a film debut quite like Anaita Wali Zada in Fremont. The independent movie that debuted at this year’s Sundance Film Festival follows the extremely mundane goings-on of its protagonist, Donya, an Afghan refugee living in Fremont, Calif. Just five months before agreeing to be in the film, Zada, who had never acted before, had fled Afghanistan when the Taliban returned to power. While the role was not written for Zada, her life and that of the lead character share a lot in common. In fact, the only thing weirder than “coming to America and starring in an…
BOBI WINE: THE PEOPLE’S PRESIDENT, is documentary feature film about Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, famously known as Bobi Wine, who is a musician turned politician who is the current leader of the National Unity Platform (NUP) and the People Power MovementBorn in the slums of Kampala. Bobi Wine risks his life and the lives of his wife, Barbie, and their children to fight the ruthless regime led by Yoweri Museveni. Museveni has been in power since 1986 and changed Uganda’s constitution to enable him to run for yet another five-year term. Running in the country’s 2021 presidential elections, Bobi Wine uses…
The story of Cadejo Blanco is about Sarita who lives with her sister Bea in a working-class neighborhood in Guatemala City. One night after a party, Bea doesn’t come home. Convinced that her disappearance has something to do with Andrés, her sister’s dangerous ex, Sarita manages to befriend him and infiltrate his gang. Narrowly avoiding death at every turn, and with an unwavering determination in the face of the men who underestimate her, Sarita becomes increasingly involved with Andrés and the ruthless, violent world of his gang. As she searches for answers about what happened to her sister, she realizes…
Maryam Keshavarz’s sophomore feature, “The Persian Version,” premiered with pizzazz at Sundance this year. In-person screenings – even those starting at eight in the morning! – saw packed theaters, inviting audiences to laugh (and cry) each time. In this ode to the director’s own family, Keshavarz maps out the relational entanglements of a lesbian, Iranian American woman (played by fresh faces Layla Mohammadi and Chiara Stella) born to a household of seven boys, who — by some off-chance one-night-stand — becomes pregnant. In this heartfelt mother-daughter tale, Keshavarz invites her audiences on a rollercoaster of tenderness and tough love that…