Ascension
Mesmerizing in its imagery, Ascension is an impressionistic portrait of China’s growing class divide through staggering observations of labor, consumerism and wealth. The film is structured in three parts, ascending through the levels of the capitalist structure: workers running factory production, the middle class selling to aspirational consumers, and the elites reveling in a new […]
Faya Dayi
In her hypnotic documentary feature, Ethiopian-Mexican filmmaker Jessica Beshir explores the coexistence of everyday life and its mythical undercurrents. Though a deeply personal project—Beshir was forced to leave her hometown of Harar with her family as a teenager due to growing political strife—the film she returned to make about the city, its rural Oromo community […]
A Cop Movie
Police corruption is rampant around the world, but Mexico City’s la policía are among the most notorious. In this thoroughly original and unpredictable docu-fiction hybrid, award-winning filmmaker Alonso Ruizpalacios (Museo, Narcos: Mexico) follows the story of a unique pair of cops, Teresa and Montoya, together known as “the love patrol.” Through a series of captivating […]
Jacinta
An astonishing record of the hereditary nature of trauma, Jacinta follows the lives of three generations of women struggling to find stability amid years of dependency. Jacinta leaves the Maine Correctional Center, leaving her mother behind to complete her own sentence, and attempts to rebuild her relationship with Caylynn, her preternaturally wise pre-teen daughter who […]
Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)
In his acclaimed debut as a filmmaker, Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson presents a powerful and transporting documentary—part music film, part historical record created around an epic event that celebrated Black history, culture and fashion. Over the course of six weeks in the summer of 1969, just one hundred miles south of Woodstock, The Harlem Cultural Festival […]
Softie
Boniface “Softie” Mwangi has long fought injustices in his country as a political activist. Now he’s taking the next step by running for office in a regional Kenyan election. From the moment Boniface decides to run, telling his wife, Njeri, in passing with a hesitant laugh, he responds to each challenge with optimism. But running […]
Some Kind of Heaven
A Floridian garden of earthly delights and its discontents, Some Kind of Heaven follows retirees newly arrived at the fountain of youth. At The Villages, a married couple, a widow, and a bachelor find Eden and a second bite at the apple. An area handyman looks for work while a woman toys with love after […]
Stray
This beautiful film from director Elizabeth Lo brings us into the world of Zeytin, a stray dog living life on the streets of Istanbul. Deceptively simple and wonderfully touching, Stray is a tour-de-force of documentary filmmaking. Lo shows us the fragile world through Zeytin’s eyes, taking the audience to seemingly impossible places, all while staying […]
Time
A single moment in time can propel your life into new, unexpected directions. A single decision, a single chance, or a single mistake. We talk about time like we talk about movement, tumbling forwards, pregnant with possibility. In prison, the world races on without you, with your family and loved ones straddling parallel dimensions of […]
Mr. Soul!
From 1968 to 1973, the public-television variety show SOUL!, guided by the enigmatic producer and host Ellis Haizlip, offered an unfiltered, uncompromising celebration of black literature, poetry, music, and politics—voices that had few other options for national exposure, and, as a result, found the program an improbable place to call home. With participants’ recollections and […]