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Writing Hawa 2024
Afghan documentary maker Najiba Noori offers not only a loving and intimate portrait of her mother Hawa, but also shows in detail how the arduous improvement of the position of women is undone by geopolitical violence. The film follows the fortunes of Noori’s family, who belong to the Hazaras, an ethnic group that has suffered greatly from discrimination and persecution.
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Agent of Happiness 2024    star_border 6.5
The documentary team follows two happiness agents in their forties who spend a month and a half on the road twice a year, going door-to-door with their questionnaires in isolated villages in the Himalayas. The filmmakers undertake to provide an intimate insight into the daily lives and desires of Bhutanese people, and also seek the answer to the universal question of whether happiness can really be measured. Gross National Happiness promises a heart-warming journey into a mysterious, fairytale-like world, which is the exact opposite of the social order dominated by consumption and desires.
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The Strike 2024
A generation of California men endure decades of solitary confinement and, against all odds, launch a protest to regain their freedom.
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Know Thyself 2024
A story of high school awkwardness, anxiety and ancient Greek philosophy, Samira Mian’s autobiographical animation Know Thyself recounts how a panic attack in 9th-grade Latin class sent her on a years-long odyssey of self-discovery. Entertaining and endearing, Mian’s portrait is also an insightful reflection on the inextricable connection between mind and body and the power of self-understanding.
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A Photographic Memory 2024
A filmmaker ventures into the archives of her photographer mother to construct a personal story of love, loss, and finding someone in the work they leave behind.
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Queendom 2023    star_border 9
In defiance of Russia’s anti-LGBTQ laws, a queer, 21-year-old artist risks her life performing in surreal costumes throughout Moscow. Jenna Marvin’s radical public performances blend artistry and activism in this SXSW documentary.
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While We Watched 2023    star_border 7.8
A turbulent newsroom drama that intimately chronicles the working days of broadcast journalist Ravish Kumar as he navigates a spiraling world of truth and disinformation.
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Q 2023    star_border 7
An intimate portrayal of a quest for love and acceptance at any cost, Q depicts the influence of a secretive matriarchal religious order on filmmaker Jude Chehab’s family and the unspoken ties and consequences of loyalty that have bonded her mother, grandmother, and herself to the mysterious organization. A love story of a different kind, Q is a multigenerational tale of the eternal search for meaning.
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President 2023    star_border 7.5
Zimbabwe is at a crossroads. The leader of the opposition MDC party, Nelson Chamisa, challenges the old guard ZANU-PF led by Emmerson Mnangagwa, known as “The Crocodile.” The election tests both the ruling party and the opposition – how do they interpret principles of democracy in discourse and in practice?
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Razing Liberty Square 2023
Eight miles inland of Miami’s beaches, Liberty City residents fight to save their community from climate gentrification: their land, sitting on a ridge, becomes real estate gold.
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A Hawk As Big As a Horse 2022    star_border 9
"A Hawk as Big as a Horse" follows the daily life of Lydia, a bi-gender ornithologist who lives in Shcherbinka, a remote suburb of Moscow. As Lydia embarks on remaking David Lynch’s Twin Peaks, she decides to create Lara, a life-size silicon doll of her favorite actress.
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Art & Krimes by Krimes 2022
While locked-up for six years in federal prison, artist Jesse Krimes secretly creates monumental works of art—including an astonishing 40-foot mural made with prison bed sheets, hair gel, and newspaper. He smuggles out each panel piece-by-piece with the help of fellow artists, only seeing the mural in totality upon coming home. As Jesse's work captures the art world's attention, he struggles to adjust to life outside, living with the threat that any misstep will trigger a life sentence.
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Midwives 2022    star_border 8
Hla and Nyo Nyo live in a country torn by conflict. Hla is a Buddhist and the owner of a makeshift medical clinic in western Myanmar, where the Rohingya (a Muslim minority community) are persecuted and denied basic rights. Nyo Nyo is a Muslim and an apprentice midwife who acts as an assistant and translator at the clinic. Her family has lived in the area for generations, yet they are still considered intruders. Encouraged and challenged by Hla, who risks her own safety daily by helping Muslim patients, Nyo Nyo is determined to become a steady health care provider for her community.
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Riotsville, USA 2022    star_border 6.2
An archival documentary about the U.S. military’s response to the political and racial injustices of the late 1960s: take a military base, build a mock inner-city set, cast soldiers to play rioters, burn the place down, and film it all.
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Breaking the Brick 2022    star_border 7
In 2019, millions of Chileans rose up in a popular revolt that resulted in radical change: the call for an assembly that will change the constitution imposed by the Pinochet dictatorship and its economic neoliberal model, referred to as ‘The Brick’. This change is seen through the eyes of two Chileans from opposing sides of the political spectrum. They experience a year of turmoil as protests give way to transformation. On the one side Ramiro, a wealthy businessman, and on the other side Mariana, a lower middle-class teacher. Historical conflicts that were long thought resolved come to light as the assembly process draws closer, showing how the wounds of a brutal dictatorship are deep, lasting and must be reconciled at all costs.
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My Name Is Andrea 2022    star_border 6.5
A rousing portrait of feminist writer Andrea Dworkin, one of the most controversial and misunderstood figures of the 20th century, who fought passionately for justice and equality for women.
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An Act of Worship 2022
An Act of Worship is Pakistani-American filmmaker Nausheen Dadabhoy’s lyrical portrait of the last 20 years of Muslim Life in America as told through the lens of Muslims living in the United States.
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For Our Children 2022
FOR OUR CHILDREN unites maternal voices of resilience and solidarity in a poignant cinematic journey. Directed, produced and co-written by Débora Souza Silva, this emotional documentary chronicles the powerful convergence of two mothers, Reverend Wanda Johnson and Angela Williams, whose lives were forever altered by the scourge of police brutality against their Black sons.
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People Unite! 2022
In the face of AAPI violence, an intergenerational coalition of Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian, People of Color organizers come together to organize a march across historic Washington Heights and Harlem, as a continuation of the historic and radical Black and Asian solidarity tradition.
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After Sherman 2022
Beautifully layered and expressionistic, After Sherman is a story about inheritance and the tension that defines our collective American history, especially Black history. The filmmaker follows his father, a minister, in the aftermath of a mass shooting at his church in Charleston, South Carolina to understand how communities of descendants of enslaved Africans use their unique faith as a form of survival as they continue to fight for America to live up to its many unfulfilled promises to Black Americans.
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