What are the limits of free speech? Troll Storm is the story of a Jewish woman in Montana, Tanya Gersh, who was the victim of an unrelenting social media campaign of antisemitism and her decision to fight back in court. “The second I decided to fight, I started to heal,” she says in this powerful film. And although the crux of this story takes place several years ago, the new swarm of antisemitism currently crossing our country makes this story feel extremely relevant. Gersh uses interviews with a holocaust survivor as a brutal reminder of where we could end up again if this culture of hate is not faced by our country. In Accept the Call (WFF 2019) director Eunice Lau’s latest film, the parallel between Europe before the rise of the Nazi party and what happened to Gersh is frightening. – Sabina Barach
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Science fiction has become a reality in our modern criminal justice system. A term originally coined by science fiction author Philip K. Dick, “pre-crime” is a policing technique now used in both the US and Europe to identify “hot people”—those most likely to be victims or perpetrators of a crime. Forecasting software and algorithms that have been criticized as inaccurate and arbitrary are used to collect information, and monitor and flag people. But predictive tools are only as good as the data they’re fed. With scant evidence of the reliability of the data sources or the accuracy of the data crunching, misfires are a guarantee. In this chilling and explosive in-depth examination into the modern age of policing, directors Monika Hielscher and Matthias Heider pose an important question: How much freedom and human awareness are we willing to give to the limited logic of technology?
A probing portrait of Chris Burden, an artist who took creative expression to the limits and risked his life in the name of art.
Melissa Lucio was the first Hispanic woman sentenced to death in Texas. For ten years she has been awaiting her fate, and now faces her last appeal.
A young photographer is on assignment in Jamaica. It’s a cultural shock! First anguished, he later becomes quite fascinated by the people he meets, their neighbourhood and their music.
Documents the history and politics of a Portland institution: The city’s strip clubs.
British surrealist Leonora Carrington was a key part of the surrealist movement during its heyday in Paris and yet, until recently, remained a virtual unknown in the country of her birth. This film explores her dramatic evolution from British debutante to artist in exile, living out her days in Mexico City, and takes us on a journey into her darkly strange and cinematic world.
An immersive and enthralling journey through the Sonoran Desert on the U.S.-Mexico border, El Mar La Mar weaves together harrowing oral histories from the area with hand-processed 16mm images of flora, fauna and items left behind by travelers. Subjects speak of intense, mythic experiences in the desert: A man tells of a fifteen-foot-tall monster said to haunt the region, while a border patrolman spins a similarly bizarre tale of man versus beast. A sonically rich soundtrack adds to the eerie atmosphere as the call of birds and other nocturnal noises invisibly populate the austere landscape. Emerging from the ethos of Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab, J.P. Sniadecki’s attentive documentary approach mixes perfectly with Joshua Bonnetta’s meditations on the materiality of film. Together, they’ve created an experience of the border region like nothing you’ve seen, heard or felt before.
“¡Cuatro!” is a unique, raw and unprecedented look inside the world of the multi platinum rock band Green Day. From the band’s home studio in Oakland CA, to various intimate live performances in New York City, Austin TX, Newport Beach and Los Angeles, the film chronicles the band’s year and a half long journey writing and recording their recent musical trilogy.
Featuring interviews with key political figures including President George W Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Rudolph Giuliani, Michael Bloomberg, and media heavy hitters Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw and Matthew Broderick, this documentary event examines 9/11 through the lens of the last 15 years. Brought to life by photos declassified in 2016, recently released documents from the 9/11 commission, and never before heard stories from photographers and first responders, a new perspective will arise to provide an unrivaled viewpoint of the historic attack.
In 2003, on the eve of the Iraq war, acclaimed director Iara Lee embarked on a journey to better understand a world increasingly embroiled in conflict and, as she saw it, heading for self-destruction. After several years, traveling over five continents, Iara encountered growing numbers of people who committed their lives to promoting change through the arts. This is their story. From IRAN, where graffiti and rap have become tools in fighting government repression, to BURMA, where monks acting in the tradition of Gandhi take on a dictatorship, to PALESTINIAN refugee camps in LEBANON, where photography, music, and film have given a voice to those rarely heard, CULTURES OF RESISTANCE explores how art and creativity can be ammunition in the battle for peace and justice.
The story of the abandoned production of ‘Day of the Champion’, a movie about Formula 1 which was set to film in 1966.
A documentary based on the book of the same name by Joe Simpson about Simpson’s and Simon Yates’ disastrous and near-fatal attempt to climb 6,344m Siula Grande in the Cordillera Huayhuash in the Peruvian Andes in 1985.