2016 VIEWFINDERS COMPETITION WINNER NYC PREMIERE In the remote Faroe Islands, an archipelago located halfway between Norway and Iceland, inhabitants have been in tune with their environment for millennia. With a rugged landscape not suited for farming, they have relied on the sea for their survival, enjoying a traditional diet of seabirds, pilot whales and […]
NYC PREMIERE Celebrated photographer Katy Grannan transports us to a stigmatized world of drifters and hustlers in this exquisite portrait of a ravaged community living on a barren, forgotten street in California’s Great Central Valley. Her affectionate lens follows Kiki, a broken dreamer who nevertheless maintains a vital optimism that helps her survive in this […]
NYC PREMIERE Beitar Jerusalem Football Club is the most controversial team in Israel. Loyal fans, known as La Familia, take pride in Beitar being the only team in its league that has never fielded an Arab player. In 2012, team owner Arcadi Gaydamak, a Russian-born billionaire with political aspirations, signs two Muslim players from Chechnya. […]
NYC PREMIERE As part of a $586 billion infrastructure development plan, the Chinese government begins building the massive Xu-Huai Highway. Director Zhang Zanbo provides an in-depth look at the impact of the corruption-filled project in rural Hunan province. Representing the subcontracted construction company, professional problem solver Mr. Meng must contend with the complaints of displaced […]
NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE In a rural village in northern China, a father/son clash echoes the pull of tradition and modernization. When 20-year-old Maofu returns home after migrant city work, he tries to convince his aging beekeeping father Lao Yu to develop a brand for the family’s honey. Lao Yu instead insists his son first learn […]
US PREMIERE Filmmaker Danae Elon grew up in Jerusalem as the daughter of writer Amos Elon, then relocated to New York City. In this film, she chronicles what happens when she and her husband Philip, a French-Algerian Jew who never lived in Israel, move their family to Jerusalem. Shot over three years, the film captures […]
NYC PREMIERE In 1979, Joseph Newman, a self- educated inventor in the backwoods of Mississippi, claimed to develop a motor that defied the laws of physics. Mainstream news stations, and even an appearance on The Tonight Show, spread the revolutionary potential of his magnetic perpetual motion machine, which could end our dependence on oil and […]
US PREMIERE Academy Award winner Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy (Saving Face) teams with filmmaker Geeta Gandbhir to follow a group of Bangladeshi women police officers on a UN peacekeeping mission to Haiti. We come to feel the emotional toll of a risky and grueling year abroad. Muslim women are often kept at a distance in the Western […]
2015 VIEWFINDERS COMPETITION WINNER NYC PREMIERE More than five years into her practice as a defense lawyer in Kabul – the first and only Western lawyer, not to mention the only woman, licensed to work in the Afghan courts – no- nonsense attorney Kimberley Motley finds herself at a crossroads. Though originally motivated to provide […]
US PREMIERE After fleeing his native North Korea to defect to the south, the artist Sun Mu works under a defiant alias meaning “no boundaries” to criticize the repressive regime of Kim Jong-un. A former propaganda artist, he subverts familiar images which once glorified the Supreme Leader, transforming them into satirical political pop art. Offered […]