US PREMIERE When Aussie everyman Dayne Pratzky left Sydney to build a home in rural Tara, he never expected he’d find himself in a battle over one of today’s most contentious issues: fracking. After the gas companies arrive to exploit the coal seam gas trapped beneath his land, Dayne learns he has no legal recourse […]
NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE The explosion of information in the digital age left government agencies like the NSA struggling with bureaucracy and technology to keep up with the changing times. Responding to the challenge, NSA technical director Bill Binney and a small team of codebreakers develop ThinThread, an astonishingly effective data collecting and sorting program that […]
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 […]
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 […]
Jon Alpert (DCTV) and Sheila Nevins (HBO Documentary Films) present the world premiere of a new documentary short, followed by a keynote conversation and reception co-presented by HBO Documentary Films. In Alpert’s new film, Mariela Castro’s March: Cuba’s LGBT Revolution, Cuban Congresswoman Mariela Castro – daughter of Raúl and niece of Fidel Castro – confronts decades of cultural and institutional homophobia to serve as a tireless champion of […]
NYC PREMIERE This timely look at US-Cuba relations focuses on the younger Cubans and Cuban Americans who are seeking to bridge the conflicts of their parents’ generation. Covering a span of ten years, the film looks at the buildup to and aftermath of the 2009 Peace Without Borders concert in Havana that assembled some of […]
City life. A union man on a mission uses a giant inflatable rat to raise awareness in Lenny and the Rat (USA, 8 min., Jason Hutt). S – The Musical Shuttle (USA, 40 min., Alina Abouelenin, Benjamin Bergmann) shows why the S train is the most lucrative for NYC’s buskers. Mac Premo – stuffmaker (USA, […]
Experiences in the melting pot. Satellite Baby (USA, 9 min., Jenny Schweitzer) uncovers the consequences of a Chinese immigrant daycare alternative. A Resident Alien (USA/Spain, 18 min., Naiara Eizaguirre-Paulos) evaded Honduran drug cartels but may be forced back home. The Absentees (UAE, 10 min, Tanya Daud) are stuck in a no-man’s land. A Romanian Olympian […]
2014 SHORT DOCUMENTARY WINNER In August 2010, Stephen Kim, a brilliant State Department intelligence analyst, was indicted under the Espionage Act for jeopardizing national security by allegedly divulging classified information to a reporter; The Surrender intimately documents Stephen Kim’s struggle to understand the events leading up to his prosecution as well as his last free […]
WORLD PREMIERE Lenny and the Rat captures a day in the life of union organizer Lenny Anselmo and the 20-foot inflatable rat he places at non-union construction sites around New York City