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Over a decade after Miss Representation exposed the media's contribution to the under- representation of women in leadership, Miss Representation: Rise Up dives deep into the cultural backlash against women's agency and power. With the proliferation of AI and deepfakes, this new era of tech-facilitated violence is exacerbating sexism and misogyny towards women and girls, in an attempt to control and silence them. With inspiring young women at its core, Miss Representation: Rise Up interweaves young women’s personal journeys alongside powerful voices in media, culture, leadership, and academia to reimagine a future that finally uplifts women and girls. We are joined by the Director and Producer of Miss Representation and Miss Representation: Rise Up! Jennifer Siebel Newsom.

About the filmmaker -Jennifer Siebel Newsom is an award-winning filmmaker, influential thought leader on gender equality, and the First Partner of California. After graduating with honors from Stanford University and Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, she wrote, directed, and produced the award-winning documentary Miss Representation (2011), which explores the media's misrepresentation of women and girls and theresulting underrepresentation of women in positions of power and influence in America. As a result of Miss Representation's impact, she launched The Representation Project, a nonprofit organization that uses film, media, and education as catalysts for cultural transformation. Her subsequent films — The Mask You Live In (2015), The Great American Lie (2019), and Fair Play (2022) — further explored masculinity, systemic inequality, and domestic inequity. Jennifer also executive- produced the Emmy Award-winning and Academy Award-nominated The Invisible War (2012), and the Emmy Award-winning documentaries The Hunting Ground (2015) and On the Record (2020).

Following the Yellow Vest protests of Paris in 2018, internal affairs officer Stéphanie Bertrand must investigate the conduct of her fellow police officers during the demonstrations. Though striving to remain objective, Stéphanie’s position leaves her at stark odds with the rest of the police force. When she scrutinizes the near-fatal assault of a teenage protester from her hometown, Stéphanie is met with growing institutional pressure to drop the case and move on. The further her investigation develops, the more Stéphanie’s faith in the system she belongs to is tested. From Dominik Moll, the award-winning French director of The Night of the 12th, comes his latest procedural -- “a piercing slow-burn examination of police brutality” (The Hollywood Reporter) led by the “marvelous” (Screen Daily) Léa Drucker in a César-winning role for Best Actress. Timely and socially resonant, CASE 137 is a tautly constructed study of institutional violence which asks charged questions about corruption and accountability in the criminal justice system.

About the filmmaker - After considering a career as a wildlife filmmaker, Dominik Moll discovered the films of Alfred Hitchcock and decided to switch to fiction. He studied film at the City College of New York and at the IDHEC in Paris, where he met his long-time collaborator Gilles Marchand. Together they have written the screenplays for most of their individual films. In the 1990s, Moll worked as an editor and an assistant director (notably with Laurent Cantet and Marcel Ophuls) and directed his first feature, Intimité (1994). His second film, With a Friend like Harry, was screened in competition in Cannes in 2000 and was a hit with critics and audiences, winning 4 Césars. In his following films, Moll continued to explore genre movies, while integrating more and more social themes. In 2023, The Night of the 12th won 7 Césars after being praised by both critics and audiences. Dominik Moll has also worked on two international series, including Eden (for Arte) on the intersecting destinies of migrants throughout Europe. His latest film, Case 137, is being presented in competition at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival. Its French release is scheduled for November 19th.

Directed by Susanne Rostock (Sing Your Song), FOLLOWING HARRY joins legendary artist and civil rights leader Harry Belafonte as he embarks on a deeply personal and reflective journey, inspiring the next generation of entertainers and activists to disrupt injustice across the globe, striving for impactful change. FOLLOWING HARRY is an intimate documentary that chronicles the last twelve years of legendary Harry Belafonte’s life, highlighting the artist-activist's enduring commitment to social justice. Fueled by his tremendous sense of urgency to inspire the next generation of entertainers and activists to stand for justice, the film provides a window into both his public endeavors and private moments, capturing his journey from the aftermath of the death of Trayvon Martin, to his engagements in the protests in Ferguson, the Women’s March (which was created in his office), to the deeply and profound conversations in his home. The film ultimately amplifies Harry’s belief that “each generation must be responsible for itself. All I can do is leave behind the crumbs of my experience. I have a trail that you can follow, if you find value in it, pick it up and if you don’t, bring something better.” In addition to Harry Belafonte, Following Harry features; Aja Monet, Angela Davis, Aloe Blacc, Carmen Perez, Chuck D, Gina Belafonte, Jamie Foxx, Jesse Williams, Kerry Kennedy, Matt Post, Phillip Agnew, Rod Starz, Rosario Dawson, Sean Pica, & Talib Kweli and many more.

About the filmmaker - Long esteemed as "an aural and visual poet", Susanne Rostock's filmmaking is a stunning 40 years of some of the most compelling documentaries of each decade. Her most recent film as director/editor, FOLLOWING HARRY, is a sequel to her film, Sing Your Song , about Harry Belafonte's earlier life as an artist and activist and was chosen to open the U.S. Documentary Competition section of the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. Sing Your Song received top honors in festivals around the world, was shortlisted for an Oscar, and garnered the NAACP Image Award and a Gracie for Outstanding Director. An EMMY NOMINATED editor and director, she has achieved recognition on a myriad of films that continue to endure and resonate. Her 20-year multi-award-winning collaboration as editor with director Michael Apted has produced such richly provocative films as: The Long Way Home ; Incident At Oglala ; Me & Isaac Newton ; Inspirations; The Power of The Game; Moving The Mountain . Rostock is presently engaged in producing, directing, editing the documentary Between Starshine and Clay: The Hidden Diary of Diahann Carroll , co-directed by Suzanne Kay and Executive Produced by Serena and Venus Williams. Susanne studied anthropology and ethnographic filmmaking with Margaret Mead at Columbia University and received an MFA in Filmmaking from New York University. She resides in New York City.

Inspired by Roscher’s own biracial experience, BIRD IN HAND follows the newly engaged Bird Rowe (Alisha Wainwright) as she returns to her rural hometown to plan the wedding with her narcissistic hippie mother Carlotta (Christine Lahti). Bird also has a hidden agenda, one that leads her to her mother's new neighbors, a misguided couple on a mission to 'rebrand' a plantation. Truth, lies, and fantasy collide against that backdrop, leading to a surprising climax as tender as it is funny. Roscher's bitingly comic feature film debut weaves themes of race, belonging, and family into Bird’s mercurial journey back to herself. James LeGros, Jeffrey Nordling, and Annabelle Dexter-Jones co-star in this A Future of Film is Female Release. We are joined by the director and co-writer Melody Roscher.

About the filmmaker - Melody Roscher debut feature film as a writer and director, Bird In Hand premiered at the 2025 Tribeca Film Festival in the US Competition category. The film is preceded by a companion short film she wrote and directed, White Wedding, that premiered at 2021’s Sundance Film Festival, and played in dozens of festivals around the world. Her directing and writing work comes off years of Producing film, television and commercial work. Some notable works include Borderline Films Antonio Campos, Sean Durkin, and Josh Mond’s works Christine; James White, Simon Killer, and Martha Marcy May Marlene. For these works she was nominated for two Independent Spirit awards including best first feature for James White, and Piaget Producer’s Award for Christine. Other cult favorites include Dean Fleischer-Camp’s Catherine, starring Jenny Slate, and Robin Comisar’s Great Choice. Melody hails from both New York City, and Richmond, Virginia where she now resides. She’s a graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.

In The Last Message, Kelsie Kimberlin travels to Ukraine to uncover why her 21-year-old cousin Andrii Rachok was killed by Russian forces during their full-scale invasion. Kelsie, a popular American-Ukrainian singer, struggles to record her song Star in his memory, realizing she must first seek absolution and witness Ukraine’s fight herself. Along the Ukrainian frontline, she meets soldiers, commanders, luminaries, and ordinary citizens enduring Russia’s unjust war, and visits Andrii’s gravesite amid drone and missile attacks. Through her journey, she discovers that Andrii has forgiven her and that every Ukrainian is a star and hero, defending their country with courage and resilience. We are joined my the subject of The Last Message Kelsie Kimberlin.

About the subject - Kelsie Kimberlin is a 27-year old singer-songwriter who has been involved with music her entire life, starting with children’s and church choirs and then recording her first song at age eight for Yoko Ono’s Peace Project, which won first prize and a $5000 award. She spent all of that money on music lessons and started recording her own music in the studio at age 12. Over the past several years, she has recorded more than 100 original songs.

About the filmmaker - Oleksii Mykhailovych Liebidiev is a Kyiv-based director, cinematographer, editor, and producer, and a graduate of the I. K. Karpenko-Karyi Kyiv National University of Theatre, Cinema and Television. Over more than a decade, he has built a body of work spanning documentary and narrative film, working alternately as director, cinematographer, or both. His documentary credits include Alchemy of the Word (2012), which he directed and shot, Krasna Malanka (2014), and Naive Painting of M. Onatsko (2017), both as director of photography. In fiction, he shot the shorts Cold Rain of Solitude (2018) and Stronger Than an Angel (2018), and the feature The Address on the Wall (2021). More recently, Liebidiev directed and served as director of photography on the documentary series Extraordinary Fascism (2022) and the feature documentary The Last Message (2025).

About the filmmaker - Andrii Voloshyn is a Ukrainian film director, producer and editor. He was born on July 27, 1980, in Chernivtsi, Ukraine. He began his professional career in audiovisual production as a production organizer and producer. A major stage in his professional development was his long-term collaboration with director and producer Serge Krutsenko. Working on concert, television, theatre and film projects, Voloshyn gradually moved from production into editing and directing. As an executive and line producer, he participated in cultural and film projects including the multimedia show The Little Prince for the ROSHEN fountain, projects of the Watch Ukrainian! initiative, the film anthology Everything Begins in Kyiv, the screen version of Yevhen Stankovych’s folk-opera When the Fern Blooms, the concert project Insha Rika by the band Druha Rika with NAONI, and the documentary film The Address on the Wall. He studied directing at the National Academy of Culture and Arts Management. At the beginning of 2022, Voloshyn joined the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation’s expert council in the field of audiovisual arts. After the beginning of Russia’s full scale invasion of Ukraine, he focused on documentary filmmaking. In 2022–2023, together with Oleksii Liebiediev, he worked on the documentary trilogy Extraordinary Fascism, examining contemporary Russian fascism, state propaganda and the ideological causes of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. In 2023, as director and executive producer, he created the music videos Armageddon, Another Chance To Live Again and Turn Back with American singer Kelsie Kimberlin, focusing on Russia’s war against Ukraine. In May 2024, shortly after moving to the United States, Voloshyn proposed developing Kimberlin’s story as a feature-length documentary. This became The Last Message, on which Voloshyn served as co-director, co-author of the concept and screenplay, and editor.

STALIN BOYS follows four Mexican American middle school boys in a tiny Texas border town who have developed an unusual obsession with Joseph Stalin. When their teacher tells them about the Texas State History Fair, they decide to write and perform a play about the Soviet dictator and his efforts to destroy all who opposed him. Armed with cardboard props and fur hats purchased on the internet, the boys enter the competition as underdogs and leave home for the very first time. What begins as an eccentric school project develops into a funny, surprising and deeply engaging exploration of power, tyranny, bullying, history, friendship, and the ways young people grapple with ideas much larger than themselves. Joining us on Cinemafile are the co-directors of Stalin Boys Bianca Giaever and Ora DeKornfeld.

*SXSW Audience Award Winner & SXSW Special Jury Award

About the filmmaker - Filmmaker and radio producer Bianca Inga is the creator and host of the podcast Constellation Prize, distributed by The Believer Magazine. She has also worked as a producer on The New York Times audio team, hosting episodes of The Daily that include Delilah, An Obituary for the Land, and Cosmic Questions. Her film, radio, and print stories have appeared on This American Life, Radiolab, The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Believer Magazine, and the TED conference. In 2013, her college short film the Scared is scared was named “Web Video of the Year” by USA Today. Her awards include a Daytime Emmy and a Webby Award and she is represented by m ssng p eces for commercial directing. Her latest project and upcoming film, Free Help, was profiled in The New York Times. She is currently a fellow at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University and an Associate Fellow at the Film Study Center at Harvard University. You can follow her latest on Instagram. Originally from Seattle, she is currently based in Cambridge, Massachusetts after having spent many years between Vermont and New York City.

About the filmmaker - Ora DeKornfeld is an Emmy Award-winning filmmaker who began her career as a video journalist at The New York Times. She now directs, shoots, and edits documentary films that resist easy answers — morally complicated, human-scaled, and often funny in the places you don't expect. DeKornfeld directed the Emmy-nominated short USA v SCOTT (Tribeca 2020, The New Yorker); STALIN BOYS (SXSW 2024), winner of both the Audience Award and Special Jury Prize; and THE GRANDFATHER PUZZLE (Full Frame 2026), winner of the Audience Award. She shot and edited Isabel Castro's MIJA (Sundance 2022) and was a co-editor on Elizabeth Lo's MISTRESS DISPELLER. She has directed multiple episodes of the Netflix Original Explained and is currently in production on her first feature film following journalistic fixers in Mexico.

When lightning ignites a firestorm in their redwood forest sanctuary in Northern California, longtime lovers and artists Beth Stephens & Annie Sprinkle are forced to evacuate. Their lives are forever changed as they blend loss and grief into ecosexual art by fusing humor, community care, and environmental awareness into a lush and fiery journey of transformation. Humorously narrated by a mythical white peacock, PLAYING WITH FIRE: AN ECOSEXUAL EMERGENCY documents their adventures in the wake of disaster, while also honoring the broader communities impacted by ecological and social fires. Said Stephens and Sprinkle, "Fire is one of our greatest teachers. It can destroy, but it can also illuminate a path forward. In these turbulent times, PLAYING WITH FIRE offers a sense of hope, eco-sensual pleasures and connection.”

ABout the filmmakers - PLAYING WITH FIRE is the third and final film in their trilogy of groundbreaking queer environmental documentaries. It started with Goodbye Gauley Mountain–An Ecosexual Love Story (2013), which critically investigated mountaintop removal coal mining (MTR) in West Virginia, focusing on the people and communities affected and the corporations employing this extraction technique. Their second film, Water Makes Us Wet-An Ecosexual Adventure (2017) - screening at MoMa in NYC this summer - explores the pleasures and politics of water, and its conservation, commodification, and sustainability.

Joining us on this edition of Cinemafile is Antoinetta Stallings, the Head of the MAXSCENE Division at Tyler Perry Studios, a new specialty division dedicated to expanding theatrical opportunities for filmmakers with distinctive voices. This new arm of Tyler Perry Studios will focus on creator-first and audience-focused projects that are unbound to any blueprint. Maxscene will develop, produce, and distribute films across various genres — giving storytellers the opportunity to build upon an established audience while forging one of their own.

The division is named in honor of Tyler Perry's mother, Maxine Perry, whose belief in her son shaped the studio he would go on to build, and now, the storytellers it intends to champion. Antoinetta Stallings, Head of Development & Acquisitions at Tyler Perry Studios, will oversee the Maxscene division. A studio veteran, Stallings previously served as VP of Unscripted Programming, where she launched and led the studio's joint venture with Pantheon Media Group — making Maxscene the second creative arm she has built at TPS from the ground up.

About the filmmaker - Antoinette (Hairston) Stallings - Antoinetta Stallings is an Emmy nominated producer and creative executive, currently serving as the Vice President of Development and Acquisitions at Tyler Perry Studios. Previously she held roles as producer and post producer on acclaimed projects with networks such as PBS, BET, Centric TV, ITV America, and A. Smith & Co. Productions. Stallings has built an impressive portfolio, starting as a producer for the Black Girls Rock Award show for BET. She went on to co-produce Crank That Vote, a project highlighting youth civic engagement, and served as supervising producer on the docu-series BEING on Centric. Notably, her short documentary The ATL Waterboyz received the Best Society Film award at the July 2023 Toronto Documentary Festival. She also served as Vice President of Unscripted at Tyler Perry Studios where she oversaw the end-to-end development and production of unscripted content. Other credits include Associate producer on TV series such as All the Queen’s Men, House of Payne, and Tyler Perry’s Assisted Living. Stallings was an Executive Producer on Sincerely, Love, a romantic dramedy, and a Creative Executive at Tyler Perry Studios for the film The Six Triple Eight, starring Kerry Washington.

As a brutal winter grips the Canadian wilderness and the fur trade begins its collapse, the isolated inhabitants of a remote trading outpost enlist Cole Franklin, an American mercenary haunted by his past, to investigate the silence that has fallen over a nearby Indigenous settlement. What he discovers is a scene of unimaginable terror and an overwhelming sense that something ancient and unnatural still lingers in the wilderness. As fear spreads back to Fort William, an unseen presence begins to take hold. Paranoia, hunger and violence consume the isolated community, driving neighbor against neighbor as reason gives way to madness. A haunting tale of isolation, folklore and psychological dread, Ithaqua, a gripping survival horror from director Casey Walker (The Void, In a Violent Nature), whose remarkable twelve-year journey to bring the film to the screen has become as compelling as the story itself. Starring Luke Hemsworth (Westworld, Land of Bad), Kevin Durand (The Naked Gun, Ready or Not 2: Here I Come), Craig Lauzon (Trickster, Beyblade), Leenah Robinson (Revival, 1923) and Michael Pitt (Day of the Fight, Ghost in the Shell).

About the filmmaker - As a novice director whose only prior credit was the short film The Morning After, Director, Producer and screenwriter Casey Walker initially had difficulty securing funding to make A Little Bit Zombie, and launched his own independent crowdfunding platform, My Million Dollar Movie, in 2006. The site attracted more than 200,000 hits and secured $20,000 in donations on its first day alone, and was ultimately successful in raising almost $2 million by the time the film entered production in 2011. The film subsequently won several awards from Canadian and international film festivals, most notably Best Feature Film at the 2012 Canadian Filmmakers Festival Both before and after making A Little Bit Zombie, he also worked in television directing episodes of Fool Canada, The Hardy Boys and Overlord and the Underwoods. He has also been a producer or executive producer of films such as The Void, Pyewacket, Die in a Gunfight and In a Violent Nature. His second and third feature films were both released in 2026, with Home Bodies premiering at the 30th Fantasia International Film Festival and Ithaqua, slated for FrightFest London.

SONGS OF SLOW BURNING EARTH was filmed during the first two years of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, documenting the lives of civilians, children and aid workers as war becomes part of everyday life. It’s an intimate and deeply human film about what it means to continue living, working and raising families amid circumstances that have changed the country forever. It captures a collective portrait of Ukrainians fleeing the grindstones of war, and those who stayed and are forced to adapt to life under constant shelling. Songs of Slow Burning Earth premiered at the Venice Film Festival and has since received awards in Latvia, Italy, Hungary, Germany, the Czech Republic and the United States. It was also nominated for Best European Documentary and Best European Film at the European Film Awards, as well as Best Director and Best Feature Documentary at the IDA Documentary Awards. Songs of Slow Burning Earth is distributed by EPF Media.

About the filmmaker -Olha Zhurba (she/her) is a Ukrainian filmmaker who studied at the Ukranian Film School. She has more than 10 years of experience in the audiovisual sector, first working as a director and an editor of commercials, music videos, and film trailers before moving to filmmaking. Her first short fiction film Dad’s Sneakers (2021) premiered in the shorts competition at Locarno Film Festival and shortly after won the Best Ukrainian Short and FIPRESCI awards at Odesa International Film Festival. It was also awarded the National Film Critics Award Kinokolo, Best European Film at Leuven Film Festival, and was a candidate for a nomination at the European Film Awards 2022. Outside (2022) is Olha’s first feature-length documentary which premiered at CPH:DOX and Hot Docs. She is also an editor of festival hits, such as award-winning documentary films This Rain Will Never Stop (2021) by Alina Gorlova and Home Games (2018) by Alisa Kovalenko.

About the filmmaker - In 2011, Darya Bassel (she/her) joined the team of Docudays UA International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival in Kyiv where she still works as a programmer and head of industry. Parallel to her work at the festival, she also works in film production. The first film she worked on as associate producer and festival agent was My Father is my Mother’s Brother, directed by Vadym Ilkov, which was coined the most innovative film in the International Competition at the 2018 Visions du Réel Awards. In 2019, she and Vika Khomenko launched the film production company, Moon Man. The company focuses on creative documentary and fiction films with a strong authorial director’s approach. In 2022, Moon Man’s first production, the documentary Outside, had its world premiere at CPH:DOX. Darya was also co-producer of the award-winning documentary A House Made of Splinters, directed by Simon Lereng Wilmont. She has served on juries at numerous festivals, including IDFA, Visions du Réel, Krakow IFF, One World. She was also invited by the Ukrainian film production company, TABOR, to co-produce Maksym Nakonechnyi’s debut feature, Butterfly Vision, which premiered in Cannes 2022, in the Un Certain Regard.

This Is Buzz is experimental and music-driven documentary, illustrating the tale of the seismically influential, yet somehow forgotten, MTV slice of life docuseries BUZZ, which only ran for 13 episodes in 1990. The show took an experimental approach to uncovering often undiscussed corners of global life. With fast-paced edits giving the show an avant-garde feel, the series would tackle specific subjects with each entry. This dream-like almost subliminal feel pre-dated the media oversaturation we feel today as we are drawn to a constant conveyor belt of content on platforms like TikTok and Instagram which act to familiarize us with cultures around the world. And on top of it all, RuPaul was the show’s host. From Mark Pellington (The Mothman Prophecies, I Melt With You).

From Alison Reid, the director of the critically acclaimed documentary about the late and beloved zoologist Anne Innis Dagg, The Woman Who Loves Giraffes, comes her latest feature documentary, THE ART OF ADVENTURE. An exhilarating road-trip film and a heartfelt love letter to the natural world, The Art of Adventure is an inspiring and deeply human documentary about the extraordinary lifelong friendship between world renowned wildlife artist Robert Bateman and fearless biologist Bristol Foster. Now in their 90’s, they still find sanctuary in nature. Their story is a moving reflection on legacy, mortality and the wisdom of our elders, and a reminder that humanity and nature are inseparable.

About the filmmaker - Director and Producer Alison Reid is an award-winning Canadian filmmaker known for stories of adventure and exploration of the human spirit. After a groundbreaking career as a stunt performer and one of North America’s first female stunt coordinators, she founded Free Spirit Films to pursue bold, character-driven storytelling. Her debut feature, the LGBTQ2+ comedy The Baby Formula, opened the Mannheim Heidelberg Film Festival in 2008 and screened world-wide. She went on to direct and produce the critically acclaimed feature documentary The Woman Who Loves Giraffes, which won multiple Best Film and Audience Awards and enjoyed a wide theatrical release across Canada and the United States. With positive reviews by The New York Times, The Washington Post, LA Times, Variety and The Wrap, the film holds a 100% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and continues to resonate with audiences worldwide. Continuing her work spotlighting iconic, inspirational people, Alison’s new feature documentary The Art of Adventure celebrates a transformative 1957 journey by wildlife artist Robert Bateman and biologist Bristol Foster. Early on the festival circuit, the film won multiple awards, finding enthusiastic audiences. When not making films, Alison enjoys directing television.

Sofia works as a location scout for a TV pilot filming in New York City. It’s her job to find the homes, businesses, and exteriors where the show will be filmed. Driving around the city's different neighborhoods, she enters the private spaces of strangers to photograph their cozy apartments and eclectic shops, stepping into the fabric of their lives while trying to satisfy the demands of her erratic employers. Over a day filled with these encounters, Sofia witnesses moments of curiosity, vulnerability, and quiet tension until her work takes a sudden, personal turn. Drawing from her own experience as a location scout, writer-director Paula González-Nasser captures the poetry and costs of being a young creative. Her celebrated directorial debut The Scout crafts a contemplative exploration of urban disconnection, following one woman's journey through other people's worlds as she struggles to find her own.

About the filmmaker - Director & Writer Paula González-Nasser (she/her) is a Colombian filmmaker currently residing in Brooklyn, New York. In 2016, she and Ryan Martin Brown co-founded 5th Floor as a film collective after graduating together from the film program at Florida State University. Paula's feature directorial debut, THE SCOUT, had its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival. In 2025, Paula was named one of 25 new faces in independent film by Filmmaker Magazine. She has also produced films like Melina Valdez’s WEAPONS AND THEIR NAMES, which premiered at Sundance 2023, and Ryan Martin Brown’s FREE TIME, which received three nominations at the inaugural Slamdance Indie Awards. She is a two-time Gotham Film Week participant and a 2023 Sundance Producers Intensive Fellow. Previously, Paula worked as a location scout on many New York films and TV shows such as HIGH MAINTENANCE, RUSSIAN DOLL, SEARCH PARTY, NEVER RARELY SOMETIMES ALWAYS, and more.

Director Felipe Bustos Sierra's award winning documentary, Everybody to Kenmure Street, is set in motion by a remarkable series of events on a May 2021 morning in Glasgow, Scotland. A U.K. Home Office raid grabbed two Pakistani immigrants from their homes, locked them in a van, and triggered one of the most successful acts of civil resistance in recent memory. In Pollokshields, Scotland's most diverse neighborhood, residents rushed to the street to stop the deportation of their neighbors. And everybody, it seems, filmed it on their phones. Featuring Emma Thompson, also an Executive Producer of the film, this urgent documentary captures the amazing story of ordinary citizens spontaneously gathering and successfully resisting a hostile immigration raid. Director Felipe Bustos Sierra joins us to talk about the making of this engaging and thought provoking film.

About the filmmaker - Felipe Bustos Sierra is a Chilean-Belgian filmmaker based in Scotland with Debasers Filums. His debut feature-length documentary, Nae Pasaran (2018), won the Best Feature award at the 2018 BAFTA Scotland Awards. Bustos Sierra is an alumnus of the Eurodoc, Berlinale Talent Campus, the Independent Filmmaker Programme, and the EIFF Talent Lab. Everybody to Kenmure Street is his second feature.

POWWOW PEOPLE is a vérité-style documentary grounded in the rhythms, relationships, and lived experience of contemporary Native powwow culture. Told through the lens of artist and filmmaker Sky Hopinka (Ho-Chunk/Pechanga), the film is an intimate portrait of a powwow organized, hosted and documented through the production of this film. Rather than entering as outside observers, the filmmakers organized the powwow itself, inviting dancers, singers, vendors, and community members to participate in the making of the film.

About the filmmaker - Director/Producer Sky Hopinka (Ho-Chunk Nation/Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians) is a filmmaker and artist whose work explores Indigenous homeland, language, and cultural continuity through experimental and nonfiction media. His films have screened at Sundance, Toronto International Film Festival, and the New York Film Festival, among others. Hopinka’s work has been featured in the Whitney Biennial and the Centre Pompidou. He is a 2022 MacArthur Fellow and a past recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, Radcliffe Institute, and Sundance Institute.

As Omaha is shaken by protests and a death that becomes a movement flashpoint, filmmaker Nick Beaulieu navigates family conflict, personal reckoning, and the lived realities of racial justice activists. What begins as an investigation into division becomes an intimate exploration of what it takes to stay connected when our deepest beliefs pull us apart. Director and subject Nick Beaulieu joins to talk about his personal decision to begin documentary about the widening gap between he and is dad, what he has learned about his father and why it should matter to all of us in these uncertain times.

Screening on PBS Independent Lens beginning on October 5

About the filmmaker - Nick Beaulieu is a writer and filmmaker based in NYC. His feature debut My Omaha premiered at the Slamdance Film Festival in 2025. Previously, he was a contributing writer on The Las Tear and produced short films for the PBS series American Portrait. He also works as a marketing consultant for filmmakers, film festivals, and distributors.’

About the filmmaker -Doug Block is an award-winning filmmaker based in NYC. He’s best known for his personal documentaries, which include The Kids Grow Up, 112 Weddings, and 51 Birch Street. His producing credits include: Silverlake Life and Jupiter’s Wife, among others. He is also the founder of The D-Word, a free online community of documentary professionals.

A guard vanished on his first night at an old psych hospital in 2023. His bodycam footage shows unexplainable incidents that continue to baffle investigators. We're joined by the director and co-producer Nicholas Pineda

About the filmmaker - Nicholas Pineda is a filmmaker and creative director who earned his BFA from Laguna College of Art and Design and his MFA from the USC School of Cinematic Arts. He is the co-founder and managing partner of the creative agency Dotexe, where he has led high-impact collaborations with major brands and digital creators. His work blends cinematic storytelling with a sharp, contemporary visual sensibility.

A team of young doctors embarks on a humanitarian mission to the Amazon rainforest, full of enthusiasm to help those in need, but each of them with their own agenda. However, not everyone reacts kindly to their arrival, and their visit awakens an ancient predator: the Boiúna. This mythical creature, which hunts both on land and in water, returns to defend its territory. In the midst of the dense jungle, a merciless struggle for survival ensues, in which the boundaries between hunter and prey, hero and villain, become increasingly blurred. Director Mike P. Nelson joins us to talk about his thrilling new film , Beware Boiuna.

TRACES OF HOME follows filmmaker Colette Ghunim on an extraordinary journey of self-discovery as she sets out to reunite her parents with the ancestral homes they were forced to flee as children in Palestine and Mexico. Filmed over five years and featuring evocative animation and archival footage, the film is both a meditation on memory and an unflinching exploration of what it means to find our way back home—to ourselves. Colette and her brother Ramsey had a typical American childhood. Raised in suburban Schaumburg, Illinois, there were birthday parties, school events, and family outings. Her father, Hosni, and mother, Iza were determined to give their children a happy life. But as a child, Colette always felt disconnected from her culture and her parents. Immigrants forced to flee Palestine and Mexico as children, her parents’ only desire was to make a life that was simple, safe, and American, but they couldn’t escape the unspoken divide that separated them as a family. Now, decades later, filmmaker Colette Ghunim takes us on an extraordinary journey of self-discovery: a quest to bridge that gap, find her parents’ childhood homes, and confront the pain of the past to heal their family.

About the filmmaker - As a documentary filmmaker and nonprofit co-founder, Colette Ghunim’s soul purpose is to use the power of film and storytelling for those oppressed around the world to be seen, to be heard, and to heal. Her first documentary, The People’s Girls (2016), received over 2 million views and won Best Short Documentary at the Arab Film Festival for its bold spotlight on street harassment in Egypt. In co-production with Kartemquin Films and funded by Latino Public Broadcasting, she is directing Traces of Home, her first feature-length film documenting her inner quest to find home through unearthing her parent’s forced migrations from Mexico and Palestine. Colette is also the co-founder of Mezcla Media Collective, a nonprofit organization aimed to cultivate a Traces of Home follows filmmaker Colette Ghunim thriving landscape for over 700 women and non-binary filmmakers of color in Chicago. Her work has been highlighted on international outlets such as Huffington Post, Al Jazeera, Univision, and TEDx. Colette was selected as a 2023 Obama Foundation USA Leader, 2024 Sundance Institute x ISF Fellow, and was featured on Arab America’s “30 Under 30” list.

IVY, 17, is a cancer survivor, in remission. Once one of the popular girls at school, she’s now angry and withdrawn, riddled with survivor’s guilt. She hates pity and she definitely doesn’t want to be a Make-A-Wish kid. Her parents are worried and convince her to go to CRF Camp, or Children Run Free Camp, a four week long summer camp for teenagers affected by cancer to help her “find herself”. When she reluctantly agrees to go to this ‘Chemo Camp’, after seeing the impact her illness has had on her family, she discovers that it really is as disappointing as she thought; a faded, washed out, activity camp which is quite frankly not where a teenage girl wants to spend her final summer before she turns 18. Director, writer and producer George Jacques joins us to talk about his second feature film, Sunny Dancer.

About the filmmaker - Writer, Director & Producer George Jaques S is a 25-year-old director, actor, writer and producer from South London. At 16, he founded his production company, Athenaeum Productions. George’s debut feature film BLACK DOG World Premiered at the BFI London Film Festival and was nominated for the ‘Best First Feature’ award. It was executive produced by Oscar Winning David Parfitt (The Father) and was also showcased as part of the Great8 competition at Cannes Film Festival. BLACK DOG released onto Apple/Amazon with a limited number of theatrical screenings. It won two awards at Riviera International Film Festival (Best Film and Best Actor) as well as being featured in Vogue. Prior to this, George directed and wrote a number of short films which caught the attention of Sony, Sky and Warner Brothers as well as several sell-out theatre shows including a show at The National. In 2022, George was also the winner of the Breakthrough Filmmaker Award at the inaugural Soho House Awards. He has also just directed a commercial starring Dermot Crowley (Luther) and Sarah Greene (Bad Sisters) for BAFTA winning agency Don’t Panic. As an actor, George starred opposite Jude Law in HBO/Marc Munden’s 12 Hour Epic THE THIRD DAY: AUTUMN, played Francis II in Justin Haythe Lionsgate’s series THE SERPENT QUEEN opposite Samantha Morton, and a lead in Sky/Nick Love’s gangster show A TOWN CALLED MALICE. More recently he Executive Produced and played the lead in Emmy Nominated director Huse Monfaradi’s film ONE PUNCH. George’s sophomore feature film (SUNNY DANCER) as a director, writer and producer opened Berlin International Film Festival as one of the opening night films. It stars Emmy nominee Bella Ramsey (The Last of Us), Ruby Stokes (Rocks), Earl Cave (The Sweet East), BAFTA nominee James Norton (Happy Valley), Golden Globe winner Jessica Gunning (Baby Reindeer) and five-time Emmy winner Neil Patrick Harris (A Series of Unfortunate Events).

Bolivia’s entry for the 2027 Academy Award for Best International Feature Film, THE CONDOR DAUGHTER, tells the story of Clara, a teenager growing up in a small indigenous community high in the Andes. Her adoptive mother, a midwife who took her in as a baby, has taught her the ancient songs used to guide women through childbirth, melodies passed down for generations, believed to bring new life safely into the world. But while her voice carries on this tradition, her dreams lie elsewhere: she longs to leave the mountains behind and become a folkloric music star in the big city. Director, writer and co-editor Alvaro Olmos Torrico joins us for a lively conversation on his latest work.

About the filmmaker - Álvaro Olmos Torrico was born in Cochabamba, Bolivia. His debut feature, “Wiñay” (2019), was among the first Bolivian films to be released globally via Amazon Prime. He has produced both documentaries and fiction features, including “The Ones from Below” by Alejandro Quiroga (Mar del Plata IFF, 2022) and “The Visitor” by Martín Boulocq (Tribeca, 2022). He is the founder of BoliviaCine.com, the first SVOD platform dedicated to Bolivian cinema, and has taught at the Bolivian Private University and the Andean School of Cinematography. “The Condor Daughter” is his second feature film and was awarded in the Work in Progress sections of Ventana Sur and Cinélatino Toulouse during its development.

A global race to develop a new male contraceptive that could revolutionize family planning and improve women’s lives globally. Give It A Shot follows the indomitable 83-year-old Dr. Sujoy Guha in India, the California-based team of Elaine Lissner and L.R. Fox, as well as Kevin Eisenfrats in Virginia, on a quest to successfully launch the first reversible male contraceptive since the modern condom, invented 200 years ago.It is a funny, moving and ultimately urgent film. This film is a timely, intimate and character driven story of the quest to successfully launch the next reversible birth control for men. According to the Guttmacher Institute, there are currently only three methods for men — condoms, vasectomy, and the “pull out” method — compared with at least 15 options for women. This advancement could revolutionize family planning and profoundly impact gender equity. GIVE IT A SHOT provides a window into this high-stakes scientific and social experiment, from the roster of scientists and developers to the implications on society at large.

About the filmmaker - Vaishali Sinha (Director/Producer) is an award-winning filmmaker, producer, and director of the feature documentaries Made in India (PBS) and Ask the Sexpert (PBS, Netflix). Her work has earned numerous honors, including the Critics Choice Award in India, a Grierson nomination for Best Entertaining Film, and a Ridenhour Peace Prize nomination for Excellence in Truth-Telling. Made in India became a case study at Harvard Business School in a course on ethics, while Ask the Sexpert achieved wide distribution across major platforms, including Netflix India. Vaishali was also a development consultant for the Academy Award–winning short documentary Period. End. Of. Sentence. and is currently on the producing team for multiple projects. She is a Fellow at the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center and co-founder of Bitchitra Collective: Indian Women in Documentary, a peer-driven support network. She has mentored emerging filmmakers at Firelight Media Doc Lab, Kartemquin Film’s Diverse Voices in Docs, BAVC, and the Video Consortium. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Physics from St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai, and a diploma in 16mm film production from The New School, New York. Vaishali lives in Brooklyn with her husband and their child.

Every year, the top under-18 braille readers and writers from across the English-speaking world gather in Los Angeles to compete in the Braille Challenge. For one weekend, blind and low-vision kids are no longer the minority in the room. They're competing, forming friendships, going head-to-head against rivals, and being recognized not for their disability, but for their skill. In the captivating documentary film, BRAILLED IT, the camera is placed directly in their hands. As the kids document the competition themselves, their fragmented imagery and candid moments of nerves, boredom, joy, and triumph invite audiences to experience the event on their terms. Designed with audio description and accessibility at its core–not as an afterthought but as a fundamental creative tool–the film shifts authorship and perspective to the community on screen, revealing a world defined not by limitation, but by mastery, ambition, and the transformative power of literacy. Co-director David Grabias joins us to talk about this raucous and heartwarming film about a group of young people who want to be seen and heard.

BRAILLED IT will open in select theaters nationwide beginning September 2026, with additional markets and community screenings to follow. Live brailling demonstrations, where audiences can have their name or short phrase brailled for them, will be held at many screenings, along with same-day filmmaking workshops for blind/low-vision youth. Screening dates and information can be found at brailledit.com.

About the filmmakers - Suncatcher Productions is a women and disabled-led boutique film distribution company that amplifies intentional, representative stories to awaken audiences. Suncatcher specializes in theatrical distribution and prioritizes films about women, people with disabilities, and the environment. Since 2023, Suncatcher has led the theatrical release for thirteen feature films, including To Kill A Tiger, an Academy Award® nominee for Best Documentary Feature, and Slamdance winner Good Bad Things, a disability-themed rom-com that Suncatcher sold to Hulu and Music Box Films.

YOU HAD TO BE THERE is a hilarious, emotional, and revelatory documentary about the legendary 1972 Canadian production of Godspell that changed entertainment forever. The Toronto production of the musical about the life of Jesus starred a then-unknown cast of Martin Short, Eugene Levy, Gilda Radner, Victor Garber, Andrea Martin, Dave Thomas, et al, with Paul Shaffer serving as musical director – a crazy confluence of talent rivaling ‘Paris in the 20s.’ The production lit the spark that ignited the comedy revolution that followed, leading to Saturday Night Live, SCTV, and a host of movies and TV shows all the way up to Schitts’ Creek and Only Murders in the Building. The film features interviews with all the surviving members of the cast, plus Lin-Manuel Miranda, Mike Myers, and other show business luminaries who testify to the production’s profound and lasting influence. YOU HAD TO BE THERE is a hilarious, emotional, and revelatory documentary about the legendary 1972 Canadian production of Godspell that changed entertainment forever. The Toronto production of the musical about the life of Jesus starred a then-unknown cast of Martin Short, Eugene Levy, Gilda Radner, Victor Garber, Andrea Martin, Dave Thomas, et al, with Paul Shaffer serving as musical director – a crazy confluence of talent rivaling ‘Paris in the 20s.’ The production lit the spark that ignited the comedy revolution that followed, leading to Saturday Night Live, SCTV, and a host of movies and TV shows all the way up to Schitts’ Creek and Only Murders in the Building. The film features interviews with all the surviving members of the cast, plus Lin-Manuel Miranda, Mike Myers, and other show business luminaries who testify to the production’s profound and lasting influence.

About the filmmaker - Nick Davis is a filmmaker and writer. Most recently he directed and produced YOU HAD TO BE THERE, a documentary about the 1972 Toronto production of Godspell. His film TED WILLIAMS: “THE GREATEST HITTER WHO EVER LIVED,” aired in 2018 on PBS’ American Masters series. Among his other films are BLOOD, SWEAT + GEARS, a documentary about a cycling team devoted to riding clean, JACK: THE LAST KENNEDY FILM, an Emmy-Award winning portrait of John F. Kennedy, which Davis directed for CBS. He performed with Gotham City Improv and You And What Army, and graduated from Harvard, where he was a founding member of the improv group On Thin Ice. He and Jane Mendelsohn recently formed Series of Dreams, whose current film is THIS ORDINARY THING, a film about non-Jews who helped Jews during the Holocaust. Featuring the voices of Helen Mirren, Jeremy Irons, Stephen Fry, Carrie Coon, and F. Murray Abraham among others, the film was nominated for a Cinema For Peace Dove Award and is currently streaming on iTunes, Amazon Prime, and other major streamers.

You Con’t be Neutral on a Moving Train looks at the amazing life of the renowned historian, activist and author, Howard Zinn. Following his early days as a shipyard labor organizer and bombardier in World War II, Zinn became an academic rebel and leader of civil disobedience in a time of institutionalized racism and war. His influential writings shine light on and bring voice to factory workers, immigrant laborers, African Americans, Native Americans and the working poor. Featuring rare archival materials and interviews with Zinn and colleagues such as Noam Chomsky, You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train captures the essence of this extraordinary man who has been a catalyst for progressive change for more than 60 years. Narrated by Matt Damon • Featuring music by Pearl Jam, Woody Guthrie & Billy Bragg. Now available on https://www.ovid.tv

About the filmmaker - Deb Ellis is a documentary filmmaker whose work includes the Academy Award short-listed film, HOWARD ZINN: YOU CAN’T BE NEUTRAL ON A MOVING TRAIN. This film was released theatrically on over 100 screens across the country, has had several multi-year broadcast contracts, and is still actively distributed on DVD and streaming video by First Run Features. Deb is currently finishing a film about Iraq and Afghan War veterans AWOL in Canada, PEACE HAS NO BORDERS. Deb is Associate Professor in the Film and Television Studies Program at the University of Vermont.

About the filmmaker - Director Denis Mueller has been making films for 30 years. HOWARD ZINN: YOU CAN’T BE NEUTRAL ON A MOVING TRAIN was broadcast on the Sundance Channel, Link TV, and Free Speech Television. It was short-listed for an Academy Award nomination in 2005 and has recently been showed on Vermont PBS and the Savoy Theatre. Denis’ various films have been released on DVD and have also seen theatrical distribution.Beginning with the award-winning, FBI’S WAR ON BLACK AMERICA, which was co-produced and co-directed with Deb Ellis, he has charted the abuses by the FBI and other government agencies for over 20 years and has built an audience surrounding the subject throughout the years. Denis recently completed PEACE HAS NO BORDERS with collaborator Deb Ellis. He also was the co-director of the film, NELSON ALGREN: THE END IS NOTHING, THE ROAD IS ALL which recently was broadcast on Vermont Public Television, WTTW PBS and presented at The American Documentary Festival. His new film PEACE HAS NO BORDERS received an audience award at the Vermont Film Festival.

Co-directors Barbara Miller and Philip Delaquis WISDOM OF HAPPINESS shows us a timeless truth: happiness is still possible, even in the midst of chaos and uncertainty. This powerful message of hope is delivered as a personal audience with one of the greatest living thinkers, Nobel Peace Prize winner, Tenzin Gyatso, known to billions around the world as the Dalai Lama. Speaking as a member of our single global community, he shares practical wisdom for finding peace, compassion, and hope in the midst of chaos. With disarming clarity and deep humanity, he invites us to imagine — and help create — a world where compassion is activated as our strongest force for change, and happiness is within reach for everyone. Co-director Barbara Miller (War Photographer, Domestic Violence) to talk about meeting the Dalai Lama in 1982, sitting down with one of the world’s greatest living thinkers the and 14th Dalai Lama for an on-camera interview, capturing the hardships that he and the people of Tibet have endured and working with Executive Producer Richard Gere.

Director Valerie Veatch navigates the torrential rapids of artificial intelligence with this mind-expanding investigative essay documentary that excavates the philosophical, cultural and political forces driving the global AI boom. Ghost in the Machine approaches ubiquitous questions like “What is AI?”, “Who is building it?”, and “What will humans become?” by exploring how emerging technologies have historically reshaped identity, culture and global power — while also exposing the current fronts of human exploitation without which AI would not function. Premiering at Sundance, Ghost in the Machine is a burningly urgent self-funded documentary treatise connecting the historic and on-going links between AI and eugenics. It pulls on nearly forty Zoom interviews with historians, scholars, computer scientists, and human rights activists, which are collaged together with archival clips. The film draws a fat sharpie marker line across time to make the lineages clear. The film slaps key conceptual post-it notes on the wall, such as how the term “Artificial Intelligence” was concocted as a marketing term to raise research funds. The concept of intelligence and the field of statistics were constructed to justify white supremacy. And the current promises of super-intelligence are merely pseudoscience drawing on those legacies of hype and racism. Valerie Veatch joins us for a spirited conversation.

About the filmmaker - Hailing from London by way of New York by way of Seattle, Valerie Veatch is an acclaimed independent documentary filmmaker. Veatch is a writer, director, and producer of documentaries "Me @ The Zoo" (HBO), "Love Child" (HBO). Veatch is a graduate of the New School for Social Research with a degree in Culture and Media Studies. Her award-winning work deals with the intersection of technology and society. Her latest film is the documentary Ghost in the Machine, which premiered at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival.

In 1989, Julie Thayer, a wealthy mother from New York City, went to the Swiss Alps to have her ego destroyed. The man she chose for the job was U.G. Krishnamurti, a radical Indian anti-guru who refused followers, refused donations, and told everyone who came to him to go away. Julie stayed — and filmed everything. The Natural State is built from that archive, hundreds of hours unseen for decades, and from the private journals Julie kept as U.G.'s psychological "blasting" carried her from states of ecstasy to the brink of devastation. The film's executive producers, Jane Campion and legendary Indian filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt, both knew U.G. personally. Bhatt spent decades at his side and wrote his biography; Campion modeled Top of the Lake's guru GJ — Holly Hunter's enigmatic mystic — on her late friend. Director and co-editor of The Natural State Matthew Dougherty joins us in conversation.

About the filmmaker - Matthew Dougherty is an award-winning filmmaker, editor, and IDA-nominated composer based in New York's Catskill Mountains. His composition work includes the IDA-nominated score for the 2025 SXSW Grand Jury Prize-winner Shuffle; the HBO documentary Lil Nas X: Long Live Montero; and Sundance premieres Kim's Video, Mardi Gras: Made in China, and Girl Model. After more than a decade of development, The Natural State is his directorial debut.

About the filmmaker - Executive Producer Jane Campion is an Academy Award and Palme d'Or winning director, writer and producer. Her films and TV series include Power of the Dog, The Piano and Top of the Lake. Jane knew U.G. personally and the character G.J. played by Holly Hunter - in her TV series Top of the Lake is based on him. Jane is actively involved as a creative advisor on The Natural State.

About the filmmaker - Executive Producer Mahesh Bhatt is a five-time National Film Award winning director, writer and producer, and one of the most influential figures in Hindi cinema. His films include Arth, Saaransh and Zakhm. Mahesh knew U.G. intimately for over thirty years and has written three books about him, including the best-selling biography U.G. Krishnamurti: A Life.

Sara Flores, a visionary practitioner of kené—the design system of the Shipibo People—spent a lifetime with little recognition before finding herself, in her seventies, suddenly embraced by the global contemporary art world. As gallery invitations, a Dior collaboration, and international travel transform her family's fortunes, Sara struggles to reconcile her simple lifeway with the excesses of the West. When her body begins to fail, medical tests offer no clear answers, and an ayahuasca ceremony reveals a spiritual cause tied to both the evil eye of a neighbor and the Amazon's environmental crisis. On the day of her 75th birthday, Sara opens up in a stream of thought to her pet monkey, expressing a new awareness of her mortality. It's a political awakening that leads her to join a group of young land defenders fighting to reclaim Shipibo ancestral territory. After a trip to the United Nations in New York alongside the group's leader, Sara comes up with an idea on how to turn her art into activism. She decides to use the commission for her first museum exhibition in Lima to address the Peruvian state and begin a new body of work centered on the dream of Indigenous sovereignty: a flag for her Indigenous Nation. Directors Matteo Norzi and Èlia Gasull Balada join us in conversation about the gorgeous film.

About the filmmakers - Èlia Gasull Balada is a NAACP Image Award-nominated filmmaker. In 2021, she was listed in the DOC NYC 40 under 40 list, and in 2023 she was selected to be part of the Berlinale Talents. Èlia has extensively worked as an editor and writer for documentaries and narrative films. Films include THE REBELLIOUS LIFE OF MRS. ROSA PARKS (Tribeca 2022), which won a Peabody Award and a Gracie Award, and received a Television Academy Honor. The Emmy and Peabody nominee THE SIT-IN: HARRY BELAFONTE HOSTS THE TONIGHT SHOW (Tribeca 2021) and the Emmy and Grammy nominee THE KING (Cannes 2017). On the narrative side, she edited SON OF MONARCHS, winner of the Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival and worked on ICAROS: A VISION, which premiered at the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival. More recent credits include SONS OF DETROIT (DOC NYC 2025) and NUMBER ONE ON THE CALL SHEET (Apple TV 2025).

About the filmmaker - Matteo Norzi is an artist, writer, filmmaker, and Indigenous rights activist, born in Italy, and based in New York. His acclaimed directorial debut, the feature film ICAROS: A VISION, marked his first major collaboration with the Shipibo People and premiered in competition at the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival. With years of firsthand experience and in-depth research on Amazonian cultures, he is the co-founder and executive director of The Shipibo-Conibo Center, the nonprofit organization that has brought to international recognition artists such as Sara Flores and Celia Vásquez Yui and that acts as the cultural advisor for this film.

THE OLDEST PERSON IN THE WORLD is a decade-long odyssey chronicling the ever-changing record holders of the title of oldest person alive. As the title inevitably passes from one supercentenarian to the next, acclaimed filmmaker Sam Green traverses the globe to meet each new record holder, his personal fascination with what the title means becoming entangled with events and milestones in his own life. What begins as a portrait of longevity becomes a poignant meditation on the passage of time, the randomness of fate and the joy and profound human experience of being alive. Green encapsulates what it means and feels like to witness history through a single, extraordinary life while reflecting on the fleeting nature of our own, and the ones we love.

About the filmmaker - Director Sam Green is a New York-based documentary filmmaker. THE OLDEST PERSON IN THE WORLD marked his seventh feature documentary at the Sundance Film Festival. His previous film, 32 SOUNDS (2025 Oscar Shortlist; Best Documentary, Cinema Eye Honors), played opening night of both the 2022 Sundance and SXSW festivals. Along with 32 SOUNDS (with JD Samson), Sam’s other recent “live documentaries” include A THOUSAND THOUGHTS (with the Kronos Quartet, 2018), THE MEASURE OF ALL THINGS (2014), THE LOVE SONG OF R. BUCKMINSTER FULLER (with Yo La Tengo, 2012), and UTOPIA IN FOUR MOVEMENTS (2010). With all of these works, he narrates the film in-person while musicians perform a live soundtrack. Sam’s 2004 feature-length film, THE WEATHER UNDERGROUND, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, was nominated for an Academy Award and was included in the Whitney Biennial. He is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

BLACK ZOMBIE digs beneath the blood-soaked spectacle of modern horror to uncover the zombie’s buried and unsettling origins. Long before it became associated with flesh-eating ghouls, the zombie was a living metaphor for slavery: not a monster, but the ultimate victim of colonial power. A symbol of stolen agency was recast as an object of fear, while Black spiritual traditions were distorted, sensationalized, and erased. Director Maya Annik Bedward traces the evolution of the zombie from colonial Haiti to contemporary Hollywood, reconsidering iconic films like WHITE ZOMBIE, NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, and THE SERPENT AND THE RAINBOW alongside archival footage, vérité scenes, and interviews with cultural historians, artists, and genre legends including Yves-Grégory Francois, Mambo Labelle Déesse, Slash, Tom Savini, and Zandashé Brown. Part cultural reckoning, part horror remix, BLACK ZOMBIE exposes how a figure born from enslavement, spiritual belief, and resistance was transformed into one of pop culture’s most profitable monsters. Director Maya Annik Bedward joins us for an entertaining and informative converation.

BLACK ZOMBIE will open in select theaters on September 11th starting in New York at Quad Cinemas and in Los Angeles at Laemmle's Nuart Theatre with national rollout to follow, courtesy of Kino Lorber.

About the filmmaker - Maya Annik Bedward is an Afro-Caribbean-Canadian film director whose work blends history, resistance, and pop culture through bold, genre-bending storytelling. Her work has screened at TIFF, Hot Docs, BlackStar, and the New Orleans Film Festival. Her credits include the short films The Haircut (2018) and Why We Fight (2021), as well as the TV series LIDO TV (2022) and BLK: An Origin Story (2022). She is a founding member of the Black Screen Office, championing stories that center Black creativity and power.

UPS is the world’s largest package delivery company, moving millions of packages across 200 countries and territories every day. With their 2023 contract set to expire, the Teamsters mount increasing pressure on UPS to improve working conditions or face 340,000 workers walking off the job and grinding the global supply chains to a halt. WHO MOVES AMERICA joins UPS workers across the United States—a budding UPS driver in California, a veteran of the 1997 strike in New York, a part-time warehouse worker juggling college and multiple jobs in Kentucky, and their co-workers—as they organize, vote, and navigate the challenges of solidarity before their contract expires. On the heels of a tentative agreement, they debate whether they should accept the new contract proposal or vote it down and go on strike. From their position as the largest collective bargaining agreement in all of North America and their vital role in the economy, their decisions will have lasting implications.

About the filmmaker - Yael Bridge is an Emmy-nominated filmmaker. Her first feature documentary, The Big Scary "S" Word, traces the history and resurgence of socialism in the U.S. and premiered at Hot Docs and sold to Hulu. Her second feature, Who Moves America, was funded by ITVS and is premiering at the True/False Film Fest 2026. She produced Classroom 4, which was nominated for a Critics' Choice Award, shortlisted for an Academy Award, and broadcast on POV. She also produced Left on Purpose, winner of the Audience Award at DOC NYC, and Saving Capitalism, a Netflix Original, starring former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, which was nominated for an Emmy Award. As Director of Productions at Inequality Media, she created viral videos unpacking complex political issues that gained over 200 million views on social media. Yael was included in DOCNYC's 40 Under 40 list and was President of the Documentary Producers Alliance, where she now sits on the board. She holds an MFA in Documentary Film and Video from Stanford University and an MA in Media Studies from the New School.

A gripping and emotional drama filmed and set in the West Bank of Palestine, THE TEACHER, the debut feature from Oscar-nominated director Farah Nabulsi. The film stars renowned Palestinian actor Saleh Bakri (The Band's Visit) — who Farah dubs "the Daniel Day-Lewis of the Arab world" — and the acclaimed British actress Imogen Poots ("Outer Range", The Father, Green Room). Inspired by true events and having won over 18 International Film Festival Awards, THE TEACHER follows Palestinian schoolteacher Basem (Saleh Bakri) faces personal turmoil after a tragic incident involving his son. He finds solace in a deep bond with his student Adam and British social worker Lisa (Imogen Poots). Meanwhile, an American attorney and his wife push for the return of their son, an Israeli soldier held by a Palestinian resistance group, leading to tensions over a potential prisoner exchange. The intertwining stories highlight themes of empathy and conflict, culminating in a powerful narrative marked by unexpected twists. Director, Screenwriter and Executive Producer Farah Nabulsi (Today They Took My Son) joins us to talk about how the short she did with lead actor Saleh Bakri morphed into The Teacher, Working with Imogen Poots and Muhammad Abed El Rahman and the significance of releasing The Teacher in this fraught political environment.

About the filmmaker - Farah Nabulsi is an Academy Award-nominated and BAFTA-winning Palestinian-British filmmaker and human rights advocate. She is the daughter of Palestinians who were fortunate enough to make a home in 1970's Britain — unlike the millions who continue to remain stateless in refugee camps. Born, raised and educated in London, Farah began her career as an institutional equity stockbroker. She ended up with a CFA designation at JP Morgan Chase before moving on to build a children-focused business that she ran for 10 years. Since 2016, she has been writing and producing fiction films inspired by socially relevant themes. Her first short film, Today They Took My Son, was endorsed by British director Ken Loach and screened at the United Nations. The Present, her directorial debut, which she also co-wrote and produced, premiered at Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival in 2020 and won the coveted Audience Award for Best Film. It went on to win over 60 International Film Festival Jury and Audience Awards, a BAFTA award, and it scored an Academy Award nomination. The Present was licensed internationally including to Canal+ and Netflix Worldwide. The Teacher, Farah’s directorial feature-length debut, had its World Premiere at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival. It had its MENA Premiere at the Red Sea International Film Festival in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where it took home the Best Actor award and the main Jury Prize (the jury was headed by director Baz Lurhmann). The film stars renowned Palestinian actor Saleh Bakri and British actress Imogen Poots and has won over 15 International Film Festival Awards. Farah has been invited to serve as a jury member at numerous festivals and as a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Sundance Award winning comedy, The Incomer is a modern folk fairy tale set on a remote Scottish island, where two siblings survive by hunting seabirds, retelling the stories of their ancestors, and defending the isle from dreaded Incomers'. Their world is upended with the arrival of an awkward council worker who has come to uproot them from their homeland on behalf of the government. Director Louis Paxton joins us for a lively conversation the making of his beautiful and heartwarming film.

About the filmmaker - Louis Paxton is a writer and director from Edinburgh, Scotland. After studying at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, he completed an MA in Directing at the National Film and Television School in London. His award-winning short films-spanning comedy, drama, horror, and musical-have screened at festivals including Flickerfest, Glasgow Short Film Festival, LOCO Film Festival, and London Short Film Festival. His debut TV project, the sci-fi comedy The Spare Room, was selected for the BAFTA Rocliffe Drama Forum. In 2021, Louis directed the BBC Three comedy-drama Ladybaby, which was nominated for Best Comedy at the Broadcast Awards. In 2022, he received a BAFTA Scotland nomination for his short film Neville Is Dead, and was also nominated for Best Director at the New Voice Awards. His RTS- and Digital Broadcast-nominated BBC comedy short Calamity James followed in 2024. Louis has since directed episodes of the BBC One prime-time crime drama Shetland, as well as the BBC Three horror-comedy Wreck. He is developing original comedy series including Shearlings with BBC Comedy and Breadwinner with Birdie Pictures. His feature debut, The Incomer-an offbeat comedy supported by BFI and Screen Scotland, starring Domhnall Gleeson, Gayle Rankin and Grant O’Rourke, shot in 2025 and will have its premiere in 2026.

OCCUPATIONAL HAZARD: THE FIRST CORAL REEFERS is a feature documentary that journeys back to the 1970s and early 1980s to tell the origin story of Jimmy Buffett’s original Coral Reefer Band. Set against the creative backdrop of Key West, the film explores the musicians, friendships, touring years, and studio sessions that helped shape Buffett’s legendary sound. Through rare, never-before-seen archival footage and deeply personal interviews with founding members, tour managers, producers and music legends, OCCUPATIONAL HAZARD captures the camaraderie, chaos, and magic of an era that thrived on freedom and lived without a rulebook. Narrated by Academy-award winner Jeff Bridges, OCCUPATIONAL HAZARD offers fans a deeper look at the people behind the music and the era that helped define Jimmy Buffett’s lasting legacy. Directed by John H. Cunningham, award-winning festival favorite OCCUPATIONAL HAZARD: THE FIRST CORAL REEFERS features Kenny Chesney, Mac McAnally, songwriter Keith Sykes, and The Coral Reefer Band.

About the filmmaker - John H. Cunningham is a filmmaker and USA TODAY bestselling author of the twelve- book Buck Reilly adventure series and The Last Raft, a reimagining of the Cuban embargo. Before film and fiction, he spent 35 years in commercial real estate, serving as an Executive Vice President and Regional Director in New York City for Alexandria Real Estate Equities (NYSE symbol ARE), where he was pivotal in developing a multi- billion dollar portfolio and establishing the city’s life science industry. Now splitting his time between Virginia, and Key West, John is focused on producing, directing, and writing. His unique background brings a fresh perspective to film, combining business acumen with a passion for compelling storytelling.

Set in 1991 in upstate New York, Teenage Wasteland follows a group of teenage misfits, inspired by a renegade English teacher, who embark on a student film project and uncover a vast conspiracy that is poisoning the ground beneath their feet. Banding together to confront the indifferent adults, corrupt politicians and a violent criminal organization threatening their small town, they produce an investigative documentary that causes shockwaves in their community. Teenage Wasteland is a coming-of-age story based on exclusive access to hundreds of hours of candid, humorous and nostalgic video outtakes, and the cooperation of Fred Isseks and his intrepid students as they reckon – thirty years later – with a defining event in their lives and a remarkable story of civic courage. Co-director Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine stop by to talk about their harrowing true story of teenagers growing into fearless truth tellers. Teenage Wasteland is now available on NETFLIX.

About the filmmaker - Director, Producer, Writer Jesse Moss’ directing work includes Girls State and Boys State (winner, 2020 Sundance Grand Jury Prize), both with Amanda McBaine, War Game (with Tony Gerber), The Overnighters (winner of the Sundance Special Jury Prize), The Mission and Mayor Pete. He won Primetime Emmy® Awards for Girls State (directing) and Boys State (Outstanding Documentary). He has twice been nominated by the Directors Guild of America (DGA) for his work, and twice shortlisted for the Academy Award for Feature Documentary.

About the filmmaker - Director, Producer, Writer Amanda McBaine’s directing work includes Girls State, Boys State (winner, 2020 Sundance Grand Jury Prize) and The Mission, with Jesse Moss. She produced The Overnighters, winner of the Sundance Special Jury Prize, Mayor Pete and The Bandit. She won Primetime Emmy® Awards for Girls State (directing) and Boys State (Outstanding Documentary). She is a Directors Guild of America (DGA) nominee for Boys State and twice shortlisted for the Academy Award for Feature Documentary.

Orlando von Einsiedel's THE CYCLE OF LOVE begins in 1977, PK, with a 23-year-old street artist from a marginalized “untouchable” family in Delhi as he sets out on an extraordinary 6,000-mile journey across continents with little more than a handful of paintbrushes and a secondhand bicycle. Driven by an unwavering desire to reunite with Lotta, the Swedish woman who had captured his heart, he travels through unfamiliar landscapes, navigating borders, language barriers, and the limits imposed by class and circumstance. What begins as a deeply personal quest unfolds into a remarkable story of resilience, chance, and human connection. Along the way, PK encounters strangers who offer kindness, skepticism, and support, revealing the unpredictable ways in which lives intersect across cultures. Director Director Orlando von Einsiedel joins us for a spirited conversation on his own journey and what the story of P.K. and Lotta taught him about the power of love.

About the filmmaker - The Cycle of Love Director Orlando von Einsiedel is an Academy Award–winning director and founder of the UK-based creative studio Grain Media. His work includes the Academy Award–winning THE WHITE HELMETS and the Academy Award–nominated VIRUNGA, as well as the BIFA-winning EVELYN, the Emmy-nominated LOST AND FOUND and CONVERGENCE: COURAGE IN A CRISIS, the Platino-nominated THE LOST CHILDREN, and the critically acclaimed Netflix series HEART OF INVICTUS. His latest project, THE CYCLE OF LOVE, is forthcoming. As an executive producer, his credits include the Academy Award–winning LEARNING TO SKATEBOARD IN A WAR ZONE (IF YOU’RE A GIRL), the Emmy-nominated SCOUTS HONOR, and the Emmy Award–winning BUY NOW!.

Wendy (Dakota Fanning) believes she's perfectly happy in her relationship, until her older boyfriend, Jack (Jake Johnson), who is divorced with children, insists they take a break to make sure she's truly okay giving up on the idea of marriage and babies. During this time, Wendy unexpectedly runs into her ex, Chuck (Cory Michael Smith), who reignites her carefree and spontaneous side, and suddenly seems to want a family. The three of them navigate a chaotic, confusing, and often funny relationship triangle, reminding us that the pursuit of love is beautiful and messy all at once. The film was shot on 35mm on location in Alaska. One of the greatest truly independent filmmakers Director, Writer, and Editor Joe Swanberg joins us to talk about his latest film, The Sun Never Sets.

About the filmmaker - Joe Swanberg is the director of over 20 features, including HANNAH TAKES THE STAIRS, DRINKING BUDDIES and HAPPY CHRISTMAS. He co-starred in and co-directed NIGHTS AND WEEKENDS with Greta Gerwig and AUTOEROTIC with Adam Wingard, in addition to acting in and directing one of the segments of the original V/H/S film. He has directed episodes of television for HBO, 20th Century Studios and Netflix, where he created the series EASY and wrote, directed, produced and edited all 25 episodes over three seasons. As an actor he has appeared in lead roles for Josephine Decker, Ti West, Mickey Keating and Adam Wingard, and he has produced features for Lynn Shelton, Alex Ross Perry, Dustin Defa and Zach Clark, amongst many others. He lives in Chicago.

Hanging by a Wire recounts the true story of a routine school commute that turned terrifying when a makeshift cable car's wire snapped, leaving eight passengers — including six schoolboys — suspended hundreds of feet above a ravine in the remote foothills of the Pakistani Himalayas. With the clock ticking before the remaining cable was expected to fail, an unlikely band of local rescuers raced against time to bring them home safely. Drawing on firsthand testimony and remarkable on-the-ground footage, the film is a tense, true-life portrait of courage, community, and the class divides that complicated the rescue effort. Hanging by a Wire premiered on opening day of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival in the World Cinema Documentary Competition, where it played to sold-out crowds. Abramorama will release the film in North American theaters in August 2026, with the film arriving for its streaming debut in late 2026.

About the filmmaker - Mohammed Ali (Mo) Naqvi is an award-winning director, producer, and writer, and a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Television Academy. His latest film, Hanging by a Wire, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in the World Cinema Documentary Competition. Mo produced two seasons of the Netflix Original Top 10 docu-series Turning Point and received the inaugural Emmy's Television Academy Honor for the Showtime Original Shame. His acclaimed directorial work includes the Emmy-nominated Among the Believers (PBS/Netflix), Insha'Allah Democracy (Lionsgate/STARZ/BBC), the Emmy-nominated and Asian Media Award–winning The Accused: Damned or Devoted? (BBC/PBS/ARTE), and Pakistan's Hidden Shame (Channel 4 UK), which won the Grand Jury Prize at the United Nations Association Film Festival. As a producer, his fiction credits include Big River (Berlin Film Festival), produced by legendary Japanese filmmaker Takeshi Kitano's Office Kitano, and I Will Avenge You Iago, starring Giancarlo Esposito. Naqvi has received two Amnesty International Awards and earned nominations for an Independent Spirit Award, a Cinema Eye Honor, and the UNESCO–Fellini Prize. Beyond filmmaking, Mo is a founding member of the Crescent Collective at the Cannes Film Market and has served as Chairman of Pakistan's Academy Awards Selection Committee (2023–2025) and as the former Artistic Director of the Tasveer Film Market, part of Tasveer, North America’s only Oscar-qualifying South Asian film festival. Originally from Karachi, his work and collaborations span the US, Europe, and Japan.

From the producers of Bridget Jones’s Diary and Love Actually comes the heartfelt new romantic comedy FINDING EMILY. Sensitive musician Owen (Spike Fearn) meets the woman of his dreams during a late shift at the Manchester City University Student Union. They flirt, they drink, they dance, then suddenly, she’s whisked off into the night by her friends, heading out to the next party. Thinking quickly, Owen asks for her name and number, but when he texts her the next morning, he discovers one digit is missing. Determined to reconnect, Owen sets out to find her using the only information he has - her first name. A cynical, headstrong American psychology student Emily Raine (Angourie Rice), who sees in Owen the makings for a perfect case study for her thesis on the futility of romantic attachment. Together, they inadvertently spark a hilarious campus-wide frenzy that turns the lovesick Owen’s world upside down, forcing Emily to question her own choices as each half of the unlikely duo ponders what the future might hold.

About the filmmaker - Known for her distinctive brand of comedy, character-focused narratives and stellar cinematic visuals, director Alicia MacDonald has joined The Corner Shop roster for commercial representation in the UK and US. From the very beginning Alicia excited audiences with her well-observed short films (‘Otherwise Engaged and Domestic Policy’) and popular sketches (‘Bad News and Taxing’) that demonstrated her impressive ability to balance comedic satire with grounded emotional depth. She went on to work with comedy giants Stephen Merchant (‘The Outlaws’ for BBC) and Lena Dunham (‘Too Much’ on Netflix) in which she provided the same level of confidence and care in capturing nuanced and honest performances for high-end tv. Her hotly anticipated debut feature film ‘Finding Emily’ (made with Working Title Films and Focus Features) is released in UK cinemas on 22nd May and in the US on 29th August.

LEARNING TO FLY follows former competitive runner turned photographer Aisha McAdams as she embarks on a journey to document the triumphs and struggles of some of the biggest names in ultra running, such as Jim Walmsley, Eszter Csillag and Vincent Bouillard, as they compete at the Western States Endurance Run in the Mountains of Eastern California and the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc (UTMB) in the French Alps. While photographing and interviewing these elite runners, Aisha confronts her own painful and complex past, and the reasons why she had to step away from racing, a pursuit that had once brought her a much-needed sense of freedom, joy and belonging. LEARNING TO FLY had its world premiere at last year's Telluride Film Festival and will be released in theaters in the US beginning August 21 including the Angelika Film Center in New York and the Laemmle Monica Film Center in Los Angeles.

About the filmmaker - Director / Producer Max Lowe is known for his ability to capture deeply human stories on some of the most exposed edges of the world, Max Lowe has honed his skill as a director and photographer in his search of narratives unheard. From his home in the mountains of Montana to now countless countries and landscapes across the globe, Max has been witness to stories spanning the gap of the human experience. Max directed his first feature doc “Torn” which premiered at Telluride Film Festival in 2021 and is now available on Disney+ and Hulu with National Geographic Docs, and followed that with the short documentary "Camp Courage" which is available on Netflix and was shortlisted for the 95th Academy Awards for best short doc. Max has since partnered with Academy Award winning producer Evan Hayes on his follow up feature doc “Learning to Fly.” With a background in observational journalistic style storytelling honed over years of telling human driven narratives around the globe. Max has emerged with a distinct style by which he crafts his narratives unheard.

Set against the backdrop of suburban New Jersey golf courses, MOOCH is about Shane, played by Jeff Ryan, at nearly thirty and still the oldest caddy at his local golf club, he has mastered the art of getting by without ever quite growing up. When a botched theft of four hundred dollars unexpectedly lands him a job digging up dirt for a charismatic New Jersey nightclub owner, he finds himself navigating amateur investigations, broken relationships, and increasingly questionable decisions. Equal parts heartfelt and absurd, MOOCH is an offbeat golf crime comedy about friendship, ambition, and the long road toward adulthood. MOOCH showcases a wide variety of wild characters with terrific acting. Director, writer and lead actor joins us for a spirited conversation on the challenges and the rewards of a debut feature film and working with a slew of talented collaborators.

From Oscar®-nominated and Emmy® Award-winning filmmaker Poh Si Teng, AMERICAN DOCTOR follows three American physicians— Palestinian, Jewish, and Zoroastrian—united by a single oath to save lives. American Doctor is a vérité documentary following three prominent physicians-Palestinian, Jewish, and Zoroastrian-friends who couldn't be more different but are bound by the shared oath to save lives. Dr. Thaer Ahmad is measured and strategic, Dr. Mark Perlmutter is blunt and wears his heart on his sleeve, and Dr. Feroze Sidhwa is media-savvy and prolific. Filmed in unfolding, on-the-ground scenes, the story follows them from a Gazan hospital under siege, to the halls of Congress. Together they fight to keep a promise to their Palestinian colleagues and patients, to continue the struggle where it matters most: the United States. Upon returning home, they make a determined effort to fight for the patients and colleagues they left behind, taking their battle from the front lines of war to the halls of Congress.

About the filmmaker - Poh Si Teng is the producer of the Oscar®-nominated ST. LOUIS SUPERMAN and Emmy® Award–winning executive producer of PATRICE: THE MOVIE. She is a former creative executive for ABC/Disney, documentary commissioner for Al Jazeera, IDA grants director, and New York Times journalist. She is the founder of Tiny Boxer Films, which produces non- fiction feature docs, and docu- and unscripted-series for the US and global majority markets. AMERICAN DOCTOR marks her debut as a feature documentary director.

Vilnius, 2022. High-flying executive Marija (Zygimante Elena Jakstaite) chooses the worst possible moment to inform her husband Vytas (Vee-tus) (Marius Repsys) she wants a divorce: just one day before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Suddenly the couple must navigate the process of separation as it collides with a refugee and mid-life crisis. A struggling film director, Vytas is put into a tight spot by having to move in with his Russophile parents, while Marija struggles to find her footing as the war affects both her business and home life. Packed with surprises along with much heartache and soul searching, Andrius Blaževičius’ nuanced and timely family drama skillfully depicts the fallout of a marriage against the backdrop of extraordinary events with humor and compassion. already a 2026 Sundance Award-Winner, How To Divorce During the War, was selected as 2026 Lithuania's Oscar entry for this year's Best International Feature Film.

About the filmmaker - Director Andrius Blaževičius was born in Vilnius, June 26, 1985, studied Culture History and Anthropology at Vilnius University. After a while, Andrius switched to Film Directing studies at KIMO, Lithuanian National Film School, where he graduated with an MA in 2011. Blaževičius’ debut feature film THE SAINT (2016) premiered at Warsaw IFF and Busan IFF, won six national awards and became one of the most appreciated Lithuanian independent films at the national box office with 47K admissions in total. His sophomore film RUNNER (2021) premiered at Karlovy Vary IFF with the main actress Žygimantė Elena Jakštaitė being awarded as a Shooting Star by European Film Promotion. RUNNER received two Lithuanian Film Academy awards - for the main and the supporting actresses. His third feature fom HOW TO DIVORCE DURING THE WAR (2026) premiered at Sundance Film Festival's, World Dramatic Competition.

In the immersive documentary Never Stop Chasing, legendary storm chaser Reed Timmer pursues a life hunting the world’s most violent weather. Haunted by the tragic death of his mentor, Tim Samaras, in the historic 2013 El Reno tornado, and the sudden loss of his best friend and long-time chase partner, Joel Taylor, Reed’s life on the edge takes a severe emotional toll. Driven by an unshakeable compulsion, he pushes his mind and body to the absolute limit in pursuit of the perfect storm. Operating the custom-built, armored "Dominator 3," Reed and his eclectic crew—Connor, Mike, Edgar, and "Local Man"—plunge directly into the impact zones of apocalyptic supercells. Despite holding a Ph.D. in meteorology, Reed’s highly aggressive intercept tactics constantly put him at odds with a traditional scientific establishment that frequently dismisses his controversial approach. The film captures the duality of their extreme lifestyle: the euphoric highs of intercepting a tornado alongside an embedded New York Times reporter, and the terrifying lows of being overtaken by a massive wedge tornado inside their vehicle.

About the filmmaker -Reed Timmer is one of the world's most recognized and accomplished storm chasers, known for pioneering extreme intercepts with his armored vehicle, the Dominator 3. A meteorologist with over 8.6 million social media followers, Timmer, who has a Ph.D. in meteorology, rose to global fame on Discovery Channel's “Storm Chasers “and has since set records in close-range tornado intercepts. His work and persona directly inspired the Tyler Owens character in the 2024 blockbuster Twisters.

About the filmmaker - Ken Cole is a documentary filmmaker who holds a degree in meteorology and has spent more than two decades chasing severe weather alongside Reed Timmer. His prior films include the PBS documentary Tornado Glory (2003) and the hit independent documentary series 'Tornado Chasers' (which streamed across Hulu, Prime Video, and Tubi), drawing on two decades of footage, friendship, and firsthand experience inside the world's most dangerous storms.

In 1982, six rural communities across the United States were notified that all of the nation’s nuclear waste might be buried beneath them forever. Faced with a mandate to isolate the waste for 10,000 years, the Department of Energy mapped, analyzed, and assembled its assessments, while the unsuspecting stewards of sacrificial territory found themselves fighting for their homes, health, history and dignity. Against the impassive logic of government analysis and archives, TO USE A MOUNTAIN assembles a people’s history of resistance and stewardship through a visceral journey across the landscapes, ecologies, and personal histories of the candidate sites. Farmers, miners, citizen scientists, Native American leaders, and activists—each with a story bound to this enduring threat—stand in stark contrast to the cold, silent machinery of bureaucracy, in a meditation on resistance, memory, and the timeless struggle between power and place.

About the filmmaker - Casey Carter is a filmmaker and interdisciplinary designer whose work engages nonfiction storytelling in film and video, photography, data visualization, and cartography. His work centers on themes of governmentality, geography, environmentalism, and personal subjectivities. His short films, TWO BOYS AND A DREAM (2023), TWO PRISONS (2020), and THE RIGHTS OF NATURE (2019), have screened at festivals including Revolutions Per Minute, SF Shorts, Salem, Ashland Independent, and Hong Kong Film Art. He holds a B.S. in Physics and B.S. in Photography from Middle Tennessee State University and a Master of Architecture from the University of Michigan. His work has been supported through grants and fellowships from institutions including Sundance Documentary Film Program, IDA, UnionDocs Center for Documentary Art, New York Foundation for the Arts, The Marble House Project, Monson Arts, The Redford Center, SFFILM, Flies Collective, and others. He is the director, cinematographer, and editor of his first feature film, TO USE A MOUNTAIN, which premiered at the prestigious Visions du Réel, where it won a Special Jury Award, and has gone on to collect accolades at film festivals across the globe.

The audacious coming-of-age story that expertly balances pitch-black humor with a sense of creeping menace, Our Hero, Balthazar is an engrossing modern fable about the influence of social media, isolation, and glorified violence on modern adolescence. Showcasing “the superb acting” (Deadline) of Jaeden Martell (St. Vincent, It) and “transformative” (Deadline) Asa Butterfield (“Sex Education,” Ender’s Game), the directorial debut of Oscar Boyson (producer of Safdie Brothers’ Uncut Gems and Good Time) is a must-see conversation-starter that will be available for digital rental and purchase on all major platforms on August 11, 2026 from WG Pictures and Radial Entertainment.

About the filmmaker - Oscar Boyson is a director and producer whose work explores the intersections of culture, technology, and urban life. He is known for his creative collaborations and innovative approach to storytelling. As a producer, his credits include several acclaimed films with directors like the Safdie Brothers and Noah Baumbach. In addition to his film work, Oscar has directed numerous short films and documentaries that investigate global trends and the future of cities. Our Hero, Balthazar marks a significant entry in his directorial career, blending his unique visual sensibility with a deeply human story. Boyson is a writer, director, feature film producer, and co-founder of Elara Pictures, NY. Having produced for Casey Neistat in the early days of YouTube he went on to produce iconic indie hits ‘Frances, Ha!’ And ‘Mistress America’ for Noah Baumbach and the acclaimed ‘Good Time’ and ‘Uncut Gems’ for The Safdie Brothers with 2022’s ‘Funny Pages’ on this years festival circuit. A true cinephile with an encyclopaedic knowledge of film and art, Oscar is able to pivot between documentary and scripted narrative.

About the filmmaker - Ricky Camilleri is a host of HuffPost Live, The Huffington Post's award-winning live streaming network, where he specializes in leading conversations with members of the TV and film community. As a filmmaker, Ricky co-founded CamLin Productions in 2010 and his work has been showcased at film festivals around the world. When he's not on HuffPost Live, Ricky can be seen on CBS, NBC and various other TV networks discussing Hollywood and entertainment news.

Will Poulter and Noah Centineo give pitch perfect performances in Adam Meeks's Sundance hit, Union County. Playing brothers Cody and Jack Parsons, each navigating a court-mandated drug rehabilitation program in a pocket of rural Ohio hit hard by the opioid epidemic. Provided with hope for the first time since their struggles began and with the support of a tireless counselor (Annette Deao), the brothers work toward a brighter, sober future. Poulter and Centineo blend seamlessly with a supporting cast composed predominantly of non-professional actors as they share their actual experiences, pain, and optimism as they, themselves, navigate the program. Ohio-born director and screenwriter Adam Meeks creates a film imbued with realism for an honest, compassionate portrait of a battle being fought across America and the solidarity that flowers on its front lines.

About the filmmaker - Writer & Director Adam Meeks is a Brooklyn-based filmmaker. His short film Union County (2020) premiered at the 70th Berlinale and screened at festivals worldwide. He is a 2023 Film Independent Screenwriting Lab Fellow, a 2021 Yaddo Artist-in-Residence, and a graduate of NYU Tisch. Union County (2025) is his first feature film.

WINTER HYMNS takes shape in a single hospital room on a gray winter day, Dr. Linda Vobernik (Colleen Madden) meets a series of patients and families confronting the end of life. Among them are a farmer who refuses to accept his failing body, an English teacher clinging to her students’ futures, and a young electrical line worker whose cancer has stolen his own. As the day unfolds, the room itself feels suspended - somewhere between hospital and afterlife - while Dr. Vobernik’s encounters grow increasingly intimate, testing her faith in the work and revealing the strange beauty that can emerge when life narrows to its final moments. Director and screenwriter Nathan Deming joins us for a lively conversation on casting Colleen Madden and how he was able to bring together the cinematic elements needed to actualize his superbly empathetic and probing film on the inevitable.

About the filmmaker - Director, screenwriter Nathan Deming is a filmmaker from Wisconsin, based in Los Angeles. A graduate of the London Film School where he studied with British filmmaker Mike Leigh, his work blends European and American influences with a focus on character and place. His feature “Speaking in Tongues” premiered at the Austin Film Festival and is available on Amazon and Apple TV. Alongside other features, he is in the midst of a decade-long film series called The Year Project, exploring life in Wisconsin month by month, most recently with “February”.

Erica and Matt Hinton's are the filmmaking team behind this endlessly fascinating documentary Awake, My Soul: The Story of the Sacred Harp. It is the first feature documentary to explore the history, music, and traditions of Sacred Harp singing, the oldest distinctively American form of music. This haunting music has survived over 200 years tucked away from sight in the rural deep South and occurs mostly at community singing events, which typically include anywhere from a dozen to a couple of hundred singers. The events, called “singings," emphasize participation over consumption since they are not generally performed for an audience. Sacred Harp singers begin each song by intoning syllables which are represented by specific “shapenotes” in their hymnal. To the casual observer, it is some foreign, unintelligible language, but to the Sacred Harp singers, it is the key that unlocks mysteries: songs of both beauty and sorrow, of life and of death, songs that cause feet to stomp and tears to flow, often at the same time.

What is Sacred Harp Singing? Sacred Harp singing is a form of a cappella shape-note hymn singing that preserves some of the earliest distinctively American music. Sacred Harp has persisted for almost two centuries in the Deep South, particularly in the context of community singing events that emphasize participation over consumption, as it is not generally performed for an audience. The tradition uses shape notes, in which triangle, circle, square, and diamond shapenote heads are paired with the syllables fa, sol, la, and mi to represent the notes in the scale. Sacred Harp is one of the open secrets of American music.

A New Revision - Awake, My Soul originally aired nationwide on PBS in 2008 and was been featured in TIME, Paste Magazine, NY Times, Pitchfork, SPIN and on NPR. Awake, My Soul, the 2025 Revision, is the result of the long-term desire to make the film available again for a new generation. “The original film was released at precisely the best time and worst time," according to co-director/ editor, Matt Hinton. “It was the best time because there was still a strong monoculture: if a film aired on PBS, lots of people saw it. It was also a period of physical media, so we sold tons of DVDs. But on the other hand, it was the worst time to have made a film– from the time we began production to the end of post-production, the culture was moving from standard definition to high definition, so within a year of its release, very many people owned high definition TVs. Nothing makes a standard definition film look standard like high definition.