Little Richard: I Am Everything and Beyond Utopia
Aum: The Cult At The End Of The World
(Country: US; Year: 2023; Director: Ben Braun, Chiaki Yanagimoto)
On the morning of March 20, 1995, a deadly nerve gas attack in the Tokyo subway sent the nation and its people into chaos. This exploration of Aum Shinrikyo, the cult responsible for the attack, involves the participation of those who lived through the horror as it unfolded.
World premiere
Bad Press
(Country: US; Year: 2023; Director: Rebecca Landsberry-Baker, Joe Peeler)
When the Muscogee Nation suddenly begins censoring its free press, a rogue reporter fights to expose her government's corruption in a historic battle that will have ramifications for all of Indian country.
World premierew
Beyond Utopia
(Country: US; Year: 2023; Director: Madeleine Gavin)
Charting the journey and experiences of North Korean defectors.
World premiere
The Disappearance Of Shere Hite
(Country: US; Year: 2023; Director: Nicole Newnham)
Shere Hite’s 1976 bestselling book, The Hite Report, liberated the female orgasm by revealing the most private experiences of thousands of anonymous survey respondents. Her findings rocked the American establishment and presaged current conversations about gender, sexuality, and bodily autonomy. So how did Shere Hite disappear?
World premiere
Going To Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project
(Country: US; Year: 2023; Director: Joe Brewster, Michèle Stephenson)
Intimate vérité, archival footage, and visually innovative treatments of poetry take us on a journey through the dreamscape of poet Nikki Giovanni as she reflects on her life and legacy.
World premiere
The Disappearance Of Shere Hite and A Still Small Voice
Going Varsity In Mariachi
(Country: US; Year: 2023; Director: Alejandra Vasquez, Sam Osborn)
In the competitive world of high school mariachi, the musicians from the South Texas borderlands reign supreme. Under the guidance of coach Abel Acuña, the teenage captains of Edinburg North High School’s acclaimed team must turn a shoestring budget and diverse crew of inexperienced musicians into state champions.
World premiere
Joonam
(Country: US; Year: 2023; Director: Sierra Urich)
Spurred by a provocative family memory and a lifetime of separation from the country her mother left behind, a young filmmaker delves into her mother and grandmother's complicated pasts and her own fractured Iranian identity.
World premiere
Little Richard: I Am Everything
(Country: US; Year: 2023; Director: Lisa Cortés)
This celebration of Little Richard reveals the Black queer origins of rock ’n’ roll, finally exploding the whitewashed canon of American pop music.
World premiere. Day One
Nam June Paik: Moon Is The Oldest TV
(Country: US; Year: 2023; Director: Amanda Kim)
The quixotic journey of Nam June Paik, one of the most famous Asian artists of the 20th century, who revolutionised the use of technology as an artistic canvas and prophesied both the fascist tendencies and intercultural understanding that would arise from the interconnected metaverse of today's world.
World premiere
A Still Small Voice
(Country: US; Year: 2023; Director: Luke Lorentzen)
An aspiring hospital chaplain begins a yearlong residency in spiritual care, only to discover that to successfully tend to her patients, she must look deep within herself.
World premiere
Victim/Suspect and Joonam
The Stroll
(Country: US; Year: 2023; Director: Kristen Lovell, Zackary Drucker)
The history of New York’s Meatpacking District, told from the perspective of transgender sex workers who lived and worked there. Filmmaker Kristen Lovell, who walked The Stroll for a decade, reunites her community to recount the violence, policing, homelessness, and gentrification they overcame to build a movement for transgender rights.
World premiere
Victim/Suspect
(Country: US; Year: 2023; Director: Nancy Schwartzman)
Investigative journalist Rae de Leon travels nationwide to uncover and examine a shocking pattern: Young women tell the police they’ve been sexually assaulted, but instead of finding justice, they’re charged with the crime of making a false report, arrested, and even imprisoned by the system they believed would protect them.
World premiere