Playlist
Fri, Mar 8, 2024 – Sat, Mar 16, 2024
For more info, visit SXSW Festival Site.
For nine days in March, creatives of all stripes gather for the acclaimed SXSW Film & TV Festival program. Running concurrently with the SXSW Conference, Music, and Comedy Festivals, attendees can take advantage of the opportunity to connect with a wide array of industry experts, making the Film & TV Festival an unparalleled experience at the forefront of discovery, creativity, and innovation. The highly anticipated first announcement for the 2024 Film & TV Festival has arrived!
<p>After becoming pregnant from a one-night stand, Eden leans on her married best friend and mother of two, Dawn, to guide her through gestation and beyond.</p>
<p>Ryan Gosling stars as Colt, a stuntman who, after a near-career-ending accident, is drafted back into service when the star of a mega-budget movie—being directed by his ex, Jody (Emily Blunt)—goes missing. Now, this working-class hero has to solve a conspiracy and try to win back the love of his life while still doing his day job. What could possibly go right? Inspired by the hit 1980s TV series, The Fall Guy is directed by the blockbuster director of Bullet Train and Deadpool 2, David Leitch.</p>
<p>"The Idea of You" centers on Solène, a 40-year-old single mom who begins an unexpected romance with 24-year-old Hayes Campbell, the lead singer of August Moon, the hottest boy band on the planet. When Solène must step in to chaperone her teenage daughter’s trip to the Coachella Music Festival after her ex bails at the last minute, she has a chance encounter with Hayes and there is an instant, undeniable spark. As they begin a whirlwind romance, it isn’t long before Hayes’ superstar status poses unavoidable challenges to their relationship, and Solène soon discovers that life in the glare of his spotlight might be more than she bargained for.</p>
<p>In this adrenaline-fueled reimagining of the 80s cult classic, ex-UFC fighter Dalton takes a job as a bouncer at a Florida Keys roadhouse, only to discover that this paradise is not all it seems.</p>
<p>Forgotten soap-star and self-appointed Mother of the Year, Ronnie Lipsick is living the life she never asked for. An acting career derailed due to an untimely pregnancy 18 years earlier, dreams of stardom replaced with a suburban performing arts school. A husband, Cormack, who’s lust and love for life has gone as limp as his manhood. Youngest daughter, Norah, who appears to have no use for her and finally, the ungrateful eldest, Audrey, who Ronnie has given the best part of her parenting time to mould into the success she always wanted to be. But when an accident lands Audrey in a coma, Ronnie gets her second chance at the life she actually wanted by taking on her daughter's identity.</p>
<p>In Ben and Suzanne, A Reunion in 4 Parts, Ben Santhanaraj journeys to Sri Lanka to rekindle his relationship with Suzanne Hopper, an American NGO worker, after a long separation. But when Suzanne's boss demands she work during their vacation, their love is tested by a dilemma: desire versus duty. As Suzanne struggles with the responsibilities of her job, Ben tries everything to revive their intimacy, leading to candid conversations and chaotic twists as New Year’s Eve - and Ben’s departure - looms ahead.</p>
<p>Inspired by Derrick B. Harden’s travels to Bulgaria, The Black Sea is the transformative journey of a man who finds unexpected connections in a small coastal Eastern European town even as he finds himself to be the only black person around.</p> <p>Khalid, a charismatic big dreamer from Brooklyn, with no follow-thru gets stuck in a small town on the Black Sea after chasing an opportunity for money that goes wrong. Being the only black guy in the town, he quickly becomes the center of the town’s attention. His New York City street bop is all he has to survive. In his pursuit to get home he finds connection in a way he never expected with a local woman. Together they make their small dreams big.</p>
<p>Bob Trevino Likes It is inspired by the true friendship that writer/director Tracie Laymon found with a stranger when looking for her father online.<br /> Often playing the role of caretaker to people like her father who should be caring for her, Lily Trevino longs for a familial connection, having been abandoned by her mother as a child and then suddenly by her father in her twenties.<br /> Bob Trevino works long hours to support his wife Jeanie’s scrapbooking habit. The couple has endured a lot, and Bob has sought to put his wife first, to the point of ignoring his own feelings and need for friendship, meaning, and connection. That is, until he gets an unexpected Facebook message from a stranger.</p>
<p>Lola (40) enjoys a happy life until an unforeseen pregnancy throws her plans into disarray. Resistant to motherhood and confronted by societal expectations, Lola and her boyfriend, Bruno, deal with the situation. As Lola confronts her inner fears about the repercussions of not embracing motherhood, she embarks on a quest for answers. Unexpectedly, Bruno reveals his desire to become a father, adding further tension and complexity to Lola's search for clarity about her future amidst pressure to conform to societal norms.</p>
<p>"A House Is Not A Disco" documents a year-in-the-life in the world’s most iconic “homo-normative” community: Fire Island Pines. Situated fifty miles from New York City, this storied queer beach town finds itself in the midst of a renaissance as a new generation of Millennial homeowners reimagine The Pines for a new, more inclusive era. Filmed like a Wiseman movie on magic mushrooms, a large cast of unforgettable eccentrics, activists, drifters and first-timers reflect on the legacy of The Pines while preparing their beloved village for the biggest challenge it has faced since the AIDS crisis: rising seas caused by climate change.</p>
<p>When Amy, Marina and Hanna’s rape cases are dismissed by the Austin police, all three women try to find a way to rebuild their lives. They join forces with twelve other women in a groundbreaking federal class-action lawsuit, the first to argue that sexual assault isn’t prosecuted because it’s a crime that predominantly affects women. The group is determined to hold police and prosecutors accountable for their inaction, but their resilience is tested as they face setbacks from the system they hope to change. Ultimately, "An Army of Women" offers a hopeful look into a movement that aims to change the future for women everywhere.</p>
<p>January 2021. The UK is in its 3rd lockdown and all entertainment venues remain closed. For theatre actors Sam and Mark, the future looks bleak. As the pandemic drags on, Mark - single and childless - is increasingly socially isolated, while Sam panics about how he is going to support his young family. They spend their days in the online digital world of Grand Theft Auto and when they stumble across a theater, they suddenly have an idea to stage a full production of Hamlet within the game. This film charts their ridiculous, hilarious and moving adventure as they battle violent griefers and discover surprising truths about life, friendship and the enduring power of Shakespeare.</p>
<p>Following the death of her brother, filmmaker Robie Flores returns to her hometown Eagle Pass on the Texas/Mexico border, wanting to turn back time. She collides with unruly experiences of adolescence – quinceañeras, Rio Grande river excursions, teen makeovers and beyond – that invite her to soak up the details of the home her brother adored and she ignored. What emerges is a playful dance between a personal and collective coming-of-age portrait of kids on the border and Robie herself as she rediscovers the possibilities of joy in the aftermath of grief.</p>
<p>Inventor Don Tavel died suddenly when his daughter was ten weeks old. Growing up surrounded by mythical stories of her “genius” father, Alison’s life is consequently absent from any true connection to him. Resynator is a narrative documentary that begins when Alison rescues Don’s synthesizer prototype from her grandmother’s attic and starts a curious resurrection project that turns into an insatiable globe-trotting quest. Aided by estranged family, lost friends, fellow inventors and celebrated musicians (Grace Potter, Peter Gabriel, Fred Armisen, Gotye, Jon Anderson and more), Alison unlocks unsettling secrets and complex truths - through which a father/daughter relationship is finally born.</p>
<p>Faced with rampant sexual violence on their college campus, a group of Tulane University students spend a year creating an immersive play from their real-life experiences. Building characters and scenes based on the sexual politics of their campus, the student actors confront hard truths. The film follows this process with a lyrical lens, blurring the lines between reality and performance, moving between verite of campus life and the confessional vulnerability of the rehearsal room. Posing urgent questions about the toxic legacies imparted on the next generation, "Roleplay" explores the roles we play as we grow into who we are: how they hurt us, heal us, and shape who we become.</p>
<p>Hidden away, deep in the suburbs of Los Angeles, legendary cult musician Swamp Dogg, alongside housemates Moogstar and Guitar Shorty, have transformed their home into an artistic playground. Together, they navigate the tumultuous music industry, forging a unique and inspiring bond across time and space.</p>
<p>Self-effacing doctor Naveen Gavaskar meets Jay Kurundkar, a white man adopted by two Indian parents, when Jay takes his picture at the hospital. Despite initial skepticism on Naveen’s part, the two quickly fall in love. Naveen avoids telling his traditional family—parents Megha & Archit and sister Arundhathi—who accepted his sexuality years earlier and are close to him but increasingly don’t know much about his life. Eventually, inevitably, Jay, with no family of his own, has to meet the Gavaskars, who have never met a boyfriend of Naveen's. What follows is the comedic & heartfelt collision between the family, Jay and Naveen, caught between the versions of himself his family and Jay know.</p>
<p>Chased by a mysterious woman, 17-year-old Gretchen, who just moved with her family to an alpine resort after her mother’s death, must uncover a conspiracy to save herself and her sister.</p>
<p>An American couple, on the verge of adopting a baby, goes on an Italian vacation — an opportunity to reconnect before the new addition arrives. Everything is picture-perfect; the epitome of a European baby moon, when things begin to spiral out of control. On the way to dinner, they get their rental car stuck in a ditch and are stranded in rural nowhere in a downpour. These two Americans, who are used to being catered to, are now in a foreign land without service, an Italian language comprehension of about zero, and clear relationship turmoil that could explode at any minute. Fear obviously takes over.</p>
<p>The current dating landscape is bleak at best and no one is more aware of this than Mackenzie, a disillusioned 25-year old law student whose love life consists of non-committal hookups and situationships from hell. When she has a “real life meet-cute” with Finn, a handsome and charming journalist who isn’t afraid to show affection, she starts to believe true love may actually exist. When Finn’s dark side begins to emerge, Mackenzie finds herself trapped in a tumultuous and depleting cycle of emotional abuse, and must confront whether her true love is too good to be true after all.</p>
<p>Based on Mason Deaver's novel, the film follows Ben DeBacker, a non-binary teen who is thrown out of their house and forced to move in with their estranged older sister, Hannah, and her husband, Thomas. Struggling with anxiety, they come out only to Hannah, Thomas, and their art teacher, Ms. Lyons, while trying to keep a low profile at their new school. Ben's attempts to survive junior year unnoticed are thwarted when Nathan, a funny and charismatic student, decides to take Ben under his wing. With the help of Nathan, and his friends Sophie and Mel, Ben discovers themselves and what started as a disastrous turn of events looks like it might just be a chance to start a happier new life.</p>
<p>When Ben and Anette's daughter is cast in a film alongside glamorous movie star, Alicia, Ben is quickly drawn into Alicia's world. As he becomes more intoxicated with Alicia and their affair intensifies, Anette is left at home with the baby, pushed to her emotional limits and psychologically on the brink.</p>
<p>MY DEAD FRIEND ZOE is a dark comedy drama that follows the journey of Merit, a U.S. Army Afghanistan veteran who is at odds with her family thanks to the presence of Zoe, her dead best friend from the Army. Despite the persistence of her VA group counselor, the tough love of her mother and the levity of an unexpected love interest, Merit's cozy-dysfunctional friendship with Zoe keeps the duo insulated from the world. That is until Merit's estranged grandfather—holed up at the family's ancestral lake house—begins to lose his way and is need of the one thing he refuses... help. At its core, this is about a complicated friendship, a divided family and the complex ways in which we process grief.</p>
<p>Since Thom and Henri met 35 years ago, their love for each other has never faltered. The seemingly perfect life they had built in Brussels started to go awry when Henri retired from being a police officer. Now, Henri’s days seem to stretch endlessly, each one as bland as the next while his feelings for Thom are fading fast. They drift away from each other a little more each day, to the point that their house has become a battleground. Thom’s love for Henri remains strong though and he is not ready to give up. He will do anything to save his relationship and rekindle their love, even if that means asking Henri for a divorce.</p>
<p>Rose and Sammy enjoy an idyllic life with love, a Hollywood Hills home, and a curious son. During a party, Sammy assigns unusual significance to it, while Rose juggles preparations amid distractions. The unexpected arrival of Helen, who claims residence there, oscillates between confusion and lucidity. Strangely, Helen possesses intimate knowledge of the house and its guests: an Ingenue, a director, and Rose's former flame. Helen's revelations during the party spark drama, unearthing hidden truths and compelling Rose to confront her past, future, and the desire for change.</p>
<p>Bursting onto the comedy scene in the early 1970s, Cheech and Chong brought drugs, sex, and rock’n’roll into the oeuvre, transforming them into stand-up-icons, counterculture rock stars, and Hollywood legends. Explosively funny, their irreverent stoner humor has translated into sold-out concerts, platinum-selling records, and box-office-smashing films. How did Cheech & Chong ignite the imaginations of a global audience and maintain their relevance through 50 years (and counting) of pop culture? The first ever fully authorized Cheech & Chong documentary takes you on a poignant and hilarious journey into the lives and partnership of one of the greatest comic duos of all time.</p>
<p>Two people got kidnapped. One man lost his dick. No-one got any money. This heist-gone-horribly-wrong led one Newport Beach detective on an international manhunt for the most twisted criminal he’d ever hunted. In 2012, Michael, a local weed dispensary owner, got home from work and plopped down on the sofa like any other weeknight. Three hours later he was zip-tied and eating dirt as three men tried to beat him into admitting where he'd buried the million dollars. And he would have gladly told them rather than endure what happened next. The only problem was, he hadn't buried a million dollars, and after they tortured him and left him to die, he still had no idea who these men were.</p>
<p>Disinformation and conspiracy theories have reached a level unwitnessed since the turmoil of the 1930s. Feature documentary, "How To Build A Truth Engine", portrays a crack-team of investigators from the fields of technology, journalism, folklore and neuroscience who show that if you hack the information feed, you can hack somebody’s mind. Following their personal journeys they take us from the information battlefields into the inner workings of the human brain and show how - through us - a web of lies can change reality.</p>
<p>This film tells the remarkable story of the Iraqi national soccer team’s journey to become Asian Cup champions in 2007 during the bloodiest days of their country’s civil war. In victory, the national team, made up of Sunni, Shia and Kurdish players, the sons of sworn enemies battling in a bloody war, united their country in its darkest hour. Over a decade later, for the first time ever, the players sit down and tell their story of hardship, uncertainty and fear in a two decade journey to a victory only they believed was possible. "Lions of Mesopotamia" tells this untold story of war, football and redemption to remind us all that, even when all hope is lost, love and humanity can prevail.</p>
<p>Are we becoming Plastic People? Our ground-breaking feature documentary investigates our addiction to plastic and the growing threat of microplastics on human health. Almost every bit of plastic ever made ends up ground down into "microplastics". These microscopic particles drift in the air, float in the water and sit in the soil. And now, leading scientists are finding them in our bodies: organs, blood, brain tissue and even the placentas of new mothers. What is the impact of these invisible invaders on our health? Ziya Tong, author and science journalist, makes it personal by visiting leading scientists and undergoing experiments in her home, on her food, and on her body.</p>
<p>"Preconceived" tells the stories of Maleeha and Maria, two women who, while navigating unplanned pregnancies, inadvertently found themselves at facilities discouraging them from abortions. The film is a window into these enigmatic centers that some call “pregnancy resource centers” and others call “fake clinics.” Shedding light on how many of these centers are a part of a movement striving to make abortion unthinkable and illegal, the documentary explores the complex role of deception, finances, faith, and privacy. Amid a shifting legal landscape, "Preconceived" underscores the significance of understanding the resources available to pregnant people.</p>
<p>In 2003, eight Rhode Islanders created a secret apartment inside the Providence Place Mall and lived in it for four years, filming everything along the way. They snuck in furniture, tapped into the mall’s electricity, and even constructed a wall, smuggling in over 2 tons of cinderblock. Far more than just a wild prank, the secret apartment became a deeply meaningful place for its inhabitants – a personal expression of defiance against local gentrification, a clubhouse to coordinate artistic charity, and finally, a 750 square foot "F you" to The Man. From Jeremy Workman, whose "Lily Topples The World" won the Grand Jury Prize at SXSW 2021 and from Executive Producer Jesse Eisenberg.</p>
<p>The film tells the story of Liz Carpenter, a trailblazing Texan who helped shape some of the most vivid moments and movements of the 20th Century. Journalist, White House official, political activist, and feminist leader: Liz was often front and center where history was unfolding leaving her own indelible mark on events and people. The film shows how her expansive personality, political know-how, and legendary wit gave her an outsized impact on historical events -- from the JFK assassination to the launch of Great Society programs to leadership roles in the National Women's Political Caucus, the National Women’s Conference in Houston in 1977, and the fight for the Equal Rights Amendment.</p>
<p>Born without legs, Jen Bricker is abandoned at the hospital by her biological parents. Raised in Illinois, Jen begins to idolize America’s superstar gymnast - the mesmerizing Dominique Moceanu. As Jen watches on from afar, Dominique wins gold at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics before becoming a pioneering voice in the sport, calling out institutional abuse that would culminate in the Larry Nassar scandal. Inspired by her hero Dominique, Jen competes at the junior Olympics and goes on to become a world-famous aerialist and motivational speaker, her online videos viewed over 180 million times. But little does Jen know that all along, she and Dominique share a shocking secret.</p>
<p>"MoviePass, MovieCrash" chronicles the origin story, meteoric rise and stranger-than-fiction implosion of the theatrical movie subscription app, MoviePass, as told through the eyes of the visionary co-founders. The film details the unique challenges they faced in building the pop culture phenomenon, only to eventually find themselves cast aside, watching from the sidelines, as new executives seized control and havoc ensued.</p>
<p>Many years following the apocalypse, a devout cult of mute zealots hunts down a young woman, Azrael, who has escaped her imprisonment. Recaptured by its ruthless leaders, Azrael is to be sacrificed to pacify an ancient evil that resides deep within the surrounding wilderness – yet she will stop at nothing to ensure her own survival. In what follows, Azrael makes a savage bid for freedom as her escape accelerates towards a vicious, revenge-fueled showdown.</p>
<p>11-year-old Johanna’s world is falling apart. She’s just moved across the country for her father Harry’s medical treatment, and as her father declines and her mother Naomi is consumed with caring for him, Johanna feels horribly alone. In desperation, she makes a call out into the universe for a good spirit to save her family. But as the long summer days wear on, and a series of increasingly disturbing events rips through her home, she begins to fear that something else has come instead — a terrifying presence from some dark corner of the universe that has latched on to her family and is now eating them from the inside.</p>
<p>Nour makes a living from smuggling exotic animals and illicit products (birds of prey, venom, rare roots, etc.). Wishing to get her son out of the city and offer him a better future, she designs and develops a mobile app that connects clients and marabouts. It’s a success, but a patient’s consultation turns into a tragedy and Nour has to face a wave of violence that could cost her and her son their lives.</p>
<p>Nina, a young and headstrong exotic dancer, finds herself stranded in the far North. She convinces her recent customers, five men on a bachelor hunting trip, to put her up for a few days. In this masculine microsociety, by turns hilarious and philosophical, Cynthia starts to feel a sense of belonging she never has before. But a mysterious stranger’s arrival changes the course of this improvised holiday forever. Both raw and dreamlike, Hunting Daze offers up a unique universe where humour, horror, the uncanny, and the sensual combine.</p>
<p>A pre-wedding party descends into an existential nightmare when an estranged friend shows up with a mysterious suitcase.</p>
<p>Kryptic is a psycho-thriller about a woman’s search for a missing monster hunter and her growing realisation that she is inescapably linked to the creature being pursued.</p>
<p>In this new supernatural spectacle from "Caveat's" Damian McCarthy, a blind medium uncovers the truth behind her sister's death with the help of a frightening wooden mannequin.</p>
<p>When estranged siblings, Joseph and Sidney, rendezvous at a local diner after a close-call robbery, they hightail it to an abandoned farmhouse that transports them to a different time in order to escape the local cops. But when they try to return to their present after the coast is clear, an unknown metaphysical force cuts them off and maroons them on the land unless they do exactly what they're told. What comes from this not only bends the forces of spacetime but also bends Joe and Sid's familial bonds beyond the point of trust and forgiveness.</p>
<p>A true story of love and loss, "Adrianne & The Castle" documents the unique life of the St-Georges who built a castle to their love in rural Illinois. Now facing the future without the love of his life, Alan grapples with his grief through creative musical re-enactments of their story, transporting him into the fantasy world they created together.</p>
<p>A bride-to-be is invited to join her own fiancé’s bachelor party on a remote property in the Australian outback. But as the festivities spiral into beer-soaked chaos, uncomfortable details about their relationship are exposed, and the celebration soon becomes a feral nightmare. A striking and powerful feature debut from Jack Clark and Jim Weir.</p>
<p>On a desolate, Midwestern county road, a bound man crawls towards a remote postal box, managing to slide a blood-stained plea-for-help message into the slot before a panicking figure closes in behind him. The note makes its way to the county post office and onto the desk of Jasper, a seasoned and skilled "dead letter" investigator, responsible for investigating lost mail and returning it to its sender. As he investigates further, Jasper meets Trent, a strange yet unassuming man who has taken up residence at the men’s home where Jasper lives. When Trent unexpectedly shows up at Jasper’s office, it becomes clear he has a vested interest in the note, and will stop at nothing to retrieve it.</p>
<p>The film’s story is told in Dory Previn’s voice, through archival footage, journals, memoirs, and her confessional songs. A child tap dancer in New Jersey and teenage showgirl in NYC, Previn went on to write classic songs for greats like Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, and Dionne Warwick. After being caught up in a Hollywood tabloid scandal in the 1960s, she crossed over from the MGM lot to the Laurel Canyon rock scene of the 1970s. Animation brings drawings from Dory's journal to life, lyrically illustrating her inner voices without straying from how Dory wrote and understood them herself. Dory Previn remains a mysterious cult figure to this day.</p>
<p>At 15, he took a life. Three days later, his brother’s life was taken. A documentary visual album, “Songs from the Hole” follows James "JJ'88" Jacobs through a musical opus of Hip-Hop and Soul, inspired by his innermost struggles as both a perpetrator and a victim of violence as he serves a double-life prison sentence. The film interweaves the collective storytelling of its non-fiction participants with imagined representations of memories, dreams and spiritual dialogues set to its protagonist/co-creator’s original music.</p>
<p>Sam Cox was born to draw. From the moment he could hold a pen he started scribbling and never stopped: all day every day and all night too. As his obsession grew, the unstoppable stream of doodles flowing from his fingertips and out into the world beyond threatened to take over his life, his home and his mind. From the makers of Academy Award-nominated documentaries Exit Through The Gift Shop and Black Sheep, and the Producer of Academy Award-winning documentaries Man on Wire and Searching for Sugar Man, The Trouble With Mr Doodle is the story of an extraordinary boy born into an ordinary family and a cautionary tale about how sometimes we really do need to be careful what we wish for.</p>
<p>Diane Warren has written record numbers of mega-hits for the biggest artists in the business. She’s been nominated for 15 Academy Awards, has won Grammy, Emmy, and Golden Globe Awards, and has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. With levity and her trademark middle finger, the film is an intimate, funny, and revealing underdog story that focuses on Diane’s idiosyncratic songwriting process, rebellious life choices, extraordinary work ethic, stories surrounding her greatest collaborations, and how she's turned her neurodiversity from a setback into her superpower.</p>
<p>"Faders Up" takes a cinematic deep-dive into the extraordinary life and career of iconic KUTX radio host John Aielli. With a legacy spanning over fifty years on air, Aielli was enigmatic and controversial, and had a profound influence on Austin’s musical diversity and cultural landscape. Best known for his free form style of sprawling interviews, technical snafus, and stream-of-consciousness musings on art and life, but who was John Aielli off the air? How did a gifted, young opera protege from small-town Killeen evolve into the legendary voice of Austin? The name of Aielli’s show, “Eklektikos,” meant “chosen from the best.” The best of what? Only he knew for sure.</p>
<p>Over 25 years and 10 studio albums—using brute sonic force mixed with subtlety and grace—Mogwai have defined their own musical genre. Described as “The blueprint for what an independent group should be” (John Doran, The British Masters), Mogwai built a cult following by staying true to their sound and true to their roots. The film takes us on a journey from their very beginnings, in the mid 1990s, to the band writing and rehearsing their tenth studio album in their hometown of Glasgow, Scotland in 2020 - a record made during lockdown. While at first seemingly impossible to make, they ultimately made history with it.</p>
<p>This is the story of two immigrant outsiders, Omar Rodríguez-López and Cedric Bixler-Zavala (At the Drive-in / The Mars Volta), and their desire to create their own place in the world. Told through intimate self-shot footage, Omar and Cedric charts the duo’s intense and profound journey of brotherhood, love, fame, betrayal and sacrifice. Tackling themes of addiction, grief and redemption, it’s an intimate portrait of lifelong friendship and a look at the world through a whole new creative prism.</p>
<p>This is a film about The Black Keys traces Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney's journey from a jamming session in a basement in Akron, Ohio, to rock ’n’ roll super-stardom. They barely knew each other when they made their first recordings, yet quickly realized they shared a powerful musical connection and a drive to succeed. Touring relentlessly for ten years, the duo navigated the highs and lows of life on the road, finally reaching escape velocity with their hit records Brothers and El Camino. As so many forces have threatened to pull them apart, the band has managed to stick together. 24 years later, they’re tighter than ever, still making great music and still asking what’s next.</p>
<p>Bionico is a hopeless romantic addicted to crack, who, along with Calvita, his drug partner, tries to find a job, a house, and a wedding ring to marry La Flaca, his fiancée. But most importantly, he must quit drugs and stay clean by the time she comes out of the rehabilitation center where she's detoxing, a mission impossible for him. It's a love story, a tale of failed relationships, and the importance of friendships.</p>
<p>As bacteriologist Lena (38) drives past a burning car, she hears a scream of a dying woman. Lena does not tell her boyfriend how much the incident distresses her, just as she does not talk about the stillbirth she recently had. Instead, she throws herself into her work, intrudes into the life of the deceased, begins an affair with the widower and gradually takes on the role of mother to their son. Her persistent insomnia causes her to lose control between dreams and reality. Finally she accepts the help of a whisperer and then finds her own way to cope with her loss.</p>
<p>Mariana is a systematic girl. She studies English and German at a language school. She works in a call center as many hours as possible and saves everything she earns. To entertain herself a little, she looks for men in bars with whom she only plans to spend one night. Why compromise if she just wants to travel? That is Mariana's plan, to go away and what better than to an island in the Mediterranean. But Gabriel, an unlikely boy who keeps getting into her life with bad jokes and uncomfortable questions, forces<br /> her to look at herself and wonder what she wants to run away from.</p>
<p>Pati, a young film producer, is fighting to carve out a professional career in the film industry. It is May 2019 when her laptop is stolen during a business trip in Madrid. Two months after, an anonymous Hacker accesses all the stored data in the stolen device and finds three very private photos of Pati. He threatens that if he doesn’t receive $2,400 he will mass-mail the pictures to all her work contacts in order to ruin her professional reputation. The shame, anger and distress caused by the ineffectiveness of the legal forces lead Pati to set out on her own investigation to stop the Hacker and regain control and power over her privacy.</p>
<p>In town for an audition, eighteen-year-old Lilja decides to stay with her estranged grandparents. She feels at home in their middle-class mansion, but unbeknownst to her, she becomes entangled with the dark past of her family, learning secrets that will threaten her life.</p>
<p>Journalist Shiori Ito embarks on a courageous investigation of her own sexual assault in an improbable attempt to prosecute her high-profile offender. Her quest becomes a landmark case in Japan, exposing the country’s outdated judicial and societal systems.</p> <p><em>Black Box Diaries </em>was born out of Ito’s need to document her investigation — a response to the authorities’ refusal to pursue her case in a meaningful manner. More importantly, it was a way to journal her fears and thoughts as she anticipated the backlash that followed.</p> <p>As the film’s director, Ito accomplishes something remarkable. On one hand, <em>Black Box Diaries</em> has a raw and honest quality to it — it’s a personal journey from the perspective of a victim piecing together the crime she experienced, while pushing herself to the extreme. At the same time, it is an impressively crafted, concise piece of filmmaking — guided by a strong sense of purpose and broken up by occasional moments of joy. Shiori Ito came forward to challenge her high-profile abuser despite knowing the risks. Her bravery meant hope for others and the prospect of real change to a broken system.—AT</p>
<p>In 2008, during the last month of summer before high school begins, an impressionable 13-year-old Taiwanese American boy learns what his family can’t teach him: how to skate, how to flirt, and how to love your mom.</p> <p>In his striking directorial debut, Sean Wang takes us on a kinetic ride through the ups and downs of adolescence, mining personal experience to share a joyful, funny, and deeply affecting ode to first-generation teenagers navigating the beauty and pain of cultural heritage in a sea of conformity. Wang confidently steers us through the freewheeling early days of social media, where AIM emoticons and MySpace rankings carry the weight of heartbreak and friendships forged and broken. Both a moving love letter to immigrant parents and a playful examination of our uncertain paths to adulthood, <em>Dìdi (弟弟) </em>reminds us that growing up and growing into better versions of ourselves are often one and the same.—AS</p>
<p>Amid the glamour of Hollywood, Los Angeles, a woman finds herself on a transformative journey as she nurtures wounded hummingbirds, unraveling a visually captivating and magical tale of love, fragility, healing, and the delicate beauty in tiny acts of greatness.</p> <p>A film of joy and wonder, <em>EVERY LITTLE THING </em>offers profound truths in a deceptively simple story. What does it mean to care for another, and what impact does this act have on us? In tending to these fragile yet resilient hummingbirds, Terry Masear finds a sense of healing from her own past. Her diminutive patients — brought into sharp focus through breathtaking, beautifully detailed photography — become memorable protagonists in their own right. The viewer becomes emotionally invested in Cactus, Jimmy, Wasabi, Alexa, and Mikhail, celebrating their small victories and lamenting their tiny tragedies. The compassion and empathy that Masear shows her Lilliputian charges serves as a lesson to us all — a reminder that in the smallest of acts, and in the tiniest of creatures, we might find grace.—BT</p>
<p>After graduating from high school, a group of teenagers from small-town Oregon go on a road trip to the coast some 500 miles away. The five good friends set off in a van in high spirits and begin a rollercoaster of adventures and extraordinary encounters with odd passersby, hobos and hippies—a modern version of Kerouac's On the Road. On foot, by freight train and by boat, they hope to reach the famous “Party at the End of the World.”</p> <p>The friends talk about their uncertainties and problems, musing in voice-over or with new best friends they make along the way. What will the future hold when they return home? There’s no shortage of inspiration and new ideas in the meetings with the free-thinking, hippie-like residents of Oregon.</p> <p>The filmmakers play with reality and fiction, as they did in their previous projects that are an ode to typical American phenomena, in this case the road trip. There is room for emotion and sadness, but also loads of fun in the endless freedom of skating, sleeping under the stars and smoking a lot of weed—all under the motto: “Fuck it.”</p>
<p>When a construction worker unexpectedly joins a local theater's production of Romeo and Juliet, the drama onstage starts to mirror his own life.</p>
<p>In a strict boarding school nestled in the Himalayas, 16-year-old Mira discovers desire and romance. But her sexual, rebellious awakening is disrupted by her mother who never got to come of age herself.</p> <p>With precision and sensitivity, first-time feature director Shuchi Talati invites us into the lives of characters she intimately understands and deciphers, allowing us to experience adolescent sexual discovery with all its conflicting emotions. Preeti Panigrahi embodies Mira with nuanced sincerity, her hesitation transforming into confidence when she’s swept up by Kesav Binoy Kiron’s charismatic, wry Sri. Kani Kusruti, meanwhile, gives a brilliant performance as Mira’s cunning mother, Anila, setting up the perfect game of mother-daughter chess as these women descend into a struggle that threatens their affection for each other. Beautifully exploring the origins of empowerment and the limits of trust, <em>Girls Will Be Girls</em> celebrates the freedom of self-acceptance and the solace of female agency, sensuality, and physicality.—AS</p>
<p>Teenager Owen is just trying to make it through life in the suburbs when his classmate introduces him to a mysterious late-night TV show — a vision of a supernatural world beneath their own. In the pale glow of the television, Owen’s view of reality begins to crack.</p> <p>Writer-director Jane Schoenbrun’s <em>We’re All Going to the World’s Fair </em>(2021 Sundance Film Festival) introduced us to a new genre of their own design: emo horror. Their follow-up feature builds upon that vibe, worming its way into the subconscious with an equally potent autopsy of reality versus fiction. As Owen, Justice Smith exudes a quiet vulnerability, while co-lead Brigette Lundy-Paine displays a confident yet awkward conviction. Schoenbrun has a knack for portraying the trappings of adolescent family life with nuance and a welcome ambiguity, freeing audience members to relate in a way that is best suited to their own experiences. <em>I Saw the TV Glow</em> forces us to consider whether the memories of our youth betrayed us, or if something more sinister is at play.—AM</p>
<p>There are 80,000 native Irish speakers in Ireland. 6,000 live in the North of Ireland. Three of them became a rap group called Kneecap. This anarchic Belfast trio becomes the unlikely figurehead of a civil rights movement to save the mother tongue.</p> <p>Bursting forth from an often unpredictable and raucous post-Troubles Belfast, Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh, Naoise Ó Cairealláin, and JJ Ó Dochartaigh leap onto the screen to play themselves in this heightened and wildly entertaining tale of Kneecap’s origins, with Michael Fassbender in tow as the charismatic father-figure turned political martyr. Armed with a blend of English and native Irish verses and blazing, politically-charged rhymes, Kneecap’s music takes us on a ketamine-fueled, rollicking trip to encounter the meaning of pure defiance. Filmmaker Rich Peppiatt captures the untameable essence of this singular trio with unapologetic humor and energy, revealing a generation born out of chaos and ready to reclaim their cultural heritage. Fervent and unforgettable, <em>Kneecap</em> is the rallying cry of a music group poised to take the world by storm.—AS</p>
<p>Futurists Martine and Bina Rothblatt commission an advanced humanoid AI named Bina48 to transfer Bina’s consciousness from a human to a robot in an attempt to continue their once-in-a-galaxy love affair for the rest of time.</p> <p><em>Love Machina</em> is where futurism meets love, where love meets humanity, where humanity meets AI. Director Peter Sillen (<em>Benjamin Smoke, 62,000:1 Three Teams One City One Year</em>) delivers a film transcending time and space. Sillen’s approach feels as imaginative and dreamlike as our protagonists. <em>Love Machina</em> is entrancing to watch — packed with discovery, curiosity, and heart. Sillen shares a love story between Martine and Bina Rothblatt, entangling us in their world of passion and extravagant determination. At the forefront of many social movements, Martine and Bina set out to do what previously seemed impossible, taking their love story past “till death do us part” to “as long as we both shall live.” Thoughtful and inquisitive, Sillen dares to transport us to infinity and beyond.—BB</p>
<p>A young Aboriginal couple bring home their second baby. What should be a joyous time takes a sinister turn as the mother starts seeing a malevolent spirit she is convinced is trying to take her baby.</p> <p>Adapted from his award-winning short and made with the producers of <em>The Babadook </em>and<em> Talk to Me,</em> Jon Bell’s debut feature draws from Indigenous lore for a thematically rich supernatural tale that quickly establishes the lurking menace of a child-stealing spirit. Its simmering suspense empathetically builds around the fragile psychology of a new mother, blurring the lines between exhaustion, paranoia, and postpartum depression. In exacerbating her isolation and hopelessness, Bell shrewdly accentuates traditional tools of oppression to reveal a darker allusion to Australia’s stolen generations — the tens of thousands of First Nations children forcibly removed from their families through the government’s assimilation policies — which the filmmaker calls a “massive wound in the psyche of Australia.” <em>The Moogai</em> bears its terrifying resonance out of sublimated trauma.—JN</p>
<p>New Zealand–born groundbreaking CNN camerawoman Margaret Moth risks it all to show the reality of war from inside the conflict, staring down danger and confronting those who perpetuate it.</p> <p>Moth’s intrepid energy and kinetic lust are rendered beautifully in this documentary that deftly captures both her powerful personality and the nascent development of the 24-hour news cycle. <em>Never Look Away</em> asks hard-hitting questions about where our desire for conflict coverage comes from, whether it can ever be satiated, and what we are running from when we are absorbed by work and by relentless global news. Margaret’s indelible commitment to her work, her striking aesthetic, her deeply mysterious nature, and her gargantuan contributions to the field of journalism all come to the fore in this potent biopic.</p> <p>Renowned actress Lucy Lawless (<em>Xena: Warrior Princess</em>, <em>Battlestar Galactica</em>, <em>Parks and Recreation</em>) steps behind the camera in this impressive directorial debut. Lawless creates a distinctively female, Kiwi lens to cover this titanic career that shows both the horrors and life-affirming dimensions of war from a woman’s point of view.—AH</p>
<p>In 1999, the sudden death of her father Hassan sends queer Muslim grad student Azra flying back to her ancestral home in Pakistan, where her stern mother Mariam demands she play the role of the perfect grieving daughter. But through flashbacks to Mariam's own life in Karachi 30 years before, we see the connections uniting mother and daughter, starting with their shared love of the Bollywood star Sharmila Tagore.</p>
<p>A year in the life of a unique family. It captures the daily life of the Sasquatch with a level of detail and rigor that is simply unforgettable.</p>
<p>Based on the real-life arts rehabilitation programme founded at Sing Sing Correctional Facility, Greg Kwedar’s new film follows a troupe of incarcerated actors who work on a play as part of a theatre workshop at the prison.</p>
<p>Suellen, a Brazilian toll booth attendant and mother, falls in with a gang of thieves in an attempt to keep her family afloat. In doing so, she realizes she can use her job to raise some extra money illegally for a so-called noble cause: to send her son to an expensive gay conversion workshop led by a renowned foreign priest.</p>
<p>A young woman’s fateful decision in 1960s China reverberates across space and time to a group of brilliant scientists in the present day. As the laws of nature unravel before their eyes, five former colleagues reunite to confront the greatest threat in humanity’s history.</p>
<p>Based on Jason Parham’s Wired article “A People’s History of Black Twitter,” this three-part series charts the rise, the movements, the voices, and the memes that made Black Twitter an influential and dominant force in nearly every aspect of American political and cultural life.</p>
<p>Jerrod Carmichael Reality Show is a darkly funny documentary series about Jerrod's tumultuous quest for love, sex, and truth. Created by Carmichael, Ari Katcher and Eli Despres.</p>
<p>National Geographic’s PHOTOGRAPHER flips the lens on some of the world’s most extraordinary visual storytellers to see what makes them click. In this episode, Austin based photographer Dan Winters -- the da Vinci of contemporary photography, known for his portraits of celebrities, illustrations, and shots of the grounds of NASA – reflects on reaching the pinnacle of his craft. With the help of his wife and manager, Kathryn, there is little Dan hasn’t accomplished, but a Bipolar disorder diagnosis forced him to reevaluate his priorities in life. As Dan travels around the world, he reflects that sometimes the most important moments are not found behind a camera, but back home with his family.</p>
<p>King George Coulam rules over the Texas Renaissance Festival as its founder, elected mayor, and employer to thousands. But as his power — and the festival's coffers — have grown, Coulam has hardened into an object of fear. When King George suddenly announces his retirement to focus on his romantic life, a battle erupts amongst the festival's body politic. The festival's general manager and heir apparent must fight for his place in the kingdom against a kettle-corn kingpin and a former elephant trainer, both eager to remake the festival in their own image. Their feud ascends to Shakespearian heights in this three-part docu-fantasia from director Lance Oppenheim, Elara Pictures, and HBO.</p>
<p>Hacks explores the dark mentorship between comedy legend Deborah Vance (Emmy Award winner Jean Smart) and an outcast young writer Ava Daniels (Emmy Award nominee Hannah Einbinder). Deborah and Ava learn to put their differences aside and come together through a shared love of comedy. Through the lens of their intergenerational bond Hacks examines the plight of the female comic and the brave women that paved the way. At its core, Hacks is always about the unique and complicated bond between these two main characters.</p>
<p>In 1985, phone salesman Michael Barney — friends call him Mr. Magic — puts his slick-talking gift to work, opening a small strip club in Atlanta. He plays DJ, bartender, and bouncer while his only dancer separates men from their money. But soon, the celebrities arrive. Athletes from Michael Jordan to Shaq clamber to the club, DC The Brain Supreme mints an iconic hit record from the DJ booth, and Outkast tests songs by watching the girls dance. Within a few years, Magic City would become the most famous strip club in Atlanta, and soon, the world. But when Mr. Magic gets sent away to federal prison, the empire he’s built may crumble.</p>
<p>The fifth and final season will find Captain Burnham and the crew of the U.S.S. Discovery uncovering a mystery that will send them on an epic adventure across the galaxy to find an ancient power whose very existence has been deliberately hidden for centuries. But there are others on the hunt as well…dangerous foes who are desperate to claim the prize for themselves and will stop at nothing to get it.</p>
<p>Part talk show and part workplace comedy, "Bettendorf Talks” is set in the titular Quad City, hosted by TJ and Dave, a comedy duo of former middling renown. They are trying to use this show as a stepping stone to regain some of their former perceived glory. It’s an unrealistic expectation in a town with no stars, a show with no budget, an inexperienced writing staff, Dave’s ego and TJ’s naiveté. The band rocks, the local guests are quirky and fun, the director is an absolute boss, the producer is motivated, the announcer might be a murderer, but despite all that going for it, it’s shocking how little can be accomplished when everyone is working as hard as they can in separate directions.</p>
<p>When Zeke agrees to attend a cookout with his estranged father, Nick, he initially worries that it was a bad idea. Not only is Zeke uninterested in connecting with his dad, but he also struggles to feel comfortable amongst his boisterous black family whose world seems to differ from his own. On the verge of leaving, Zeke is convinced to stay by his half-sister, Dezz, who goes out of her way to make him feel welcome. After witnessing Nick do a comedic re-telling of his colonoscopy, Zeke finally settles in with his family, showing them old photos of himself, and laughing as they roast each other.</p>
<p>Lucy and Sara are sisters. They're what some people might call recluse. They've been putting up with each other by the skin of their teeth for years. But with the passing of their father, things must change whether they like it or not.</p> <p>In their first on-camera interviews, Sara echoes their father's final plea for them to "look after each other”. Then in a maudlin bout of loneliness, in a dramatic cry for attention she threatens to kill herself. Sick of the manipulation, Lucy makes a plan to scare Sara straight which then backfires.</p> <p>Oddly codependent yet never truly close, the sisters delve further into the unconventional ways they are forced to lean on each other as we get to know them.</p>
<p>While filming a challenge video, famed YouTuber Marvin Weaver accidentally causes a fan’s death, and is swiftly banned from legitimate online platforms. Marvin’s manager, Randi, convinces him to do the right thing and reconcile with the fan’s parents. Unfortunately, Marvin’s half-hearted apology only makes things worse. However, Tag Taggart, an alt-right news host looking to reach younger audiences, invites Marvin on his show. After falling out with Randi, Marvin sees no other option. He goes on Tag’s show to make a public apology, but is manipulated into a cathartic denial of responsibility in the fan's death. With the episode drawing record views, Tag sees a future for Marvin on the show.</p>
<p>In a post economic collapse America, a woman (Anna Camp) travels alone towards the promise of a utopian dome on the horizon. When she negotiates a ride with strangers, we learn… trust no one on the road to the Neo-Dome.</p>
<p>Sofia is looking for her first job when she ends up falling into Tosser's orbit. It's not until she's been roped into a days work that she realizes there's no job available. But with a huge order, and a saboteur in the midst Sofia might be the only one who can save Tossers.</p>
<p>One day, Alice, a neurotic Kindergarten teacher, discovers tiny mushrooms growing on her skin. Her doctor is unhelpful and while her elderly neighbour tries to support her, Alice is unwilling to accept her advice. As the fungi spread across her skin, Alice’s self-hatred grows, and her life becomes increasingly miserable. She would do anything to get rid of the infection. The mushrooms turn Alice into a monster. But since when is that a bad thing?</p>
<p>While the townsfolk are celebrating the village's anniversary parade, Étienne tries the impossible: to show them how beautiful his family’s cacophony really is.</p>
<p>In this nightmarish queer awakening story set at a high school football game, the star quarterback promises to pass down her lucky number to the most deserving girl on the team. But when the game goes horribly awry, an awkward girl in detention attempts to prove herself worthy of the captain’s love, legacy, and soul...</p>
<p>"Bits" follows a young woman in small town Montana who catches the attention of a serial killer on the hunt. When his pursuit ends abruptly, the young woman is overcome with rejection. Pining for closure, she struggles to untangle feelings of neglect and desire.</p>
<p>A telemarketer with a severe anger problem accidentally calls into a radio show. He wins a radio contest and enters a standoff with the unhinged host.</p>
<p>Filmmaker Kailee McGee’s world turns sideways with a late-stage breast cancer diagnosis. She’s in the middle of treatment but just beginning to reevaluate reality, love, and identity while being sick. Kailee loses track of where her cancer journey ends and her life begins. As the voice inside her head toggles between existential crisis and self-actualization, Kailee resorts to the only way she knows how to heal: figure out a way to watch a version of her journey unfold on a screen.</p>
<p>Dissolution is a film chronicling my parents’ divorce after forty-eight years of marriage. Starring my parents as themselves, this hybrid short combines archival home video footage with new footage based on the events surrounding their recent divorce and my father’s battle with alcoholism.</p>
<p>According to Muslim practice, burial ought to occur within 24 hours of death — so after Manny’s immigrant husband, Sameer, passes away in an accident, he is confronted by a representative of Sameer’s family urging him to sign the paperwork needed to ship the body back to Kuwait. Manny initially refuses, clinging to his rights as Sameer's husband, while knowing that with every passing hour, Sameer's family grow more infuriated. After an emotional climax, spurred on by the family’s homophobic claim that Manny and Sameer’s marriage was merely a green-card arrangement, Manny comes to realize that his objections won't change the fact that his husband died — try as he might, he cannot delay grief.</p>
<p>Sometimes you don't realize how thirsty you are until it's right in front of you.</p>
<p>Hannah’s first week in the US isn’t going as expected. Rejected by everyone she meets, even her own friend, it seems nobody has time to practice English with her. So when she’s propositioned by a couple looking for a phone sex participant, Hannah uses the conversation as an opportunity to finally get some English practice in. However, as the phone call progresses, Hannah realises that this is a situation where online translators just won’t cut it, and she’s going to have to get resourceful with her vocab book if she wants to help this couple cum like a true fluent English speaker.</p>
<p>Mia, an isolated law student in New York, is compulsively drawn to self-harm and pain. Mia has entangled a classmate — Simone, a friend, who’s also more than a friend — in her experiments in pain. But when Simone breaks things off, Mia’s back on her own. </p> <p>When her first night home alone proves too difficult, Mia heads out to a local bar. There she meets Josie — a young, native New Yorker, who feels warm, at ease, and in control. But she might be in over her head with Mia…<br /> <br /> As the night progresses, both women must decide if they’ll allow the connection to take them each somewhere new.</p>
<p>Aby, a 15-year-old Honduran teen, navigates the complexities of her life in the US alongside her newly arrived cousin, Nata. As Thanksgiving Day unfolds, Aby's rebellious spirit clashes with the expectations of her caregiver, Aunt Magda, intensifying her desire to distance herself from her suffocating circumstances.</p>
<p>Madeleine is forced to quit her position at the neighborhood grocery store. Except that her job is her whole life; her colleagues, her only family. The quinquagenarian spends her last days of work fighting to save what is near and dear to her heart…</p>
<p>Tina and her elderly dog MeeMoo discover a clinic promising human-to-pet communication. However, two sinister doctors uncover a bond between them so strong, it transcends time and space. They might be the key to something greater, but at what cost?</p>
<p>Three trans women meet in a country house to plan a robbery. The trick of the heist is that, in order to create a false trail, they disguise themselves as men. While they share everyday life as a well-established team and lovers, they practice speaking in a deep voice, walking manly and behaving in a masculine manner. In this process, they reach their emotional and physical limits and repeatedly fail to imitate male connoted behavior.</p>
<p>A grieving woman believes her deceased best friend has come back to visit her… as a porta-potty.</p>
<p>Mo is a hopeful Arab actor in his struggle-filled youth, residing in London with his wife Dounya. Dounya believes Mo should pursue stable work rather than taping for leading acting roles, unattainable for actors of color. Unexpectedly, Mo's agent Steven rings, offering a sudden audition that carries life-altering potential. During his journey to the audition, a misunderstanding arises when a biased woman onboard misconstrues Mo's actions as prayer and suspects a forgotten bag. In a swift turn, Mo's world descends into a Kafkaesque nightmare of terror.</p>
<p>Fei is the top violinist in her elite youth orchestra. When another Chinese violinist arrives to challenge her place, Fei’s internal demons take external form. They whisper to her, urging her to be the best, no matter the cost.</p>
<p>Hannah returns home to face her dysfunctional and emotionally repressed family after her attempted suicide only to find her family avoiding any mention of the incident. Tensions escalate when Hannah's ex-boyfriend, Johnny, unexpectedly appears, adding fuel to the emotional fire. Amidst the chaos, the family's comedic quirks and idiosyncrasies collide with their underlying emotions. Hannah's journey towards healing intertwines with the humorous clashes and unique bonds within the family, weaving the delicate balance between laughter and pain in the face of adversity.</p>
<p>Trapped follows the story of Joaquin, a highschool janitor at the prestigious Hallston Academy, finishing up his rounds in the early morning hours. Investigating voices echoing through the empty halls, he’s drawn to the gymnasium, where he stumbles into a group of boys in the middle of a senior prank. Tensions arise when his attempts to shut down the prank take an unexpected direction and he is caught between the boys, the head custodian and his own moral compass.</p>
<p>Weekend trips, city breaks, a detour into nature or once around the world. Barely a few days off, you're already gone. Never before has the desire to travel been so widespread and visited places so overloaded. What do we get out of it, other than the picture proof that we have been there?</p>
<p>"The Big Wait" follows a small town called Forrest, isolated in a flat treeless desert, and its population of two people: Greg & Kate, who are there to maintain its emergency airstrip. As they wait for an emergency landing, they keep Forrest’s one street and six vacant houses in pristine condition by mowing the green front lawns, blowing the leaves, vacuuming the red dust. At the same time, they find themselves increasingly enjoying the inherent freedom of the place by indulging in more wild activities. But in the face of the uncertainty and ever looming shadow of madness, how long can they keep up this fragile balance between play and routine before something finally cracks?</p>
<p>"Christmas, Every Day" gives a slice-of-life glimpse of preteen influencers Peyton and Lyla Wesson, ages 11 and 12, as they perform for their online fans under their mother’s watchful guidance. Shot in a series of highly composed, locked-off takes, the film examines everyday cultural practice under late stage capitalism, juxtaposing rural life with the patina of the virtual world. As Peyton and Lyla shift between performance and reality, ideas of self-presentation as empowerment, female confidence, and self-branding come to the fore.</p>
<p>At 99 years old, Frank Lucianna is the oldest practicing attorney in America. And now, he's preparing to mount his final criminal defense. Frank has lost a step, but he won't be alone: his law partner is Frank Carbonetti, the son he never had. Together, they hope the case will be the old man's greatest.</p> <p>But as the trial approaches, Frank starts to ponder what it all means. He’s defended more than 100 murder cases in his career. As a devout Catholic, he believes in redemption. And yet these monstrous crimes haunt him. Young Frank soon learns why his old man never retired: because when we love people, we keep showing up for them.</p>
<p>At the crossroads of documentary and fiction, Hello Stranger relates the transition journey of a young trans woman named Cooper Josephine. With humor, the film revisits key moments of her life from her childhood in a small fishing village of the east coast of Canada to her tumultuous medical process. Through the re-enactment of her memories, Cooper Josephine attempts to make peace with the last masculine imprint on her body: that unfortunate deep voice that sticks to her skin.</p>
<p>Leonie’s biggest dream is to become a pig farmer. On the farm of her parents she is happily wandering around with her best friend, Skeet the cat. She is always helping out in any way possible: fertilizing the sows, tending to the pigs and help load the fully grown hogs onto the truck that will bring them to the slaughterhouse. The family farm is helping Leonie learn about the circle of life. However, new laws surrounding nitrogen emissions set by the government are threatening Leonie’s parents’ life’s work, their company, into bankruptcy. Together with her cat Skeet she sees the last pigs disappear from the farm and she realizes that her dream of living as a pig farmer might not come true.</p>
<p>The film follows the FDWA, an organisation dedicated to assisting Filipino victims of modern slavery in the UK, which was founded by and composed of a group of women who are survivors of trafficking themselves. As the latest planned rescue fails uncertainty looms, but the group rally around each other. Reflecting on their own experiences and the challenges they continue to face in the UK even after finding freedom, they discover hope in each other for a better life —for themselves and also for the women they hope to free.</p>
<p>In a Boca suburb, a couple retire to a second marriage of freedom, play, and the world’s largest puzzle collection.</p>
<p>Shannet's voice echoes in the darkness. She is lost. The night scenery of a modern city opens up. She remembers it was a sunny summer day. As she wanders the empty streets, memories begin to haunt her. The cold concrete and a threatening stream of thoughts pull Shannet into an endless tunnel. Trapped in the horrifying reminiscences, the noise transforms into music. She is playing the violin; she is alive. It is a sunny summer day. Shannet finds herself in front of a motionless carousel, waiting. She smiles as her friends join her. Together with them, Shannet stands still in silence.</p>
<p>"Sandcastles" parallels two Singapores: one in Southeast Asia, and one buried on the western coast of Michigan. On top of sharing the same name, these two places also share a fraught relationship with sand. Singapore, Michigan was a thriving lumber town in the late 19th century until erosion from mass deforestation caused the sand dunes around it to shift and swallow the town whole. Just as quickly as Singapore, Michigan disappeared under sand, its namesake in the East emerged from it through land reclamation. The film weaves a narrative that intertwines the two Singapores to depict the temporal nature of human edifices built on and destroyed by nothing more than sand.</p>
<p>The Ojai School of Canine Massage provides professional training in the art and science of dog massage therapy. With a mix of whimsy and tenderness, “The School of Canine Massage” offers a portrait of this unique school and its dog-loving participants — revealing how people heal dogs and dogs heal people.</p>
<p>"Shotplayer" is an impressionistic journey into the mind of Wilfred Rose, one of New York City's most notorious pickpockets. As he returns to the subway for the first time in many years he reflects on a life of crime in a society that has left many of its citizens behind. "Shotplayer" asks, when is it ok to push back against that society? What does it mean to live as a criminal? What does it mean to live one’s life on an invisible plane? To live at all?</p>
<p>In a run-down neighborhood, Zoe and her little brother Theo are left to fend for themselves. A young adolescent, Zoe is a ball of anger haunted by an intimate terror. Theo, still a child, flees reality into a fantastical world. During a scorching summer day, the two children will have to burst the abscess of their relationship so as not to lose each other.</p>
<p>It took seven days to create the world, it only took one to disrupt its balance.</p>
<p>Three brothers travel to Istanbul to undergo a hair transplant. Upon arrival, they hear the clinic can only accommodate one of them. As the tension between them rises, the group dynamics reveal their different personalities, along with their insecurities – which only seem to grow with age. A stop-motion film with a healthy dose of humour and a great deal of attention to detail.</p> <p><em>– Koen de Rooij</em></p>
<p>A dissatisfied marriage, a secret crush, and workplace fantasies come to a head in a diner run by a mole with a hot ass.</p>
<p>In Bogota, a bird-girl leaves behind the family home, her domineering mother and faithful dog to go and explore her sexuality.</p>
<p>In a time when all interpersonal closeness is forbidden, the hourly hotel Vaip offers wondrous rooms where guests snuggle up to devices built with great skill and let themselves fall into the perfect illusion of human touch.</p>
<p>Sweetmeats City Times news reporter Paxton Paddlepop is on location at MOSA (the Museum of Sweetmeat Art) to learn what’s truly baked under the crust of contemporary Sweetmeat art. Through a series of one-on-one conversations, Paddlepop explores the confectionery stories behind a slew of emerging and prominent Sweetmeat artists as he seeks to answer the modern art question of our day: “Why art?”</p>
<p>In a pandemic-era hospital, a robotic vacuum, bored by its repetition, decides to quit. Seeking a more meaningful existence, it ventures to a quiet Chinatown street. There, it encounters two solitary rabbits, each trapped in their own repetitive routines. As the vacuum befriends one of these characters, it finds a sense of community and begins to explore a broader purpose beyond its programmed tasks of cleaning. A dance ensues and for a time things are good. But all good things in life can't last.</p>
<p>Big boobs vs. small boobs, who has it worse? A group of women, over a drink, discusses in what ways being a part of a conservative society affects how we feel about our own breasts- which, at the end of the day, are just lumps of fat.</p>
<p>Mary, Billybud and Fumbleton are the stars of the 80s TV show <em>Wander to Wonder</em>. After their creator dies, they have to fend for themselves in the studio. As their hunger grows, the show becomes increasingly grim.<br /> <br /> This sinister stop-motion film – made with a remarkable attention to detail – was selected for the 2023 Venice Film Festival. Previously, filmmaker Nina Gantz made the animated short <strong><a href="https://iffr.com/en/iffr/2016/films/edmond" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Edmond</a></strong> (IFFR 2015), which won multiple awards – including a BAFTA.</p>
<p>It is opening night, the theater is crowded and Clara, the leading actress, refuses to leave her dressing room. Something inside her is keeping her from leaving, something she will have to face.</p>
<p>The disappearance of her sock at a local laundromat sends a fragile Rita over the edge. Hellbent on finding it, she searches deep and gets sucked into a washing machine, entering an otherworldly cycle from which she may never escape.</p>
<p>A couple awakens in the night to sounds emanating from an unlikely orifice.</p>
<p>Mya's world takes a harrowing twist when pills meant to alleviate depression unwittingly unleash a nightmarish entity that embodies her inner turmoil. Mya finds herself entangled in a relentless battle against her own psyche, fighting not just for her mental well-being but her very survival.</p> <p>"Inner Demons" is a chilling exploration of the human mind's darkest corners, exploring the nature of internal strife where the boundary between reality and the supernatural blurs.</p>
<p>A very hungry woman tells a pizza delivery guy she can't pay for the pizza she ordered. But can the sex she offers instead of currency possibly equate to the true value of a pizza? Is there anything that can be worthy of pizza, aside from what the market has decided? Together the two decide that their only option is to become the pizza object themselves, to make each other into pizza, in order to become free.</p>
<p>Oz, an irresponsible man baby, nearly misses his girlfriend’s Graduation because he’s too busy playing with toys. Before he can make amends, a mysterious package arrives containing a mangy old hand puppet. Despite the pressing need to be there for his girlfriend, Oz can’t resist trying on the puppet first and instantly has his soul imprisoned in its soft foam body. Oz is left to contemplate the sorry state of his life choices while his human body dies before his eyes. If he’s to have any hope of saving his relationship, and surviving, he’ll have to do the one thing he’s always avoided: grow up.</p>
<p>A woman grappling with difficulty finding sexual pleasure after childbirth falls back on an old coping habit.</p>
<p>Ewa is a 10-year-old girl living in a high building in a quiet town. She's an odd, lonely child and for good reason: she's convinced of being a vampire. Fascinated by Hugo, 15, she dreams of turning him into a vampire too, so that she can overcome her loneliness. When Ewa opens up to him, she gets bullied by teenagers from the neighborhood. Hurt in her body and soul, she's ready to act in the creepiest, sickest ways to prove her identity to the world.</p>
<p>Sam can't sleep. His bedroom is surrounded on all sides by chirping smoke alarms, the sign of a low battery. So he does what any bleary-eyed problem solver would do...he sets out on an odyssey to find the annoying chirp and in the process, learns about himself, his neighbors and his place in the world.</p>
<p>After a visit to the African hair salon goes awry, a young Ivorian-American woman must traverse a fantastically animated Abidjan in order to track down her hair braider.</p>
<p>During the social and political turmoil of 9/11, a young girl and her brother intimately confront loss when they discover their dead grandfather’s body. "Jedo’s Dead" frames the traditional rituals surrounding death and loss through the eyes of young children. Alone and confused, they work their way through the stages of human grief—from the painfully human to the inescapably transcendent.</p>
<p>In his affectionate diasporic family narrative, Mackie Mallison immerses the viewer in the intimate memories and imagination of four women in his Japanese-American family. Collage-like CG meshes with oral history, and poetry accents 16mm footage of the local bingo hall and staged sequences in an Asian grocery store, where everyday anxieties of shopping, paying the bills, and flying are ruptured by dreams of financial freedom and homecoming.</p>
<p>In the latest true-life portrait by the Austin team of Ivete Lucas and Patrick Xavier Bresnan, a veterinarian’s series of home visits culminates in a painful but very kind-hearted experience with a special patient.</p>
<p>Follow Hermajestie the Hung as she performs her infamous drag show and fights for social justice in Texas. <em>– Anita Raswant</em></p>
<p>In September 2022, a series of document leaks revealed that the Mexican government labeled feminist groups as a bigger threat than Mexico's deadliest cartels. In a country where 10 women are murdered every day, how can a movement advocating for women’s safety become a target of the government? "Sangre Violenta / Sangre Violeta" highlights stories of activism and loss from a radical feminist collective, an inspiring survivor, and a grieving father. These narratives illustrate the depths of gender violence in Mexico and question the future of women’s rights in the country.</p>
<p>Bambina reluctantly agrees to "get the gear" in this thoughtful meditation about virtual reality sex.</p>
<p>Musical artist Benjamin Earl Turner and his animatronic buddy Habib go on a mind bending journey to escape murderous metal head heshers.</p>
<p>A music video for The Burning Hell's song 'All I Need'. In a post-human world a lone robot scours apocalyptic wastelands, searching for the rare parts they need to save their only friend.</p>
<p>It's a video game session (online) where the mission is for the player to get home alone after a night out. The avatar is a young woman, and the player will guide her choices to get home as quickly as possible while minimizing stressful situations and loss of confidence.</p>
<p>After a series of men go missing in a seaside town, Chappell Roan meets a mysterious Siren on the beach and instantly falls in love. However, as they begin a relationship, Chappell realizes that the creature is more dangerous than she ever could have imagined.</p>
<p>Presented with unfamiliarity, a Turtle embarks outside its comfort zone. When tragedy strikes, it's only option is to trust in the hands of strangers to move forward.</p>
<p>Released as their final song, "Infinity Repeating" is a long lost demo from Daft Punk’s sessions with Julian Casablancas. Through a hypnotic walk cycle, the video explores the evolution of animation and human existence itself in one continuous shot.</p>
<p>Jimmy, a reclusive hoarder who has quite literally lost his heart's glow, clings to objects from his glorious past to shield himself from his lonely present. One day, these hoarded objects set out to teach him an important life lesson - to let go!</p>
<p>After eating an acid-laced chicken nugget in Diplo's car, Dillon Francis goes on a journey inside of a Chinese resturant featuring a cast of strange characters, melting faces, spinning tables and eel dicks.</p>
<p>In a single take, Dom attempts to get back home after being chased by a massive hoard of his own demons.</p>
<p>Welcome to an imaginary world where traditions and modernity blend, ancestral memories and visionary ideas intertwine, and vibrant colors coexist with dark designs. Each scene splendidly reveals a facet of Mali or Africa: a monument in flames, reminiscent of a cultural and architectural heritage endangered by the country's conflicts, a blood-stained soccer ball, akin to a deadly World Cup, a boy throwing his weapon into the water.<br /> Above all, there are the majestic landscapes of the continent, representatives of a growing underground punk culture, a beautiful ballet choreography featuring young dancers, and a quest for love under a millennium-old baobab tree.</p>
<p>Aube Perrie directs a bloody, frenetic fever dream for The Hives' comeback - their first release in eleven years. When a lone dog walker uncovers an old tape cassette - with the title handwritten in blood - it sets off a series of events that are explosive, surreal and very, very gory... Wearing its horror influences on its sleeve, Perrie goes full-throttle with the madness, paying homage to "The Evil Dead", zombie flicks and the Swedish horror scene in a riotous four minutes of blood-drenched fun.</p>
<p>"Stranger in The Barn" is a nordic musical fantasy on strings; an allegory of human beings stricken with fear, choosing love in times of crisis.</p>
<p>After Yachty confesses his feelings to his lover, we explore his deepest, internal fantasies as he awaits her response.</p>
<p>The official music video for "Kenneth" by Little Dragon. On an ordinary rainy day, a woman stumbles into an otherworldly desert filled with menacing thermal spirits, molten dunes, and strange frozen treats. A story that embodies that sugar-sick feeling of eating melty ice cream on a hot day—something that once gave you relief is now slowly turning on you...</p>
<p>Opening with foreboding shots of a neon-lit abandoned strip club, we are soon introduced to a creature known as Case-Y, lurking in the shadows. As the music picks up, Case-Y is compelled to throw ass. The beat drops, lights flash, and all hell breaks loose. But was it all just a dream?</p>
<p>The offbeat balance of themes and execution in this video makes for a fresh, unique concept. As dark and grotesque as the allusions to gun violence are, the over the top, almost comical cinematography - which follows the spinning bullet around corners and into a swimming pool - makes it completely surreal and cartoonish.</p>
<p>In Hong Kong it's normal for the past to be eagerly forgotten as life in this neon-doused city moves on. But sometimes remembrance is a form of catharsis, especially for the women of the Weitou people, who were among Hong Kong's original settlers. For generations they protested their arranged marriages with proud songs on their wedding nights - "bridal laments" that have now been brought back to life as an electro-infused anthem by artist Rainbow Chan. Directed by Anne Berry, the music video 'Seven Sisters' reimagines this ritual in a 100-year-old walled village, and even features some of the original brides that first learned these ancient songs.</p>
<p>Hidden in the lost belongings of an Astrobiologist are clues for the journey ahead. Welcome to "Astra," your ticket to the stars. This Mixed Reality Experience transports you from Earth to the deepest corners of the cosmos as you embark on a quest to uncover the key ingredients of life in the Universe. Step foot on planets and their dark moons in a search for future worlds and far away beings.</p>
<p>There are 575+ sovereign tribal nations in the U.S. today, each governed by a Chief, Chairman or Chairwoman. Meet dynamic tribal leaders in this XR360º experience developed for VisionPro, from interviews with powerful Chairwomen, to one of the youngest Chairmen ever elected, to an elder reflecting upon his time in tribal leadership. Experience unique perspectives on the history of this country, and the meaning of culture, family and community. See the intersections of modern life and locations that have had cultural significance for thousands of years. Today we are seven generations out from the founding of the U.S. – time to assess how our actions today will affect the next seven generations.</p>
<p>"Detachment" is a cinematic and interactive journey through our shifting sense of reality, challenging our sense of the here and now, and blending the boundary between a music video and video game with a unique movement mechanic that rewards the curious, and AI driven randomisation. "Detachment" is told from the future, looking back at how technology has impacted our experience of reality and the journey of humankind.</p> <p>Soundtracked by UK band Pivots and narrated by actor Erik Todd Dellums, "Detachment" explores the way our sense of reality is in constant flux.</p> <p>This is the standalone version of a live music VR experience created for the Glasgow Disability Alliance.</p>
<p>A new site-specific soundwalk created by Tribeca Immersive Award-winning duo Point A (artists Andrew Schneider and Annie Saunders), in collaboration with astrophysicists and the local community. Accessed in public space with headphones, the walk is full of 'was-that-part-of-it' moments, sound activated by location and time of day, narration researched and recorded in Austin, and live interactions hidden in plain sight. Just another day, regular people doing regular things and then suddenly, magically synchronous. Like an eclipse.</p> <p>This work was made possible by the Simons Foundation and is part of its ‘In the Path of Totality’ initiative and created in partnership with the Long Center.</p>
<p>What power do myths have? How do the myths of the future get shaped? "The Golden Key" brings audiences into contact with the mythological dreams of an AI as it writes and visualizes a never-ending story. The AI has been trained on tens of thousands of folk tales from around the world, a dataset of narrative fragments that echo our most basic stories and concerns. As the installation proceeds, an infinite progression of narrative, sight and sound unfolds as audience members are invited to take on the role of the "trickster" to actively shape the narrative of this generated story and explore the concealed structures that sit behind AI's purported magic. Presented by Deloitte.</p>
<p>"I'm Tired of Being Hypersurveilled" is a concept album for the age of the metaverse, confronting surveillance on the marginalized body in America. Placing us in the claustrophobic environment of the S.Y.S.T.E.M. (Securing Your Safety Through Extreme Means) we, playing as Heno., are held hostage while the S.Y.S.T.E.M. attempt to surveille our every thought. When a glitch gives us the chance to see beyond the simulation we must search for an exit or be trapped in the loop forever. The interactive experience includes simulations by nine Black artists, who created visualizers responding to prompts around surveillance.</p>
<p>An immersive animated biopic, based on the archives of opera singer Joseph Rouleau. Through a posthumous conversation with director Emilie Rosas, the work aims to dust off the world of opera and reveal Joseph Rouleau, a great pioneer of operatic art in Quebec. The experience tells his story, revisiting his personal archives, memoirs and greatest solos.</p>
<p>In the midst of a battle between Imperial forces and a fleet of 70,000 Red Flag pirates, a timid young interpreter is taken captive and in her struggle for survival discovers that neither side is what she expected.</p> <p>"Madame Pirate: Code of Conduct" is a 6DOF room-scale VR experience, blending comic strip format and live action 4DView.</p>
<p>The story of a South Asian girls coming of age and the awakening of her sexuality. She must overcome her own shame and fear to find her inner strength and true super-powers. With the arrival of her first period Maya’s world is turned upside down as she is confronted by the restrictive traditions of her conservative family and a world of hidden shame, stigma and taboo in contemporary London.</p> <p>An odyssey of womanhood and femininity, referencing ancient symbols of spiritual and feminine power, the piece draws together the real and the imaginary to trace possible paths to resilience and justice. The Player must discover a radical power based on self love, care and solidarity.</p>
<p>Inspired by “The Woman with Two Skins” of Southern Nigeria, the story follows Young Thang, a human girl living within The Community, a place where humans are forbidden; deemed dangerous and ugly. To blend in and survive, Young Thang’s guardians urge her to wear a second skin to transform her appearance. After the pressure to conform pushes Young Thang to the brink, she unknowingly puts her beloved guardians and The Community in peril. Can Young Thang find the courage to reveal her full self and save the very beings that discriminate and suppress her?</p>
<p>"Soulpaint" exists at the nexus of immersive technology, creative storytelling and wellbeing to explore the richness of the embodied human experience. Participants are taken on a journey to explore and creatively express feelings of emotion and sensations in the body. Through the process of bodymapping, 3D drawing and movement, they are invited to reveal their unique inner reality and then observe the creations of others. Using interactive technology in a genre-pushing way, this experience encourages new forms of embodied insight, allowing us to reflect on the diversity of human experience on an individual and global level.</p>
<p>“The Tent” is a Mixed Reality cinematic tabletop narrative and a glimpse of the future of immersive entertainment. A modern fairy tale set in Los Angeles, "The Tent" interrogates the nature of activism and asks the viewer, “What does it take to live a life according to your deepest held values? Why is it so complicated to be a good person?" A 21-minute experience in two parts for iPadPro, it allows the audience to explore a miniature world from any perspective. Built with volumetric video, it draws upon 2500 years of Acting and Storytelling that is at the core of our shared humanity. It’s a drama. It's a satire. It's a petite bourgeoise fever dream and a fable for society.</p>
<p>Embark on an immersive exploration in a psychotropic cyberpunk universe, where each element – from spatial audio to tactile haptic systems – is meticulously crafted to represent the emotional spectrum of a lived bipolar disorder experience. Lotus flower speakers resonate with personal stories, while triptych displays visualize the journey from turmoil to tranquility. This experience, deeply personal yet universally resonant, offers a window into the life of an individual navigating the complexities of bipolar disorder, pre and post-treatment. It's a shared exploration that invites understanding, empathy, and a collective reimagining of mental health narratives.</p>
<p>Every corner of the world has now been mapped, from the remotest deserts to the highest mountains. Yet beneath the earth’s surface, accessible only through crevices, lies a largely unknown world. Speleologists Pam and Tim Fogg have helped reveal the wonders of these caves. The couple travel the world to guide crews in the making of natural history and exploration documentaries, such as the BBC series Frozen Planet and Seven Worlds, One Planet.</p> <p>In the VR production Buried in the Rock, we descend with the Foggs to great depths, where darkness surrounds us like a velvet blanket. The speleologists talk about the geological information stored in the caves, the dangers associated with their work, and the tranquility they experience in places of total seclusion.</p> <p>What makes this underground tour even more intense is the realization that any human presence in these caves disrupts an ancient natural balance, which means they must be protected from physical visits as much as possible. But through the power of VR you can still experience them, led by these two extraordinary guides.</p>
<p>"Dani: the Portrait of a Beauty" is a virtual reality experience based on genre paintings by Shin Yunbok. The experience takes users on a journey through realistic depictions of the daily life of the Joseon Dynasty in the 1700s. Through Pansori storytelling, traditional Korean dance, and cel-shading visual art, audiences delve into Dani's moving love tale, a character symbolizing the desires, dreams, and challenges of her time.</p> <p>Dani is a gisaeng who may not be glamorous but confidently expresses herself through dance and performance. She tries to show her charm to Yisaeng, whom she secretly loves, but her continuous mistakes make her the laughingstock. Then, one day…</p>
<p>Lebanon has been facing one of the most severe economic downfalls in the world since 2019. Inflation has skyrocketed, electricity is scarce, life is a constant struggle for many. But despite the hardships, there is hope for a better future. Meet and engage with Rafik, Josephine and Batoul, three young Lebanese who stayed in the country despite the hardships. Explore their realities and listen to their stories and dreams. The documentary utilizes cutting-edge volumetric video, stereoscopic 360 and 3D animation technologies that enable viewers to engage in an holographic interview with young Lebanese from various walks of life and different places of the country to explore their realities.</p>
<p>This interactive VR experience puts you inside the brain of a man with aphasia. You not only share the experience of a father who has lost his speech, but also hear the story of his daughter, who is trying to communicate with him. She attempts to unravel the past that he can no longer talk about, and you join her in the puzzle.</p> <p>After the daughter has introduced their story, you take on the role of the father during a speech therapy session. You try to perform different exercises with your hands. They are apparently simple, but your control is disrupted—you’re unable to express what you mean. And then early memories emerge, which prove stronger than the here-and-now of the exercises.</p> <p>Monochrome pencil drawings come to life like a dreamy and imaginative animated experience—and you’re right in the middle of it, transported to the mysterious geography of Aphasia.</p>
<p>"Escape to Shanghai" follows Doris’s epic journey from Germany to safety in Shanghai, on the other side of the world making a temporary home and a new life cut off from the horrors playing out in German-occupied Europe. Filmed on location in Shanghai, Chicago, and Berlin, Doris's story is brought to life using 360 video technology alongside 3D environments, animation, motion capture and a spatial soundtrack. By telling her story, Doris sheds light on a lesser known, but important part of the Holocaust never to be forgotten. Escape to Shanghai captures the fierce perseverance of Doris and her family as refugees fighting for survival.</p>
<p>“Her Name Was Gisberta” is a VR documentary that portrays the life and death of Gisberta Salce, a Brazilian Trans woman murdered by 14 young men in the city of Porto (Portugal) in 2006. Uniting the knowledge provided by Virtual Reality Perspective-Taking Tasks, this project was created as a tool of education, social intervention and activism against transphobia.</p>
<p>"Impulse" is a groundbreaking MR experience that playfully explores what it means to live with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). We start amongst the inner workings of the brain as we learn about how we process and make sense of the world. Next, we meet four characters whose stories and environments spill out into the room around us in breath-taking MR. We discover the different ways in which ADHD can affect people as we follow their real-life testimony, told in their own words. Reflecting on our own interactions as well as diverse life stories and perspectives, we experience the complexity of ADHD and consider how systems around us could change to make space for us all.</p>
<p>In “Letters from Drancy”, you will accompany Marion Deichmann as she recounts her daring childhood journey across the borders of Northern Europe during WW2 with her mother Alice, her painful separation from her mother, her escape from the Nazis with the help of the French Resistance in Paris, her survival of D-Day in Normandy.</p> <p>Filmed on location in Paris and Normandy in France, Marion’s story has been brought to life using 360 video technology alongside 3D environments, animation, motion capture and a spatial soundtrack .</p> <p>Marion’s story is one full of emotion, loss and longing, but ultimately love. A love that has endured throughout her whole life. Now you too can share her story.</p>
<p>“Our body will remember, and it will tell.” This work delves into the theme of the body, inspired by traditional Taiwanese folklore, particularly the story of Sister Lin-Tou. It sheds light on the remarkable ability of our bodies to preserve memories of past trauma, even after the wounds have fully healed. As the VR narrative unfolds, viewers step into the Bardo, the liminal space between existence and the beginning of life, where Sister Lin-Tou resides. Here, they encounter her immense body, perceiving it as an entire universe. Within the Bardo, the dichotomy of departing or remaining loses significance, leaving behind only a repetitive time-space and an empty vessel.</p>
<p>VR users are always in two worlds at once: the physical and the digital. And so in Shadowtime, which blurs that clear boundary between reality and virtuality, you always inhabit two bodies—and at a certain point you also experience having four hands in augmented reality.</p> <p>The VR begins its exploration with the first-ever virtual object: a digital cube. By moving the cube you can make all sorts of locations appear. They look realistic but are actually an additional, disorienting AI-generated factor. Another level of disorientation arises from the fact that it briefly seems like you are using the very first VR headset—a different one than the headset you are actually wearing.</p> <p>The term “shadowtime” has its origins in discussions about the Anthropocene. It is used to describe the feeling of living in simultaneous but irreconcilable realities—like being in virtual reality and the climate crisis (something Shadowtime repeatedly reminds you about). Is the shadow world of VR just a hiding place, an escape from reality? Or is it the perfect context for learning about how to be in two places at once?</p>
<p>Polly's house is inhabited by 39 versions of herself: each one year apart, living and growing older to replace the next, reliving the same life in a never ending cycle. And this is a day like any other...</p>
<p>"Tulpamancer" explores how the intersection of generative AI and VR can shape new ways of encountering ourselves. Sitting down at a computer terminal, participants first encounter the tulpa through a series of questions about their lives. They are then invited to meet in a world prepared uniquely for them in VR by the tulpa, embarking on a journey through a series of uniquely generated scenes that evoke and question the memories of their past and potential fates. These uniquely generated experiences are destroyed at the end, left only to resonate in the minds of each participant. Presented by Deloitte. Powered by Onassis ONX Studio</p>
<p>Cibelle Cavalli Bastos' "A Picture Can’t Take Me" innovatively fuses photography, AI-generated music, and augmented reality, challenging traditional notions of identity representation in art. The work contrasts visual and auditory elements: music, shaped by early GPT-2 model interactions, is encoded onto a vinyl record, which also displays an image from the machine learning model. The interactive experience is enriched through augmented reality, activated as the record plays, inviting an exploration of identity beyond conventional frameworks. 'A Picture Can’t Take Me' is presented by Synthesis Gallery from Berlin, Germany, a leading cultural institution specializing in extended reality art.</p>
<p>The installation triptych "Kiss/Crash" employs AI-imagery to explore themes of desire and the expanding gap between real experience and artificial representations in the digital age. The interactive experience consists of three related works that use AI to augment, subvert, and negate the iconic image of the Hollywood kiss.</p> <p>Using a queer lens to appropriate a classic Hollywood aesthetic, the work places AI within the history of image-production technologies meant to incite and homogenize our desires. In the process, it reveals the nature of AI imagery and hints at how our most intimate desires will continue to be stretched and shaped by artificial representations at an accelerating pace.</p>
<p>"Opal" is an interactive installation showcasing the profound influence of ecosystem connections. Immerse yourself in the mesmerizing artifact, crafted from an assortment of extraordinary materials and vibrant colors, seamlessly merging the realms of minerals, plants, and technology. Engage with the installation via beams of light from physical flashlights, and delve into the very core of the object to unveil a world teeming with rhizomes and particles. As you explore, the elements spring to life, shimmering and responding to your movements and the play of light. Participate in a chain reaction, igniting the interconnected network within.</p>
<p>Sydney Sweeney stars as Cecilia, an American nun of devout faith, embarking on a new journey in a remote convent in the picturesque Italian countryside. Cecilia’s warm welcome quickly devolves into a nightmare as it becomes clear her new home harbors a sinister secret and unspeakable horrors.</p>
<p>Inspired by the legend of Hanuman, an icon embodying strength and courage, Monkey Man stars Patel as Kid, an anonymous young man who ekes out a meager living in an underground fight club where, night after night, wearing a gorilla mask, he is beaten bloody by more popular fighters for cash.<br /> After years of suppressed rage, Kid discovers a way to infiltrate the enclave of the city’s sinister elite. As his childhood trauma boils over, his mysteriously scarred hands unleash an explosive campaign of retribution to settle the score with the men who took everything from him.</p>
<p>On the last night of 1999, two high school juniors crash a New Years Eve party, only to find themselves fighting for their lives in this dial-up disaster comedy.</p>
<p>Rayelle Martin works as a commercial cleaner in Gary, Indiana. She's mischievous, playful, and skilled at adapting to her surroundings. One day while at work, Ray is approached by Dr. Neeraj Patel, a therapist who hires her to work as his housekeeper. Who’s going to say no to extra money? Not Ray.<br /> <br /> Dr. Patel then presents her with another offer she can't refuse: a second job cleaning his mistress’s home. At first Ray is just an observer, but then, after growing tired of being a witness, she impulsively tells one small lie: that she can speak to the dead. As Ray attempts to gain ownership over her own identity, she finds herself in an odd new position of power.</p>
<p>Nellie and Daisy attempt to escape the institution for delinquent girls in 1954 New Zealand, however not only are they caught, it triggers a relocation to a facility on a remote island. The duo become a trio as well-to-do Lou joins them, and life on the island takes shape under the command of devout Matron. The trio rail against the system, dubious of the benevolence of the bible and taking refuge in their blossoming friendship. It’s hard to reform girls who don’t believe they need reforming. However, a sense of doom settles in when experimental forms of punishment take place in the dead of night. Nellie and Daisy plot rebellion, but unexpectedly find themselves at odds with Lou, who is...</p>
<p>In the near future, a towering alien "spike" materializes in Earth's atmosphere, wreaking havoc. Years later, it's still around. A struggling beekeeper is forced to team up with an emotionally raw EMT on a roadtrip to retrieve her bees (and his car) after their stuff is suddenly teleported across the country by the alien spike.</p>
<p>Sometimes, finding your tribe requires a bit of magic. For attendees of a live action role-playing (LARP) camp in upstate New York, the deeply accepting environment has given neurodivergent, queer, and self-proclaimed "nerdy" teenagers the space for self-discovery that they have never found anywhere else. As the campers immerse themselves in this imaginative world, they discover inner strength, heal from traumas, and emerge as heroes, both in the fantasy realm and in real life. From directors Carina Mia Wong and Alex Simmons, WE CAN BE HEROES celebrates the fleeting, but profoundly formative moments that make up the most intense years of adolescence, with a little help from foam swords.</p>
<p>In a near future, normal life on Earth has been decimated. Paul and his two sons, Thomas and Joseph, have been living a half-life – tranquility by day and torment by night. One day, Thomas doesn't return home on time from a visit to his crush, the nearby farm girl, Charlotte. Paul chooses to leave the safety of their fortified farm, risking his life to find Thomas. Just as he finds his boy, a nightmarish battle ensues. Back at the house, Joseph is scared and all alone to defend himself against the nightly attack.</p>
<p>A woman crashes her car and walks down the road for help - only to find no matter which way she walks she ends up back at her crashed car again</p>
<p>Harriet finds art imitating life when she discovers certain songs can transport her back in time – literally. While she relives the past through romantic memories of her former boyfriend, her time traveling collides with a burgeoning new love interest in the present.</p>
<p>When frequently fired Walt lands a position tending bar and de-roaching shoes at his local bowling alley AlleyCatz, he feels like he finally found a home. When money issues threaten AlleyCatz, Walt is pressured by former pro-bowler and current champion drinker Skunk to accept his role as the greatest bowler ever put on this earth.<br /> While Walt’s love of big checks and in-your-face style of play dominates the pro tour, his detractors, including “Bowl Lives Matter” host Angelo Powers and fresh-out-of-retirement bowling-legend Linda “The Crusher” Curson, furiously attempt to snuff out Walt’s flame before it burns too bright.</p>
<p>Heartbroken and adrift, undocumented Brazilian immigrant Lourenço searches for purpose in the queer mecca of Provincetown while awaiting the return of his distant American lover, Joe, the one person who offers him a glimpse of a brighter future. As summer's warmth begins to fade, Lourenço encounters Maurice, a charismatic African American nurse on a fleeting holiday with his boisterous and carefree friends. Despite their vastly different backgrounds, the two men find a common bond in their shared feelings of alienation and loneliness in a country they struggle to call their own. Together, the two reconcile the pasts they’ve left behind and their uncertain futures.</p>
<p>"Música" follows a young man, plagued by the music in his head, who has to come to terms with an uncertain future while balancing love, family and Brazilian culture in Newark, New Jersey. Social media pioneer Rudy Mancuso wrote and directed this romantic musical while drawing influences from his personal journey.</p>
<p>Zoya Lowe, a 55 year old woman from Miami, FL, has been diagnosed with a black hole inside her chest and given a week to live. But what the doctors and her family don’t know is that she has already lived this week before. She’s lived it so many times, in fact, that she doesn’t even know how long it’s been. Until one day she meets Paula, a young woman studying time at a lab in the local university, and together they decide to try and solve time travel so Zoya can actually go back— back into her past, back to a time before she settled, back to when her whole future was still wide open in front of her—back so she can do it all over again, and finally be the person she always wanted to be.</p>
<p>Ricardo de la Cruz has it all. His success as a talk show host has given him every perk life could offer. When his ratings drop, he finds himself broadcasting from South Texas at a homeless shelter run by Cassie Harris to show his “charitable side”. Scandal erupts as Ricardo is falsely accused for running a ponzi scheme. He loses everything and is now stranded in South Texas. Cassie and her family bring him into the shelter. With the assistance of a homeless vet named Charlie, Cassie’s family, and his producer Marie, Ricardo regains his throne. However, the life he once had has lost its shine. He finds a way to win Cassie’s heart and gains a renewed sense of purpose in his life.</p>
<p>"Timestalker" follows hapless heroine Agnes through time as she repeatedly falls for the wrong guy, dies a grim death, gets reincarnated a century later, before meeting him again and starting the cycle anew. It is one story told over many periods, all with the messy thrills and spills that come with daring to follow your heart. Or maybe your loins...<br /> Agnes’ only hope in avoiding this violent fate is by finally reaching spiritual enlightenment; but how can she ever wise up when she’s destined to be a fool for love? Some lessons are just too hard to learn in one lifetime.</p>
<p>Wakhri is about a widowed school teacher in Pakistan who becomes a viral sensation overnight when she accidentally unleashes her unabashed opinions on social media. This newfound fame as an unlikely influencer comes with its own challenges as she has to navigate archaic mindsets and secret identities while raising her ten-year-old son in a world where women's right to have a voice and own their own space, physical or online, is a constant challenge. The film draws inspiration from the bravery of individuals like Qandeel Baloch, Pakistan's first social media celebrity who was strangled to death by her brother for bringing disrepute to the family's honour.</p>
<p>Yasmeen is eager to learn. Inside the school, her hopes and ambitions expand, even as outside, opportunity begins to shrink. On this particular day, these two worlds collide. Her Professor gets pulled out of the classroom by an unknown military force, and briefly returns to give them their homework, each to give a presentation on a unique element from the periodic table. Once arriving home, Yasmeen realizes she's lost her element. A day full of adventures and obstacles unfold as she urgently tries to track down her Professor's house. Yasmeen is helped and sometimes hindered by those she encounters – a parable for what women’s education can be in an unstable place.</p>
<p>During a world-record attempt, freediving champion Jessea Lu blacked out and was lifeless for four minutes. Director Yuqi Kang’s documentary captures the descent of a lifetime, when Jessea returns to the site of her near-death experience to face the traumas of her past and find a way back to connection.</p>
<p>The filmmakers behind cult hit "Feels Good Man" elaborate on their Emmy and Sundance winning film with "The Antisocial Network." Telling the story of one of the most consequential websites in history, 4Chan.org, the film chronicles the experience of a few early “channers” who helped to create this once thriving community for self-described shut-ins. What began as niche website, bringing together a shared love of anime and memes—and porn...lots of porn—the site wound up becoming a powerful machine for warping reality and fomenting chaos in the real world. Now as adults, these channers look back on what they built, wondering if the genie can be put back in the bottle.</p>
<p>When a wild otter in desperate need of help washes up on his jetty in the remote Scottish islands of Shetland, Billy, his wife Susan, and their devoted sheepdog Jade find themselves with a unique new member of their family. From National Geographic and Silverback Films, “Billy & Molly: An Otter Love Story” is a heart-warming story directed by Charlie Hamilton James and shot in 4K. This documentary film shows us how love can reawaken us to the beauty of nature.</p>
<p>Fashion is identity for teenage girls and one brand, Brandy Melville, has developed a cult-like following despite its controversial “one size fits all” tagline. Hiding behind its shiny Instagram façade is a shockingly toxic world, a reflection of the global fast fashion industry. Fast fashion isn’t all glitz and glamor – it’s a business that sacrifices humanity and pollutes the planet for the sake of profit. Media stories have exposed some of Brandy Melville’s unsavory practices and that’s why some call it Brandy Hell-Ville.</p>
<p>Roberto Clemente is one of baseball’s most iconic figures. As the first high-profile Latino player to play in MLB in the United States, Roberto's extraordinary career opened the door for generations of Latino baseball players to come. However, it is Roberto’s remarkable life off the field that defined his legacy. His fearless fight for social justice and racial equality. His fierce commitment to society's marginalized and under-represented. His sacrificial death for the victims of the 1972 Nicaraguan earthquake. This is the story of a man who showed that a life lived with passion and conviction can truly change the world. This is the story of an icon.</p>
<p>To stand on the edge of a cliff and throw your body into the wind, one has to be willing to lose everything. That could mean the love of your life, or it could be the life you love. FLY is an intimate portrait of three romantic couples entwined in the world's most dangerous sport. Can they protect their partners while also setting them free?</p>
<p>From the World Series of Board Games on the Vegas strip and dating back to ancient Mesopotamia, "The Hobby" is an affectionate, character-driven portrait of the massive and diverse subculture of board games. With a fascinating cast of charming subjects – including the “Roger Ebert of board games”, a rock-climbing board game philosopher, and a birdwatcher who created an unlikely smash hit – players share personal stories of competition, compulsion, creativity, and connection. "The Hobby" explores the value of leisure time and uncovers the deep meaning found in “meaningless” pursuits.</p>
<p>"How Music Got Free" tells the gripping true story of Dell Glover, a CD factory worker from Shelby, North Carolina, who led the music piracy revolution by collaborating with a group of teen hackers. The film explores the rise and fall of piracy groups, legal battles, FBI investigations, and the impact on artists and executives. It delves into the secret history of the music industry and the true patient zero of music piracy. Narrated by Method Man with interviews from Eminem, 50 Cent, Rocsi Diaz, Timbaland and more, it captures the clash between traditional music distribution and the digital revolution.</p>
<p>From director and producer Sarah Gibson, the Peacock Original documentary "Stormy" delves into the life and times of Stormy Daniels, as she shares her story and account of events that have become part of American history. Produced by Erin Lee Carr, and executive produced by Judd Apatow, Sara Bernstein and Meredith Kaulfers (Imagine Documentaries), the film takes the audience behind the curtain as Stormy navigates being a mother, an artist, and an advocate working hard to reinvent herself, while still grappling with the bombshell that went off in her life five years earlier.</p>
<p>The epic story of how families whose children were murdered at Sandy Hook took on conspiracy giant Alex Jones in two historic courtroom trials, holding Jones and InfoWars to account for the toxic myths they started spreading hours after the atrocity. Holding Jones to account involved years of effort by grieving parents and their legal teams but the result was America’s biggest-ever defamation verdict, a death-blow for Jones with damages of nearly $1bn awarded by juries in Connecticut and Texas. Fake news was put on trial for the first time in America, with unprecedented access to an Austin courtroom. Is this a sustainable way to deal with the “angertainment” pandemic engulfing our societies?</p>
<p>In the summer of 2019, a middle-aged couple are subjected to cyberstalking threats and bizarre deliveries including a bloody pig mask and funeral wreath. As the harassment intensifies, the police and FBI close in on a Silicon Valley giant and some very unlikely suspects. "Whatever It Takes" tells the extraordinary story of eBay, a Fortune 500 company founded on the principle that "people are basically good”, and how members of their security team ended up in federal prison after trying to protect the CEO from a corporate raider. This is a timely true crime caper about dysfunction, the disintegration of ethics, and a couple of unsuspecting journalists whose lives are changed forever.</p>
<p>When her date lets her down, Lena meets Daniel and there’s an instant connection, especially when she learns that he’s kept the keys to all the places he’s ever lived. Lena doesn’t want to go home. She wants to use Daniel’s keys to go on the ultimate property porn tour of London, a lost weekend of getting to know each other intimately in other people’s homes. But what begins as a risky fantasy soon becomes a deadly threat. From tiny apartments to riverside penthouses, "7 Keys" is a wild ride through the hidden side of London, the dark underbelly of a modern city where young people struggle to find their place - and sometimes struggle to survive.</p>
<p>"Doppelgängers³" draws on the experience of diasporas to challenge the commercialisation of the moon. Through encounters with doppelgängers and meetings with scientists, visionaries and cultural inventors, Nelly Ben Hayoun-Stépanian and her doppelgängers offer an experimental vision and template for a future diaspora beyond Earth. How will human inhabitants of the moon understand origin, borders and nations? The film culminates in an analog space mission in a deep cave in Spain in which we see Ben Hayoun-Stépanian and her doppelgängers experiencing a moon utopia. But things do not go according to plan... A visual, sonic experience with music by Pussy Riot, Colin Self and more. A film shot</p>
<p>Barbara Duggen, ‘The Mobile Seamstress’, is struggling to keep her fabric shop alive. After a botched sewing appointment sets her on a quest to replace her client’s lost button, she unexpectedly stumbles upon a drug deal gone bad. Faced with two downed motorcyclists, guns, and a briefcase - Barbara is completely torn. She is forced to pick between three choices: commit the perfect crime, call the police, or drive away.<br /> <br /> The narrative presents the repercussions of all three decisions, and the deadly confrontations that result from each as she gets entangled with the case’s owner. Using thread to free herself, Barbara stops at nothing to save her store.</p>
<p>"Any Other Way: The Jackie Shane Story" reveals the extraordinary rise to fame, sudden disappearance, and resurgence of trailblazing Black trans soul singer Jackie Shane. Told in her own voice through never-before-heard phone conversations and dynamic rotoscope animation—alongside her family’s powerful journey to discover her legacy—the film conjures the spirit of an ahead-of-her-time icon who dared to live life on her own terms, even when it came at a great personal cost.</p>
<p>With his signature gospel sound on the Hammond B3, Billy Preston doublehandedly elevated the greatest artists of his time – from the Beatles to the Rolling Stones, from Aretha Franklin to Eric Clapton, from Ray Charles to Barbra Streisand to Sly and the Family Stone. In our film, we explore Billy's career and influence on generations of musicians, as he scored several number one hits of his own and became one of the most sought-after musicians in the world. He did all of this as a soul divided -- by his deep roots in the church, in constant conflict with his identity as a gay Black man, searching for a family of his own that would accept him for who he was.</p>
<p>Dandelion, a struggling Cincinnati singer-songwriter in a downward spiral, takes a last-ditch-effort gig at a motorcycle rally in South Dakota where she meets Casey, a guitarist who walked away from his dream long ago. As Dandelion joins Casey’s nomadic group of struggling musicians, the kindred spirits make music together and strike up a whirlwind romance. The experience moves Dandelion from a narrow view of success to a deeper appreciation of her artistic journey, and the discovery of a voice that is authentically her own.</p>
<p>From Executive Producers Luke Campbell, Jermaine Dupri and 21 Savage, and masterfully crafted by Mass Appeal & Swirl Films, "Freaknik: The Wildest Party Never Told" is a celebratory exploration of the boisterous times of Freaknik, the iconic Atlanta street party that drew hundreds of thousands of people in the 80s and 90s, helping put Atlanta on the map culturally. What began as a Black college cookout, soon became known for lurid tales of highway hookups and legendary late-night parties that ultimately led to the festival’s downfall. At its height, Freaknik was a traffic stopping, city-shuttering, juggernaut that has since become a cult classic.</p>
<p>Take one look at award-winning songwriter / artist Allee Willis and you see someone unafraid to be themselves. Dressed in a cacophony of prints and colors, her signature asymmetrical haircut and famed parties at her real-life PeeWee’s Playhouse, Allee didn’t waste any opportunity to tell you what she was about. But privately, Allee struggled with not fitting established gender and sexual norms. She buried herself in her work, until true love manifested her ultimate masterpiece - self-acceptance. Allee began filming her life in 1950s Detroit and never stopped. This film is the realization of her wish that her “final art piece be someone putting together the trail I have left behind.”</p>
<p>In an act of desperation, impulsive black sheep Alejandro flees his home in Mexico. On the run from his unforgiving father, Alejandro finds himself in New York City where he meets Jack, a college age pet store employee with similar parental baggage. Together the two enter a whirlwind romance sending them down the rabbit hole of drugs and depravity in Manhattan’s underworld. When Alejandro’s past threatens to catch up with him, Jack is forced to choose between his family and a life on the run.</p>
<p>Two women get unexpectedly caught up in a high stakes smuggling scheme in 1970's Korea.</p>
<p>"STAX: Soulsville, U.S.A." tells the story of an underdog, interracial record label that ushered in the groundbreaking music of Otis Redding, Isaac Hayes, Booker T. & the M.G.’s, The Staple Singers, Sam & Dave and many others. Defying the notion that Black artists needed to be “made marketable,” the Memphis-based label went from ultimate outsider to one of the record industry’s most influential producers of soul music. It's a quintessentially American story of an audacious group of individuals who dared to make their own music on their own terms creating an institution that has continued to help define our culture long after the label itself has gone.</p>
<p>“Thank you, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story” joins the band in February 2022 and follows their real time journey with its fits and starts as they attempt to chart out their future.<br /> As thrilling as the story of a once-in-a-lifetime talent is, it is even more rare that a legend like Jon Bon Jovi lets the world into his most vulnerable moments, while he’s still living them. 40 years of personal videos, unreleased early demos, original lyrics, and never-before-seen photos that chronicle the journey from Jersey Shore Clubs to the biggest stages on the planet.<br /> The series relives the triumphs and setbacks, greatest hits, biggest disappointments, and most public moments of friction.</p>
<p>"Long Time Sun" is a four-part epic chronicling the rise of Kundalini Yoga and the 3HO Sikh Dharma community. With unprecedented access to the 3HO community’s innermost circle and set against the backdrop of sixty years of American life, this intimate, multi-generational series is a microcosm through which to explore the corrosive nature of power, the spiritual toll of capitalism, the commodification of wellness, and the slide into moral ambiguity that often underlies the quest for a greater good. This is a story about family, betrayal, hope, truth and reconciliation.</p>
<p>In an absurd dystopian future, two female scientists find themselves responsible for the world’s only remaining televised news source.</p>
<p>It's been six months since that disastrous night in the motel room, and these two guys are nowhere near over it. "The Long Long Night" is a tragically comedic TV series that follows Pete and Carroll, best friends since kindergarten, as they scramble to build adult lives that contain some semblance of meaning and purpose. The show’s stars, real-life childhood friends Mark Duplass and Barret O’Brien, created the 6-episode first season over the course of two-and-a-half years.</p>
<p>Ryley joins one of his songwriting idols, Bridget St. John, at her cabin in upper New York where they share a meal, make some music, and compare manicures.</p>
<p>Wumni, a reclusive young Nigerian immigrant, becomes convinced that a mysterious object approaching Earth's orbit holds the key to her loneliness. Determined to decode the alien signal, she enlists the help of Jenny, a stranger and owner of a music shop. Adapted from the short comic by award-winning graphic novelist and screenwriter, Ezra Claytan Daniels, We Are Not Alone is a lo-fi sci-fi tale that delves into themes of connection, expectation, and false promises. Shot on salvaged Ektachrome stock, this live-action film utilizes experimental animation techniques, including laser etching directly onto film, to immerse viewers in a world buzzing with texture.</p>
<p>"We Ride for Her" follows the dual narratives of two Indigenous women: Lorna and Heather. Lorna is part of an Indigenous motorcycle group and sisterhood called The Medicine Wheel Riders. The sisters organize a ride every year called The Medicine Wheel Ride that brings the issue of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) to Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, the largest motorcycle rally in the United States. Heather is a travel nurse and devoted mother to her son Khalid. Khalid is in his final year of college and is dedicated to becoming an activist for Indigenous rights. Both Heather and Khalid are searching for their sister and aunt Susan, who went missing a little over a year ago.</p>
<p>Having built a colorful life in Iowa, a costume designer returns to their island hometown, Guam, to make costumes for a children's theater show and reconnect with distanced parents.</p>
<p>It’s a painful process being an idea waiting to be brought to life, waiting to become real. Many ideas never make it. My Idea is a motion capture actor who is stuck as a motion capture actor 24/7 — eating, living, working — wondering when his creators will set him free.</p>
<p>"The Vortex Cinema" is a time-travelling, genre bending VR shooter where you enter the world of black and white movies, stepping into the shoes of a hard-boiled detective at the center of a film noir murder mystery. Uncover an elaborate conspiracy surrounding a scientist that spontaneously combusted, a red-eyed raven, a corrupt police department and a mafia underworld that holds the city in its grip. As your case unravels it will take you deeper down a rabbit hole of intrigue and face to face with friends and foes from different dimensions. Your actions and decisions will affect their lives. But beware! A dark and shadowy figure is also pulling the strings. And they are waiting for you.</p>
<p>While their fantasy characters search for an evil entity known as "The Wax One", a family takes on a quest in real life when they discover that their Dungeon Master’s marriage is falling apart. Switching between the game and the real world, it becomes clear that some character traits are dangerous in any situation. Will their imagined-selves survive their campaign as they struggle to survive each other?</p>
<p>Following the stories of family members of missing migrants in Benin City, Nigeria, this project explores the psychological effect of the consequences of irregular migrations on families who are left clueless as to the whereabouts of their loved ones.<br /> <br /> Using an installation art that makes use of photography, virtual reality (VR), sound (real life interview recordings) and a 40 foot recycled shipping container to represent the emptiness and sadness that exist in the minds of left behind family members of missing migrants, audience will be immersed in the rooms of two family members as they narrate their pains, anxieties, fears and unresolved hopes.</p>
<p>The first star cluster mapped by the original stargazers of Southern Africa constellates 444.2 light years away from Earth, ancient astronomical practice superposed on the geography and modern astrophysics of the Southern African Large Telescope. Immerse in the starlit & ghostly terrain of the Karoo, where volumetric fashion performance unfolds to a cinematic Afro-diasporic score. Costumed figurations and particle bodies morph in a triptych, entangling African cosmology with the technological sublime of inner and outer space.</p>
<p>Energēia is an immersive documentary experience where you can take a stroll without beginning or end. Freed from gravity, the visitor is invited to explore ghostly buildings, built from 3D scans within French nuclear power plants. As they go forward into these composite spaces, their direct gaze can trigger hidden interviews with several experts — engineers, physicists and researchers offering a variety of viewpoints about the future of energy at ecological, economic and geopolitical levels.</p>
<p>The Imaginary Friend invites you to take part in the vivid imagination of Daniel, a grieving eight-year-old struggling with the line between reality and fantasy. Become Daniel’s imaginary friend and let him share his world with you. Discover his joys and anxieties, even help him fight his demons head-on. However, as you spend time together, Daniel’s surroundings don’t quite understand. Why is he talking to himself? Is he crazy? When his father intends to fix him, Daniel needs to figure out his feelings before disconnecting from reality completely…</p>
<p>In Songs for a Passerby you will autonomously walk through a musical dreamscape shown in a VR headset. You are following your own 3D mirror image and on the way you will pass by various scenes: a dying horse, a choir of murmuring people, two playing dogs.<br /> Songs for a Passerby is a meditative quest that allows you to step outside reality for a moment and look at yourself. As a puppeteer of your own body you will be entering a poetic space where the melancholy question arises: is this me passing by moments, or is it rather the moments passing by me?</p>
<p>"Walk to Westerbork" is a remarkable virtual reality experience told through an intensely personal account of a young girl’s survival during the Holocaust. Audiences accompany Rodi Glass as she revisits the sights of her survival from Amsterdam, Westerbork transit camp and Vittel internment camp. Filmed on location in the Netherlands, France and the United States, Rodi's story has been brought to life, using 360 video technology alongside 3D environments, animation, motion capture, and a spatial soundtrack. Walk to Westerbork is a story of luck, defiance and love for family. Showing the capacity for the human spirit ro not only survive, but thrive.</p>