Playlist
<p>20 Pounds to Happiness follows a full figured Latina who joins a Real Women Have Curves Support Group to cope with her critical mother, and must decide whether to get gastric bypass surgery or risk losing the man of her dreams who wants her to keep her curves and move in together.</p>
<p>American Sons is the story of a brotherhood of Marines who endured a life-changing period of growth and bonding while deployed to Helmand Province Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom. A decade after their deployment, they struggle to overcome mental and emotional trauma caused by the loss of their close friend, Cpl. JV Villarreal. Leaving more than his memory behind, JV’s intimate video diary is an immersion in the harrowing Afghanistan experience and the catalyst that sets the Marines’ healing journey in motion.</p>
<p>The film tells the story of a revolutionary Chicano art group who turned 1970s Los Angeles into their canvas. Merging activism with radical art-making, ASCO challenged the established order of Hollywood, museums, and media. Unrecognized by mainstream institutions during their time, they are now considered amongst the 20th century's most significant artists. Director Travis Gutiérrez Senger mirrors their boundary-pushing spirit weaving nonfiction and fiction together with a new generation of Latinx artists.</p>
<p>Los Angeles Canvas examines some of the lesser-known aspects of Los Angeles' social, political and cultural life through a study of its traditional outdoors murals. A tradition inspired by the Civil Rights Movement and the Mexican Mural Movement. These murals have historically advocated for social justice, representing under-examined narratives that contest mainstream history and conveying the community’s cultural identity.</p>
<p>Rico’s summer is a mix of chasing girls and hustling homemade cocktails out of a cooler on Orchard Beach, the Bronx. But when Destiny, his teenage girlfriend, crashes at his place with his family, it’s only a matter of time before his carefree days come spiraling down.</p>
<p>A group of misfits converges at Babel, a legendary dive bar that doubles as purgatory, where La Flaca — the city’s Grim Reaper — presides. Here, souls gamble years of their lives with her, daring to outwit Death herself.</p>
<p>A successful music video director and expectant father pushes his work-life balance to the extreme as he hires a doppelgänger to work in his stead.</p>
<p>An independent feature film that is an anthology of four stand-alone short films. Each of the segments features a Trans character in the lead and they all take place in a different part of Los Angeles. These character driven slices of life center the stories, challenges and triumphs of LA’s diverse Trans community.</p>
<p>When a school mass shooting rocks a town in Texas, a mom desperate to save her kids becomes an overnight hero and speaks out against a faulty system. The community challenges the powers that failed to protect its most vulnerable - children</p>
<p>Regina and Valerio are a happy couple seeking a way out of their criminal family business, but their efforts only push them deeper into the pit they hoped to escape.</p>
<p>Co-director and protagonist Abraham Jiménez, one of the most important voices of Cuban independent journalism, is expecting a baby with his wife, producer/co-director Claudia Calviño. As they become more and more exhausted and depressed from the constant harassment of the Cuban government, the young family embarks on a journey off the island and become political exiles in Spain. A heartfelt, intimate look at daily life in Cuba and the measures taken by one family to protect their freedom.</p>
<p>A contemporary story about life in a Chatino town and the effects of migration on it.</p>
<p>Self-assured, mysterious, and captivating Linda agrees to work at an affluent home in Buenos Aires. Her charm sparks strong sexual attraction among all members of the family, exposing how fragile their externally happy veneer really is.</p>
<p>Olivia and The Clouds explores love's complexities through a Rashomon effect. Olivia, haunted by a past love, hides it under her bed. She trades flowers with this ghost in exchange for comforting rain clouds.</p>
<p>Hilda and Cristina cross a cemetery, they have been told that a settlement will begin nearby. They are young and want to have their own home. Hilton, an illegal gravedigger, watches with concern as the settlement begins to form. If they invade, he will have no place to continue digging graves. The settlement and the cemetery are close, and the dead seem to have achieved what they desire: A home.</p>
<p>At 63, newly freed César Fierro must rebuild his life after being wrongfully convicted in Texas 40 years earlier. In this documentary, the audience accompanies Fierro on his journey, observing his often painful transition back into society.</p>
<p>Under the glow of the moon and shimmering stars, a playful water droplet and her firefly friend play tag across an idyllic lily pond. They laugh and cast ripples across the quiet darkness of the pond until their play leads them to the farthest edge of the pond, where neither of them have dared to go before.</p>
<p>Dormilón lovingly cares for the abandoned cinema he’s made a home. Every night he records his dreams, in which he is the star performer of the theater, rather than its former-janitor. On a stormy night, Dormi’s carefully crafted life is challenged when his nightmares accumulate and confront him. Dormilón will have to overcome his fears and embrace his insecurities to be a more complete version of himself.</p>
<p>Óscar begins to become isolated in his playful childhood world. His best friend Jesus doesn't want to play anymore after falling in love with Betsa, their school friend. In this dilemma of leaving his childhood or staying with his games by himself, terrorist violence erupts and he must leave everything behind, growing up at once. Forty years later, Óscar reminisces as he walks along the highway returning to his hometown looking for food and shelter, during the COVID-19 crisis.</p>
<p>No Vacancy explores the unraveling mind of Jack, depicted through his dilapidated motel. The film blurs reality and memory through vivid, often disorienting imagery. Jack navigates chaotic nights filled with mysterious phone calls, deep-seated humiliation, addiction struggles, and the inescapable weight of his past mistakes.</p>
<p>Pinpin, a small tinkerer made of found objects, and Matilda, an origami yellow-billed magpie, reside in a backyard full of abandoned items. One day, an alluring bottle cap flips over the fence and into their yard. The tenacious tinkerer and the mischievous magpie both decide they must have it for themselves, thus initiating a rivalry where they test their limits for the treasure they have desperately desired.</p>
<p>Rich, textured animation gives life to the story of a woman who was once told she was a “black stain” and who grew up believing darkness was her destiny. Now an adult, she reflects on her relationship to past hardships and trauma, giving new meaning to the darkness and transforming her sense of self.</p>
<p>In a dystopian world, the Girl breaks her ceramic pot, which holds a secret within. The breaking of the pot opens portals to a parallel universe and the girl enters a time of transformation in which the creation of a new world is finally possible.</p>
<p>Terrestrial life reached a distant planet after a long odyssey through space, via microorganisms in meteorites that can survive the journey. On the planet Somnum, night is eternal. Humans carry with them their dream of reproducing their past life, but their luggage also includes ancestral fears and absurd rules. The sky is falling in.</p>
<p>17-year-old Azul is left isolated by grief in the wake of her sister’s untimely passing. Grappling with her sister’s absence, against the backdrop of a disconnected family, Azul yearns for connection until she catches sight of The Lady Lowriders. Enamored by their energy, Azul begins to find respite from her grief alongside the Ladies, and a new path forward emerges while on her first cruise ride around the streets of Los Angeles.</p>
<p>In a dystopian future, a mother struggles to finish making her daughter's quinceañera dress.</p>
<p>Vera is trapped in the chilling grip of Cotard's syndrome, a rare neurological disorder that convinces her she is dead. She perceives the world as a decaying, lifeless realm, a reflection of her own internal state. In her delusion, humanity itself has perished, leaving her a solitary phantom in a desolate landscape. Within this morbid reality, a flicker of something unexpected arises: a fragile, almost imperceptible hope. It could be a memory, a fleeting sensation, or even a twisted manifestation of her illness.</p>
<p>Annie is at home getting ready for a date, struggling to find a pair of pants that fit. If only her butt was a little smaller! She soon runs into a series of butt-related problems: first, she gets a butt-pimple, then she gets a BUNCH of butt pimples... and finally, she winds up with a big old bruise on her left butt cheek.... that turns into a blackhole and sucks her inside. Will Annie ever make it to her date? And moreover, will butt even let her?</p>
<p>After 13 years, estranged sisters Isabel and Mariana return to their childhood home in rural Texas to care for their sick father. Determined to reclaim what was stolen from them and end his suffering, they secretly plot his murder. Desperate for revenge and an apology, they unknowingly summon a Duende—a sinister, elf-like creature that appears when someone in the family desires the death of another member.</p>
<p>Maribel has been mourning the tragic loss of her mother in the most peculiar way imaginable— by secretly attending the funerals of strangers. After weeks of lying and searching for solace through the grief of others, her inability to move on finally catches up with her.</p>
<p>Lili was convinced by her doctor, boyfriend and parents to have a baby she did not plan or want. As she awaits in her birthing pool (her parent's bathtub), Lili calls her loved ones and figures out that they will all be absent for absurd reasons. With a mix of despair and sarcasm, Lili debates with each of them as she slowly faces the reality that she will be alone through it all.</p>
<p>Cristina is a transgender Honduran woman who was separated from her mother Alma when she was a small child, an event that caused deeply rooted trauma for both mother and daughter. Twenty years later Cristina has managed to locate Alma and they will have the opportunity to reunite. Only since their separation, Cristina has affirmed her female gender. If she presents as her true self, will her mother embrace her?</p>
<p>A bilingual Ecuadorian-American redhead living in Los Angeles enters a seemingly innocuous interaction with a Spanish-speaking stranger, but her anxieties around her Latin identity and relationship to speaking Spanish quickly prove that navigating this exchange is anything but simple. With every possible interaction having run through her mind, one is left rooting for the possibility that the two might share a moment of human connection.</p>
<p>Beautifully Ugly follows a heartbroken man as he embarks on a surreal journey through the five stages of grief. Along the way, he encounters strange and fantastical moments that challenge his perception of love, loss, and identity. As he navigates this emotional odyssey, he slowly finds peace and acceptance, emerging with a renewed sense of self.</p>
<p>A galvanizing sensory trip into the lives of zealous dancers and artists, with a restless appetite for fame. At a time when the police tactics clash head on with Demetal’s unorthodox views and Natasha’s and Maco’s nihilistic approach, a struggle about expression ensues. In a counter-culture fitted to shock and offend the establishment, La 42 is an unrepentant window into a place and time in the Dominican urban landscape that makes you glad to be alive—all on a 600-meter 42nd street.</p>
<p>The story follows naturalist Alex Valdez as he comes in contact with Jorge, a conservationist who is turning a deforested piece of land in Colombia into a sanctuary for endangered animals. Together they embark on a mission to save the area from imminent destruction by setting the stage for the forest to become a fully-formed ecological reserve. By bringing a crew of filmmakers to document the reserve's remarkable wildlife and a team of scientists to help properly restore the land, Alex and Jorge reveal a story and a world with the power to inspire millions.</p>
<p>Sofía, a curious and imaginative young girl, faces challenges at school as she begins to navigate the complexities of her mixed-race identity. As her art springs to life through vibrant and whimsical animations, the story delves into Sofia’s journey of self-discovery, capturing her confusion, resilience, and profound lessons about belonging. Sofia learns to embrace the shades that define her, blending love, culture, and individuality into a unique narrative.</p>
<p>In a retro-futuristic city where shapeshifter birds are persecuted and feared, Miriam, a struggling single mother, secretly brings her troubled son, Daniel, to work at the towering Bank of Avalon. When Daniel suddenly exhibits alarming signs of transformation, she’s forced to protect him before others discover his true nature.</p>
<p>LaLa has turned vegan as an act of love to Johnny, the love of her life. But after binging rare greenery at a flower shop to stop her everlasting hunger, she finds herself turning into a flesh-eating human plant, same night she’s expected to meet her lover’s vegan posse.</p>
<p>In 1920s Buenos Aires, a city shaped by European immigration, a family of rats peacefully roams Plaza de Mayo, sustained by a kind-hearted baker who shares his empanadas with them. However, the governor, repulsed by the rodents, travels to Paris and discovers skilled hunting pigeons. Upon returning, despite witnessing the harmony between the baker and the rats, he releases the French pigeons in the plaza. With the new predators patrolling their home, the rats are forced to abandon the plaza and seek refuge in the sewers. But to the governor’s surprise, the pigeons become a plague.</p>
<p>Suspense looms in the air as Omar, a confused patient, suddenly awakes in a San Francisco hospital from an almost month long coma. He cannot remember how he got there and other important pieces of his life. His partner Isaac insists they must leave immediately and take their boat out on the bay to help trigger forgotten memories. Omar has his reservations, but agrees to sneak out of the hospital as night falls.</p>
<p>Mirna and Magdiel are an ordinary family living under extraordinary circumstances. After fleeing violence in Honduras, joining the infamous migrant caravan, and enduring months in a US detention center, they are sponsored by a synagogue in Seattle, who lend them an empty beachfront mansion while they wait for their asylum verdict. Over three years, this young family navigates countless moments–both life-altering and mundane–where grief, memory, and joy collide</p>
<p>A determined diner owner and her quirky employees face financial ruin and unhappy patrons while trying to save their restaurant - all as an unlikely volcanic disaster looms over Fresno, California.</p>