Gates to the Lemkos' Land

The 20th century was the roughest in history for the Carpatho-Rusyns of Central Europe. After World War II, when they were declared Ukrainians by the new Communist regimes in every country where they live, Carpatho-Rusyns in Czechoslovakia and elsewhere became extinct overnight -- and this was their existence for more than 50 years. But with the 1989 Velvet Revolution, led by the playwright and former dissident Václav Havel, Carpatho-Rusyn ethnicity revived in every country - including the United States. This is the story of that revival.

The documentary film is not a search for the survived truth of the inhabitants of the Ruthenian village Ladomírová. It captures their subjective memories, often frozen in time and in everyday life. Only strong impressions of sadness, joy, suffering, which reflect the great history of the 20th century. There is no truth about the past, it is only the human mind that actually makes morytates - bloody enlightening stories and legends.

“The Carpathians are medieval!” one character bellows, and this tale of the tree-chopper Petro, his faithless wife Marijka, and various scheming businessmen and foremen does little to disprove the assertion. Interestingly filmed with a nonprofessional cast recruited from the region, Faithless Marijka may have a neorealist conceit, but its direction is utterly futuristic, filled with the lightning-fast montage techniques and low-angle camera of the Soviet avant-garde (along with its invigorating agitprop).

In a Carpathian village, Ivan falls in love with Marichka, the daughter of his father's killer. When tragedy befalls her, his grief lasts months; finally he rejoins the colorful life around him, marrying Palagna. She wants children but his mind stays on his lost love. To recapture his attention, Palagna tries sorcery, and in the process comes under the spell of the sorcerer, publicly humiliating Ivan, who then fights the sorcerer. The lively rhythms of village life, the work and the holidays, the pageant and revelry of weddings and funerals, the change of seasons, and nature's beauty give proportion to Ivan's tragedy.

In a mountain village one woman's beauty and popularity with the men incurs the wrath of the others. AKA The Stray.

This film is a romantic story of love between a Hutsul girl and wounded Soviet guerrilla Andrii whom she rescues from certain death. The events unfold against the backdrop of WW2 presented with many obligatory falsehoods of the imperial Russian historiography: heroic Soviet guerrillas, poor and backward Hutsuls, rich Hutsuls betraying their own people and collaborating with the enemy, Ukrainians incapable of their own agency. Crude and mendacious as it is, this ideology is relegated to the narrative background, and the viewer's attention gets quickly captivated by the artistic fortes of the film: riveting stage presence of Kostiantyn Stepankov, Ivan Mykolaichuk, Boryslav Brondukov and the debuting Ivan Havryliuk; gorgeously atmospheric photography of Mykola Kulchytsky, beautiful faces, language, and dress of the Carpathian Ukrainians, and a faithful presentation of Hultsul folk culture devoid of typically condescending Soviet colonial slant.

"Free Spaces" sketches a new and transformative image of four major cities in Eastern Europe. In te post-communist urban settings of Tbilisi (Georgia), Yerevan (Armenia), Chișinău (Moldova) and Kiev (Ukraine), Ina Ivanceanu follows artists and activists as they reclaim public spaces and assert their freedom of expression. Occupying a cinema, reviving an old Soviet circus, converting a grim metro passage into a glamorous arena, and repurposing a defunct factory building into a cultural agora. By seizing and creatively transforming public spaces characterized by an abondoned past, today's new generation explores democratic means and freedom while also confronting pervasive neoliberal structures in their respective societies.

Documentary exploring the life of the late, famous Portuguese musician, António Variações.

Considering sound over language, Colleen Pesci’s Cat Secrets explores the purr of a cat, its frequency and hum, as a method of healing. Cat Secrets’ narrator spends much time in the bath, exploring what a body should do to heal, a practical sensibility with an intimate home movie feel.

Power Grab by Nicola Singh and Helen Collard focuses on the interplay of bodies in opposition and harmony.

Homelessness in the United States takes many forms. For Elizabeth Herrera, David Lima and their four children, housing instability has meant moving between unsafe apartments, motels, relatives’ couches, shelters, the streets and their car. After 15 years of this uncertainty, the family moved into their first stable housing — an apartment in the San Francisco Bay Area — in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.

Cryptid documentarian Seth Breedlove and paranormal researcher Shannon LeGro continue their search for the truth behind the enigma of unidentified flying objects

Writer Stig Claesson and director Lars Lennart Forsberg travel around Sweden during the summer to see if the country that people imagine it to be actually exists.

a funny and poignant animated documentary about senior citizens and romance. These seniors talk frankly about dating, companionship and sexual desire

An ode to time decay and the power of fire. A study on disappearance and disintegration.

A look at a psychiatric clinic through the eyes of the artist Alexey Stakhanov, who has been living in a neuropsychiatric boarding school for a long time.

It is an investigation into the loaded, transforming topography that is already palpable in the landscape, before we actually understand what language it creates for our society.

Survivor testimonies and rare images of the deadly eruption of Mount St. Helens reveal the cataclysms it unleashed.

Mahrez, il était une foi

Hardy Boyz, Dudleyz and Edge & Christian have raised the bar on tag team matches to new heights. Their ladder matches are already the stuff of legend, and they've never met a table they didn't break. If you like over-the-top action and high-flyin' excitement, this show is for you.