Love in the Time of Corona

Escape from everyday life in freedom and community and live utopias - for many organizers and artists, the secret of the music festivals that make culturally weak Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania a place of pilgrimage for tens of thousands of people every summer. But instead of freedom, community and utopia, there was one thing above all in the festival summers of 2020 and 2021: silence.

2015 was a momentous year for novelist Marlon James. He became the first Jamaican writer to win the Man Booker prize for his magisterial novel A Brief History of Seven Killings, about the events surrounding the attempted assassination of Bob Marley and their aftermath. He also chose to come out as gay in an article for the New York Times - a brave move for a man born in what has been called the world's most homophobic country. Alan Yentob accompanies the charismatic and provocative James back to Jamaica and finds in his three highly praised novels a complex portrait of the turbulent history of his native country.

An exploration of the interconnected experiences of queerness and illness, this film navigates personal and collective journeys through medical spaces, sexual violence, and survival, displays the profound impact on body and identity.

Tilly, Miah and Safa are three young women who endure debilitating period pain. Following an adolescence with little menstrual education, support or relief, they navigate the physical and emotional toll of intensely painful periods while trying to maintain a normal life.

At America's elite MIT, a Ghanaian alum follows four African students as they strive to graduate and become agents of change for their home countries Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe. Over an intimate, nearly decade-long journey, all must decide how much of America to absorb, how much of Africa to hold on to, and how to reconcile teenage ideals with the truths they discover about the world and themselves.

After the sunset, a man wonders between the edges of the highways gathering edible roadkill animals.

Indignité

A true story of a courageous boy who becomes a legend. Living a dream that wouldn't die; his passion empowered him to historically change the course of baseball. Facing challenges on every front he conquers all with his belief and determination; a true hero. A life changing story!

Bernhard, an actress-comedienne whose brassy humor attracts a cult-like following, here offers a semiconfessional view of her life's landscape. Childhood memories of her father, a doctor, and her mother, an artist, are warmly rendered in scenes of the Jewish family amiably accommodating itself to the Christmas season, and of the obligatory communal vacations joined by colorful relatives. The abrupt transition to a flamboyant denizen of "downtowns," Los Angeles or New York, to an existence as a character in the lives of marginal people, is evoked in sharply satirical terms, in a melange of humorous fact and fiction, monologues akin to those that make Bernhard an icon of pop culture.

A 60th anniversary retrospective documentary on the influence and context of the 1962 film, To Kill a Mockingbird.

An essay film on the editing of erotic movies.

This short film examines the origins of several superstitions including crossing your fingers, knocking on wood, rabbit's feet, and breaking champagne bottles to christen ships, plus the role of superstitions in the Flying Dutchman tale.

Ra Paulette digs cathedral-like, 'eighth wonder of the world' art caves into the sandstone cliffs of Northern New Mexico. Each creation takes years to complete, and each is a masterwork. But patrons who have commissioned caves have cut off nearly all of his projects due to artistic differences. Fed up, Ra has chosen to forego all commissions to create his own Magnum Opus, a massive 10-year project.

The story of Alice Herz-Sommer, a German-speaking Jewish pianist from Prague who was, at her death, the world's oldest Holocaust survivor. She discusses the importance of music, laughter, and how to have an optimistic outlook on life.

An autobiographical essay film structured as a letter to the director’s young daughter, "Où en êtes-vous, Bertrand Bonello?" weaves clips from Bonello’s films, excerpts from his scripts, pop songs, and snippets of original footage into a lyrical, reflexive cinematic self-portrait. "Où en êtes-vous?" is a collection initiated by Centre Pompidou, who asked directors to make retrospective and introspective films.

Documentary about the illegal mourning tradition of head slashing in the Azerbaijan region of northern Iran. In the film, Panahi documented a mourning ceremony for the third Shi'ite Imam, Imam Hossein, where people hit their heads with knives until they bled. Panahi had to shoot in secret and the film was banned for several years.

Kytarista

Set to a classic Duke Ellington recording "Daybreak Express", this is a five-minute short of the soon-to-be-demolished Third Avenue elevated subway station in New York City.

Duarte, a visually impaired fifty-year-old, sets out to look for Leandro, his Cape Verdean friend. Despite the heat of a Lisbon summer, Duarte wanders through the streets of his neighborhood, but no one seems to have seen or to have even known Leandro. Duarte's investigation will lead him deep into the night, and will ultimately reveal his secret.

Spotlighting the art of drag, and centered on the New York staple Wigstock, this documentary showcases the personalities and performances that inform the ways we understand queerness, art and identity today.