September 26, 2023
MAMBAR PIERRETTE
DescriptionBiosDescription Screening to be followed by a conversation with director Rosine Mbakam. "Life is hard and you have to keep going" are the sage words of MAMBAR PIERRETTE's eponymous hero as she presses on raising three children, caring for her elderly mother and running a business as a skilled seamstress in Cameroon's largest city of Douala. With her incisive narrative debut,...
September 26, 2023
RYUICHI SAKAMOTO | OPUS
DescriptionBiosDescription In the years preceding his March 2023 passing, legendary composer Ryuichi Sakamoto had not been able to hold live performances. This filmed solo concert, Sakamoto’s final performance, directed by his son Neo Sora (THE CHICKEN, AFI FEST 2020) – an extraordinary artist in his own right – leaves behind an intimate, heartrending and personal...
September 26, 2023
PICTURES OF GHOSTS (RETRATOS FANTASMAS)
DescriptionBiosDescription Brazil’s Oscar® submission for Best International Feature Screening to be followed by a conversation with director Kleber Mendonça Filho. Acclaimed Brazilian filmmaker Kleber Mendonça Filho (BACURAU, AFI FEST 2019) turns his camera inward, crafting an infectious personal essay exploring the spaces and cinemas that have long lingered in his memory. Now living in his...
September 26, 2023
MENUS-PLAISIRS – LES TROISGROS
DescriptionBiosContactDescription Located just across from the train station in the unassuming village of Roanne, France, is La Maison Troisgros, which continues to thrive in its third generation of ownership. Through a bright, open concept dining area and kitchen and into the verdant farmland where ingredients are sourced, Frederick Wiseman’s observational, and exceedingly delectable documentary reveals...
September 26, 2023
THE ECHO (EL ECO)
DescriptionBiosContactTrailerDescription Mexican-Salvadoran filmmaker Tatiana Huezo (PRAYERS FOR THE STOLEN, AFI FEST 2021) makes a visually arresting return to nonfiction filmmaking with this immersive portrait of multi-generational family life in the remote Mexican highlands. Focusing on a tightknit trio of families, the film is named for the village where the families have farmed for generations, just...
September 26, 2023
MILISUTHANDO
DescriptionBiosDescription Screening to be followed by a conversation with director Milisuthando Bongela. A poetic interweaving of archival material and in-depth interviews, Milisuthando Bongela’s incisive personal essay examines identity construction through a historical lens, investigating the impact of racism and colonialism on herself and her loved ones. Born in South Africa’s Transkei region, an unrecognized state purportedly protected from its apartheid system,...
September 26, 2023
SMOKE SAUNA SISTERHOOD
DescriptionBiosDescription Estonia’s Oscar® submission for Best International Feature Screening to be followed by a conversation with director Anna Hints and producer Marianne Ostrat. Tucked away in a lush forest in southern Estonia, a group of women gather seasonally in a communal smoke sauna. A traditional practice of the Võro community, recognized on UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage List, they bare their all...
September 26, 2023
ORLANDO, MY POLITICAL BIOGRAPHY (ORLANDO, MA BIOGRAPHIE POLITIQUE)
DescriptionBiosContactTrailerDescription Philosophically probing and brimming with delight, writer/intellectual Paul Preciado’s directorial debut composes a letter to Virginia Woolf, concerning her nearly 100-year-old novel "Orlando: A Biography." In it, an aristocrat changes gender while sleeping and awakes as a woman who then traverses centuries. Preciado convenes 26 trans and non-binary people, between the ages of eight...
September 26, 2023
STAMPED FROM THE BEGINNING
DescriptionBiosDescription Screening to be followed by a conversation with executive producer Dr. Ibram X. Kendi, producer Alisa Payne and executive producer Mara Brock Akil. Adapting the celebrated book by historian and National Book Award-winning author Ibram X. Kendi, director Roger Ross Williams (LIFE, ANIMATED; the Oscar®-winning short film MUSIC BY PRUDENCE) cinematically explicates Kendi’s groundbreaking...
September 26, 2023
THEY SHOT THE PIANO PLAYER
DescriptionBiosDescription Animator Javier Mariscal and director Fernando Trueba (BELLE EPOQUE) reunite after CHICO & RITA (AFI FEST 2010) for this animated, Bossa Nova-inflected documentary about virtuoso Brazilian pianist Francisco Tenório Júnior, who disappeared under mysterious circumstances during the military dictatorship of Argentina in 1976. Narrated by Jeff Goldblum, the film traces a New York music...
