September 26, 2024
BIRD DRONE
DescriptionBiosContactDescription Screens as part of SHORTS PROGRAM: ANIMATION 2 A lonely seagull looking for love struggles to accept that his newfound object of affection is a human-operated drone with a limited battery life. Bios Radheya Jegatheva is an Oscar®-qualified and AACTA-nominated filmmaker from Perth, Western Australia. Born in Malaysia at the turn of the century,...
September 26, 2024
BLACK DOG (GOU ZHEN)
DescriptionBiosDescription Recently released from prison, the hardened Lang (Taiwanese action star Eddie Peng) struggles to adjust to life on the outside. He returns to his dusty little mountain town in the Gobi Desert only to find it overrun by feral dogs. In search of a job, he joins the motley crew (led by CAUGHT BY...
September 26, 2024
BLACK HERCULES
DescriptionBiosContactDescription Screens as part of SHORTS PROGRAM: DOCUMENTARY 2 A soulfully candid pilgrimage into the life and times of street bodybuilder, Craig Monson, and the social dichotomy of Black LA that made him a legend. Bios Raised on the South Side of Chicago, Emmy®-nominated director Rodney Lucas is known for his uncanny ability to capture...
September 26, 2024
BIRD
DescriptionBiosContactDescription After a detour into documentary with COW (AFI FEST 2021), AFI Conservatory Alum Andrea Arnold (Class of 1991) returns to fiction with a dreamy social-realist drama that soars into the surreal. On the cusp of adulthood, 12-year-old Bailey (Nykiya Adams) lives a hard-scrabble but free-range life in a North Kent squat with her deadbeat...
September 26, 2024
THE BALCONETTES (LES FEMMES AU BALCON)
DescriptionBiosContactDescription U.S. Premiere Following a string of notable performances in films including PARIS, 13TH DISTRICT and TÁR, actor/director Noémie Merlant’s sophomore directorial effort, which premiered in the Midnight section at the Cannes Film Festival, proves a confidently daring tilt of a cultish horror comedy with an emphatically feminist flair. During a blistering heat wave in...
September 26, 2024
ARCHITECTON
DescriptionBiosDescription U.S. Premiere The latest documentary from Victor Kossavosky (GUNDA) is a meditative exploration of humanity’s destructive shaping of the natural world told through visually mesmerizing footage of concrete in its many forms. Ukrainian apartments torn asunder amidst war, Turkish buildings leveled by an earthquake, colossal ancient ruins in Baalbek: these are a few of...
September 26, 2024
APRIL
DescriptionBiosContactDescription Following her critically acclaimed debut BEGINNING, Déa Kulumbegashvili reteams with lead actress Ia Sukhitashvili in this visceral, uncompromising manifestation of womanhood. Set in the Orthodox Christian-dominated communities of rural Georgia, where abortions are technically legal up to 12 weeks but so culturally and politically taboo that the practice is drastically curbed, OB-GYN Nina (Sukhitashvili)...
September 26, 2024
AND GRANNY WOULD DANCE
DescriptionBiosContactTrailerDescription Screens as part of SHORTS PROGRAM: ANIMATION 1 In Iran, Marmar listens to the stories told by her grandmother’s friends as they play an illicit game of cards. Based on memories and shared stories of love, grief and resilience, this is a tribute to the solidarity of Iranian women. Bios Maryam is a British-Iranian,...
September 26, 2024
ALL WE IMAGINE AS LIGHT
DescriptionBiosContactTrailerDescription Building on her lyrical docufiction essay film A NIGHT OF KNOWING NOTHING (AFI FEST 2021), Payal Kapadia expands her feminist lens to encompass contemporary Mumbai in this ambitious yet understated sophomore feature. Centered on three nurses hailing from small hometowns, the film follows their attempts to carve out a modest living amid the hustle...
September 26, 2024
AFTERNOONS OF SOLITUDE
DescriptionBiosContactDescription In his mesmerizing latest, uncompromising Catalan filmmaker Albert Serra (PACIFICTION, AFI FEST 2022) enters the Plaza de Toros de la Maestranza in Seville, Spain with established contemporary bullfighter Andrés Roca Rey to construct a documentary portrait teeming with confrontations. A primitive, brutal and highly ritualized custom, each corrida de toros will either see the...
