October 16, 2019
RELAXER
DescriptionBiosContactDescription AFI FEST alum Joel Potrykus takes us back to the halcyon days of Y2K for his latest study in broken men and thwarted ambitions – and it all takes place on a couch. Longtime collaborator and frequent muse Joshua Burge reunites with Potrykus, with Burge playing Abbie, a young man whose permanently pained face...
October 16, 2019
THE RETURN
DescriptionBiosContactDescription Karoline — a woman raised in Denmark by adoptive parents — travels to South Korea seeking more information about her birth mother. She takes up residence at KoRoot, a real-life guesthouse in Seoul for transnational adoptees. It's there that the formal daring and seamless blend of documentary and fiction in Malene Choi's debut feature...
October 16, 2019
THE WATER SLIDE
DescriptionBiosContactDescription Tragedy strikes the world's tallest water slide. Bios Nathan Truesdell recently directed BALLOONFEST, THE WATER SLIDE and THE ART OF MAKING MONEY. Truesdell was the lead cinematographer of SPEAKING IS DIFFICULT. He produced WE ALWAYS LIE TO STRANGERS, CONVENTION and CAUCUS. He was a cinematographer and editor on KILLING THEM SAFELY and was the...
October 16, 2019
THE WEEKEND
DescriptionBiosDescription Despite remaining friends, stand-up comedian Zadie is “extremely single” ever since her breakup with Bradford. When she invites him to her mother’s bed and breakfast for the weekend, Bradford invites his girlfriend. What begins as a fun weekend getaway quickly becomes riddled with baggage, jealousy and desire. Tension between the guests build as secrets...
October 16, 2019
WHERE THE WATER RUNS
DescriptionBiosContactTrailerDescription During the most drastic and prolonged drought in California history, a water truck delivery driver uses his resources to return water to the communities that need it most. An AFI Conservatory thesis film. Bios DuBois Ashong (AFI Class of 2017) focuses on telling stories centering on under-represented communities around the world. Largely self-taught DuBois'...
October 16, 2019
WHILE I YET LIVE
DescriptionBiosDescription Five acclaimed African-American quilters from Gee's Bend, Alabama, talk about love, religion and the fight for civil rights as they continue the tradition of quilting that originally brought them together. Bios Maris Curran's films have shown at Berlinale, TIFF, Sheffield Doc/Fest and MoMA, among 50 other prestigious festivals and institutions. Her debut narrative feature,...
October 16, 2019
RAFIKI
DescriptionBiosContactDescription Kena is a teen living in the suburbs of Nairobi, Kenya. Her day-to-day consists of working her dad’s kiosk and kicking around a soccer ball with her boys. Ziki is a bubbly school girl who practices dance routines with her girls. Their paths cross, and the two form an inexorable bond. Amid a community...
October 16, 2019
RAY & LIZ
DescriptionBiosContactTrailerDescription In this immersive debut, director and photographer Richard Billingham returns to the squalid council flat outside of Birmingham where he and his brother were raised, in a confrontation and reconciliation with parents Ray and Liz. As Thatcher-era circumstances progressively worsen in their nicotine-stained, grim existence, familial affection is a rare commodity. With a distinctly...
October 16, 2019
REBIRTH IS NECESSARY
DescriptionBiosTrailerDescription A video-art film exploring the magic and dynamism of Blackness in a realm where time and space are altered. Bios Jenn Nkiru is a visionary artist and director from and based in Peckham, London. An MFA graduate in Film from Howard University, her first film EN VOGUE, shot by Bradford Young and Arthur Jafa,...
October 16, 2019
PUTIN’S WITNESSES (SVIDETELI PUTINA)
DescriptionBiosContactTrailerDescription With PUTIN’S WITNESSES, documentarian Vitaly Mansky — former head of documentaries for Russian national television — returns to footage he filmed when commissioned, and provided with unnervingly intimate access, on a propaganda piece promoting Vladmir Putin’s first presidential election. The original documentary had purported to capture an energized pro-democracy movement leading up to the...
