Synopsis: The collective experience and raw whiteness account of Ukrainians – a married couple of artists, a priest in Bucha, and soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine – united by the events in the Kyiv region during the occupation and after the liberation in the spring of 2022.
Synopsis: Filmmaker Colette Ghunim embarks on journeys with her parents to find the ancestral houses they were forced to flee as children in Mexico and Palestine. Colette’s initial desire to heal her disconnect from her cultures and her parents reveals an internal quest to discover home within herself.
Screening Time(s): Saturday, April 11 at 8:10pm Sunday, April 12 at 9:25am
Directed by: Jacy Mairs Cast: Esther Harrison, Eddie Lee Wollrabe. Chloe Kramer
Synopsis: Trash Baby is a coming-of-age drama that follows 12-year-old Stevie as she navigates growing up, getting out, and the art of finding beauty in the ugliest of places.
Synopsis: An unexpected pregnancy compels an Indian immigrant mother to help her adopted twin daughters reconnect with their White birth mother and estranged Native American father, exposing raw class divides while transforming their understanding of identity and belonging.
Synopsis: Gioia has devoted her whole life to her work as a teacher. She’s fifty years old, and her days go by one after the other, unchanged and quiet in the provincial high school where she’s always been teaching.
Dancing with the Bear (Subtitled) Czech Republic Run Time: 110 minutes
Screening Time(s): Friday, April 10 at 11:30am Saturday, April 11 at 3:10pm Sunday, April 12 at 2:10pm
Directed by: Jitka Rudolfová Cast: Pavla Gajdošíková, Kryštof Hádek, Klára Melíšková, Vladimír Javorský, Zuzana Kronerová, Petra Špalková, Petr Pěknic, Eliška Soukupová
Synopsis: Rooted in folk tradition, the bear dance once symbolized fertility during carnival rituals. Inspired by real events, the film weaves past and present to explore the emotional impact of prenatal diagnostics. A young couple is confronted with a life-changing choice after learning their unborn child faces a fifty percent risk of intellectual disability.
Screening Time(s): Friday, April 10 at 1:55pm Saturday, April 11 9:00am Sunday, April 12 at 3:15pm
Directed by: Alice Tomassini
Synopsis: Surrogate mothers imprisoned, women forced into hiding, children conceived in the shadows: Mothers boldly explore the complex reality of surrogacy, free from prejudice.
Waltzing Matilda (Subtitled) Czech Republic Run Time: 115 minutes
Screening Time(s): Friday, April 10 at 3:35pm Saturday, April 11 at 1:05pm Sunday, April 12 at 4:35pm
Directed by: Petr Slavík Cast: Karel Roden, Reginá Rázlová, Zuzana Kanócz, Antonio Šoposki
Synopsis: The film follows Karel Jaroš, his mother Matilda with Alzheimer’s, and his son Pavel. Crisis, care, and old wounds force them together in a tragicomic story inspired by reality, about responsibility, forgiveness, and whether they can withstand this test of life and find their way back to one another.
Kikuyu Land (Subtitled) Kenya Run Time: 100 minutes
Screening Time(s): Friday, April 10 at 9:15am Saturday, April 11 at 1:00pm Sunday, April 12 at 5:15pm
Directed by: Andrew H. Brown, Bea Wangondu
Synopsis: As a news producer and a local land claimant investigate a dispute linked to a multinational corporation, they uncover buried histories and family secrets that reshape how their community understands its past.
Screening Time(s): Sunday, April 12 at 6:10pm Thursday, April 16 at 10:00am
Directed by: Walter Thompson-Hernández Cast: Danielle Brooks, J. Alphonse Nicholson
Synopsis: Twelve-year-old Lil Ant transforms his working-class neighborhood beneath the LAX flight path into a living mythology, where family members become gods and the sky is crowded with endless departures. As he searches for connection with his god-like yet conflicted father, he finds support in his close-knit community that helps him reconcile myth and reality.
