This year’s non-fiction showcase offers fresh perspective on the world we live in and the fascinating people and stories that surround us. Some are masters, some emerging, but they share a passion to tell entertaining and enlightening stories from fascinating places.
Sponsored by the James F. and Marion L. Miller Foundation
Kedi
Directed by Ceyda Torun
Cats (“kedi”) have an exalted status in Turkish culture, and caring for them is both a social and religious obligation, …
Abacus: Small Enough to Jail
Directed by Steve James
The incredible saga of the Chinese immigrant Sung family, owners of Abacus Federal Savings of Chinatown, New York, elicits both …
Alive & Kicking
Directed by Susan Glatzer
Some dance styles and crazes endure. For many who love music and dance, the lindy hop, jitterbug, shag, and other …
All These Sleepless Nights
Directed by Michał Marczak
“Many of us know the freedom of our twenties—unfettered by responsibilities or mortality, inventing ourselves in the rush of the …
Austerlitz
Directed by Sergei Loznitsa
Filmed on the sites of former Nazi concentration camps, Loznitsa’s (Maidan, In the Fog) Austerlitz is a stark observation of …
Behemoth
Directed by Zhao Liang
You can’t un-see political documentarian Liang’s cinematic allegory, which draws inspiration from The Divine Comedy in fashioning a simultaneously intoxicating …
Burden
Directed by Timothy Marrinan, Richard Dewey
One the most intriguing, boundary-pushing artists of his generation, Chris Burden guaranteed his place in art history in 1971 with …
Buzz One Four
Directed by Matt McCormick
At the height of the Cold War, the US Air Force was flying B-52 bombers armed with thermonuclear weapons on …
Fire at Sea
Directed by Gianfranco Rosi
The island of Lampedusa, between Sicily and Tunisia, is a major destination point for refugees fleeing Africa and the Middle …
Forever Pure
Directed by Maya Zinshstein
Beitar Jerusalem, an intensely nationalist soccer team in the Israeli Premier League, inspires as much extreme fandom as it does …
I Am Not Your Negro
Directed by Raoul Peck
Based on the text of Remember This House, James Baldwin’s final, unfinished novel, Peck’s urgent essay film is a reflection …
Obit
Directed by Vanessa Gould
Who makes it on the obituary page of the paper of record? Both a peek into the inner workings of …
Raising Bertie
Directed by Margaret Byrne
What happens in the lives of young people caught in the complex interplay of generational poverty, educational inequity, and race? …
Starless Dreams
Directed by Mehrdad Oskouei
Starless Dreams plunges us into the lives of teenage girls at a juvenile detention center on the of Tehran. The …
The Land of the Enlightened
Directed by Pieter-Jan De Pue
Shot over seven years, De Pue’s debut, a hybrid of documentary and fiction, paints a whimsical yet haunting look at …