Synopsis

After a young Czech anthropologist, Zdenka, moves with her family to the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard to study how life is changing for this unique polar community, she quickly falls in love with her new home. But all is not sweeping Arctic beauty and quiet serenity in one of the world’s northernmost inhabited areas. Besides the threat of melting glaciers and thinning permafrost, Zdenka soon discovers a central tenant of Svalbard’s social policy—which allows citizens from all over the world to work there without a visa—is fueling deep-seated tensions in the area. With a mixture of beautiful Nordic vistas and icy psychological conflict, The Visitors is a remarkably prescient and humanistic story illuminating how the climate crisis, economics, and immigration are inextricably intertwined.

Synopsis

After commercial Foley artist Zara is hospitalized for a nervous breakdown, her introverted sister Eva is thrust into her demanding job and becomes obsessed with creating the perfect sound effects for a spot featuring a horse. As Eva immerses herself more deeply into the craft, her body transforms in fantastical and unexpected ways. Invigorated and empowered by the changes to her physical form, she begins to explore newly awakened desires. Shot on stunningly vivid 16mm and featuring a hypnotic sound design, director Ann Oren describes her fiction debut best: “A love letter to the less recognized magicians of cinema and a playful celebration of otherness, Piaffe is an opportunity for viewers to see with their bodies and touch with their eyes.”

Winner

58th Chicago International Film Festival Silver Hugo. Learn more…

Synopsis

After an impulsive travel decision to visit friends, Freddie, 25, returns to South Korea for the first time, where she was born before being adopted and raised in France. Freddie suddenly finds herself embarking on an unexpected journey in a country she knows so little about, taking her life in new directions.

Synopsis

For his latest absorbing inquiry into the history and power of the moving image, director Mark Cousins (The Story of Film) delves into Italy’s film archives to expose the machinations and faulty foundations of fascism. His focus is the infamous 1923 propaganda film A Noi, which was produced as the Italian Fascist Party’s official document of its “March on Rome.” Dissecting the film frame by frame and exposing its sleight of hand, Cousins reveals how the film tried to write history, sometimes ominously and often quite clumsily, eventually losing its sway on its intended viewers, as reflected in short fictionalized scenes with an Italian citizen of the time (played by Alba Rohrwacher). With Cousins’ characteristically witty and insightful narration as our guide, March on Rome is both a riveting analysis of the allure of cinema and a timely, provocative account of the politics of manipulation that persist today.