KUCI: Film School

An exploration of the perils of nationalism and art’s role as a weapon of resistance and activism, KISS THE FUTURE, follows an underground community that continued to work, create and live throughout the 1990s Siege of Sarajevo. Amid the breakup of Yugoslavia, the citizens of Sarajevo wake to find the city under siege and Bosnia at war. In a far-fetched scheme inspired by local resistance, an Amer...

Ella Blake is a stop-motion animator who is struggling to control her demons after the loss of her overbearing mother. Suddenly alone in the world, she embarks upon the creation of a macabre new puppet film, which soon becomes the battleground for her sanity. As Ella’s mind starts to fracture, the characters in her animated film take on a terrifying life of their own, and the unleashed power of he...

Director Matteo Garrone made his name with the landmark Neapolitan crime film GOMORRAH, and has since demonstrated a penchant for gothic tales tinged with dark fantasy, including TALE OF TALES, DOGMAN and PINOCCHIO. With IO CAPITANO, Italy’s official selection for the Academy Award® Best International Film category, Garrone turns his attention back to real-life subject matter, where he finds a sto...

Director Zayne Akyol’s even handed and insightful documentary ROJEK places the viewer face-to-face with incarcerated members of the Islamic State from all over the world, as well as their wives detained in prison-camps, who all share a common dream: establishing a caliphate. Confronted with the fundamentalist beliefs of the jihadists, the ROJEK attempts to trace the beginning, the rise and fall of...

Director Lisa D’Apolita takes us back to a time before there was Mr. Rogers and Sesame Street, to the world of Shari Lewis and her lovable cast of puppets, including Hush Puppy, Charlie Horse, and the most beloved puppet of all time, Lamb Chop. In 1960, while still in her early 20s, NBC gave Shari her first national network show, The Shari Lewis Show, replacing The Howdy Doody Show. Lewis quickly...

A McDonald’s Happy Meal shortage. A security guard escort. Guns pulled in a Target parking lot. All of these are caused by a common factor: trading cards. In 2020, a new BOOM began. For the first time, large hedge funds, celebrities like Logan Paul and Steve Aoki, nostalgic millennials, entrepreneurs like Josh Luber, and billionaires scrambled to add sports, Pokémon, and other hot item cards to th...

Debuting to rave reviews, filmmaker Goran Stolevski’s HOUSEKEEPING FOR BEGINNERS explores the universal truths of family, encompassing both the bonds we inherit and those we create. Stolevski’s multi-layered focuses on the exploration of human behavior and the universal truths of family life. Both the ones we are born into and the ones we find for ourselves. Dita (Anamaria Marinca) never wanted to...

Andrew Cumming’s feature film debut, OUT OF DARKNESS opens with a small boat reaches the shores of a raw and desolate landscape. A group of six have struggled across the narrow sea to find a new home. They are starving, desperate, and living 45,000 years ago. First they must find shelter, and they strike out across the tundra wastes towards the distant mountains that promise the abundant caves the...

In his beguiling second feature film, THE MONK AND THE GUN director, writer and producer Pawo Choyning Dorji captures the wonder and disruption as Bhutan becomes one of the world’s youngest democracies. Known throughout the world for its extraordinary beauty and its emphasis on Gross National Happiness, the remote Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan was the last nation to connect to the internet and telev...

Set in Tokyo, Director Wim Wenders PERFECT DAYS follows Hirayama (Kōji Yakusho) a toilet cleaner with a highly structured routine. Every morning, he wakes up to the sound of a street cleaner, waters his plants, buys a coffee from the vending machine outside his apartment, and gets into his truck. His workday routine, he travels around Tokyo, cleaning the city’s public toilets. He eats lunch in the...

Roman Vishniac was difficult and flamboyant, a shameless self-promoter, bender of the truth and master of reinvention. He was also one of the groundbreaking photographers of the last century – a brilliant artist whose body of work spans decades, continents, and the catastrophic fallout from two world wars. With help from his daughter Mara director Laura Bialis’ brilliant documentary VISHNIAC reset...

In the enormously poignant follow-up to her international breakthrough, The Chambermaid,  director Lila Avilés nestles in with one family over the course of a single, meaningful day. TOTEM is told largely from the perspective of 7-year-old Sol (the marvelously naturalistic Naíma Sentíes), as her mother (Montserrat Marañón) and extended relatives prepare for the birthday party of the girl’s father,...

In the heartwarming short documentary, Makayla’s Voice: A Letter to the World, we are introduced to a remarkable young girl whose spirit and determination defy all expectations. Makayla, a black teenage girl, has spent her life grappling with a rare form of autism that rendered her essentially nonverbal. However, her parents (father, Grammy-award winning producer Needlz and business owner mother,...

When a high-end design firm presents its plans to reimagine the gift shop at The Anne Frank House, the company’s overt appeals to Generation Z sparks a darkly comic debate about collective trauma, the Holocaust and tote bags. THE ANNE FRANK GIFT SHOP, which stars Ari Graynor and Abbott Elementary's Chris Perfetti among other notable actors, imagines a meeting between the Anne Frank House and the N...

With support from Kate Capshaw and Steven Spielberg’s Righteous Persons Foundation and Maimonides Fund, the Jewish Story Partners (JSP) was launched in April 2021. The objective of the Jewish Story Partners is to stimulate and support the highest caliber independent films that expand the Jewish story. Since its inception, JSP has awarded approximately $2.5 million in grants to 85 projects. Today,...

One of the year's most acclaimed releases, FOUR DAUGHTERS by Oscar®-nominated filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania uses an audacious formal conceit to tell the story of Olfa Hamrouni and her four daughters. Attempting to answer the question of how and why the Tunisian woman’s two eldest were radicalized, Ben Hania reveals a complex history. We watch as the family relives key events in their lives with hel...

INSHALLAH A BOY is Jordan’s official entry for Best International Feature Film at the 2024 Academy Awards®. It begins with the sudden death of the husband of Nawal, a young Arab woman. The tragedy leaves her and her daughter without rights or property under Islamic law—and at the mercy of male relatives. Both her own brother and brother-in-law at first show sympathy. But soon it’s clear that any w...

When Danish filmmaker Lea Glob first met Apolonia Sokol in 2009, she appeared to be leading a storybook life. The talented Apolonia was born in an underground theatre in Paris and grew up in an artist community — the ultimate bohemian life. In her 20s, she studied at the Beaux-Arts de Paris, one of the most prestigious art academies in Europe. Over the years, Lea kept returning to film Apolonia as...

Enter the spectacle and drama of a megafire, alongside a firefighting team struggling to save anything they can while protecting each other. FIRELINE takes audiences into the firescape, to feel for the first time what those fighting these blazes face, especially as climate change makes megafires larger and more frequent. It's an intimate portrait of a system stretched to its breaking point, reveal...

Donald Trump's longtime adviser, Roger Stone maneuvers in and out of Danish filmmaker Christoffer Guldbrandsen's grasp in this jaw-dropping portrait of a puppet master tangled in his own strings. A STORM FORETOLD - ROGER STONE AND DIE follows the revered right-wing powerbroker, his influential journey back to the era of President Nixon, a legacy inked onto his own back. In a film marked by unparal...

MAN ON THE RUN follows the enigmatic Low Taek Jho—known to most as Jho Low–a mysterious businessman and playboy. Working with former Prime Minister Najib Razak of Malaysia, Low orchestrated a scheme to exploit 1MDB, a sovereign wealth fund established in 2009 with the noble purpose of benefiting the people of Malaysia. In 2015, the intrepid journalist Clare Rewcastle-Brown receives leaked financia...

When Daniel Northcott got a hold of his father’s video camera at the age of seven, a lifetime of documenting the world around him began. Growing up, he focused his lens on his family and close friends, and as a young man, he recorded precious moments with the people and places he encountered on his travels, striving to live a life of love and seek out universal human connection. The deeply persona...

Filmmaker Denny Tedesco’s follow up to his excellent documentary WRECKING CREW is the equally entertaining, IMMEDIATE FAMILY. The film tracks the rise and collaborations of a group of legendary studio musicians through the 1970s and onward, chronicling their illustrious partnerships and their formidable record of hit-making. While The Wrecking Crew followed the first wave of studio musicians in th...

Elise McCave -Elise McCave has been working with documentary filmmakers since 2008. As Kickstarter’s Senior Director of Film since 2016, she’s worked with film organizations and filmmakers worldwide, providing tailored support and mentorship on fundraising and audience-building for projects in development and production. From 2008-2016 she was Deputy Director of Doc Society (formerly BRITDOC) in L...

Academy Award nominated filmmaker Katja Esson’s RAZING LIBERTY SQUARE is a character-driven verité documentary that weaves personal stories in and out of the larger social justice narrative on Climate Gentrification. The stories originate at the intersection of race, climate, and socio-economic gentrification and examines the assumptions regarding who matters—and who doesn’t—and about land and who...