Cinemafile

UNION follows the efforts of Chris Smalls (founding President of the Amazon Labor Union or ALU), Connor Spence (current President of the ALU) and a dedicated group of warehouse workers as they launch a grassroots union campaign at an Amazon fulfillment center in Staten Island. Up against one of the most powerful companies on the planet, a group of Amazon workers embark on an unprecedented campaign...

In Oscar®-nominated filmmakers Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady’s life-affirming documentary, teenagers converge at a traditional folk high school in Arctic Norway where they must rely on only themselves, one another, and a loyal pack of sled dogs as they all grow in unexpected directions. Exhausted by loneliness, social anxiety, and all the crushing barrage of pressures felt by their generation, thre...

The Window on Death Row tells the story of Joaquín José Martínez, a Spanish citizen, who at the age of 24 was convicted of a double murder in the state of Florida. He spent the next five years behind bars, three of those on death row. With the help of the Spanish government and many of his country men, he was eventually exonerated of all charges against him. The case pitted the U.S. courts against...

ROSEMEAD centers on an ailing woman who uncovers a terrifying secret: her teenage son is consumed by violent impulses. As her health rapidly declines, she’s forced into a desperate struggle—how far will she go to stop what she fears he is becoming, and what is she willing to sacrifice to protect him? Set within the quiet tensions of a Chinese American household, the film explores the unraveling of...

After 26-year-old Sumi suffers an accident on the streets of wintry Winnipeg, her overbearing mother Sara (Kim Ho-jung) flies in from Seoul to be by her now comatose daughter's side. Desperate to ensure Sumi will have someone to look after her in the future, Sara embarks on a mission to catfish a suitable (preferably Korean) husband before her daughter wakes up. However, as Sara meddles in Sumi's...

Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the 2025 Seattle International Film Festival SUBURBAN FURY revisits the 1975 assassination attempt on US President Gerald Ford through the perspective of would-be assassin Sara Jane Moore, a conservative mother from the San Francisco suburbs who became radicalized while working as an FBI informant. Freed after serving 32 years of a life sentence, Moore returns to...

CHILDREN NO MORE: “WERE AND ARE GONE”is an observational documentary short about a vigil that began in March 2025, when a handful of women stood silently in a public square in Tel Aviv, each holding a photograph of a child killed in Gaza. On every image: the child’s name, age, date of death, and the words “WAS AND IS NO MORE.” Their stillness is heavy, pressing against the rhythm of ordinary life....

Set in a remote Chilean mining town in 1982, Diego Céspedes’ dazzling debut feature follows young Lidia, who grows up within a vibrant queer household led by drag performers and trans women. When a mysterious illness—rumored to spread through the gaze between men—sows fear and hysteria, the community becomes the target of suspicion and violence. Through Lidia’s eyes, Céspedes crafts a haunting all...

Ripped from her life of domesticity, Santosh (Shahana Goswami), a young widow now desperate to support herself, accepts an opportunity to inherit her husband’s job as a police officer in the rural badlands of India. Quickly taken under the wing of Sharma (Sunita Rajwar), a charismatic and commanding older female inspector, Santosh begins an investigation into a low-caste girl’s brutal murder that...

In the timeless allure of Rome, journalist Dylan (Daryl Wein) and his companion, photographer Lucy (Abigail Cowen), find themselves weaving through the historic streets on assignment. Their journalistic pursuits lead them to an enthralling interview with the charismatic but flailing musician Milo (Jack Farthing). Charmed by their company, Milo extends an invitation for a weekend escape to his girl...

Winner of the Cinema and Arts Award at the 82nd Venice Film Festival, and just Shortlisted for this year’s Best Documentary Feature Oscar, THE TALE OF SILYAN is a poignant and visually arresting story set in the heart of rural North Macedonia. Nikola, a farmer grappling with the harsh realities of new government policies, finds himself unable to sell his land or crops. When his family leaves in se...

Slovenia's entry this year's Oscar for Best International Feature Film, begins with her mother’s urging an introverted 16-year-old Lucija as she joins her Catholic school’s all-girls choir, where she befriends Ana-Marija, a popular older student. When the choir travels to a countryside convent for a weekend retreat of intensive rehearsals, Lucija navigates the unfamiliar surroundings, complex teen...

Director Ian Bell joins us to recount the consequential history that took place from November 30th to December 3rd 1999, when tens of thousands of people occupied the streets of downtown Seattle to make known their concerns about the existence of the World Trade Organization and its impacts on the environment, human rights, and labor in the largest protests against economic globalization the US ha...

Screenwriter and director Tom Nesher joins us to talk about her poignant drama and the story of a young woman's life that is shattered when her beloved younger brother dies in a tragic accident. Consumed by grief, Eden takes increasingly desperate measures to fill the void left by her brother's absence. Her journey takes a passionate and dangerous turn when she discovers her brother had a secret g...

Trifole, Igor, an aging truffle hunter, faces failing health and disappearing woodlands while struggling to keep pace with the modern truffle trade. Into his quiet, tradition-bound life bounds Dalia, his 28-year-old granddaughter from London, estranged from her roots and searching for direction. Tasked with caring for him, their uneasy reunion softens as she is drawn into his passion for truffle h...

From director Nathan Silver, "CAROL & JOY was born from a convergence of mothers. In my previous documentary, CUTTING MY MOTHER, I followed my own mom Cindy’s life and discovered that she was in a b'nai mitzvah class in her late 60s (customarily reserved for pre-teens). This would become the original premise of my fiction film BETWEEN THE TEMPLES, and Carol Kane would play the b'nai mitzvah st...

NUNS VS. THE VATICAN is a groundbreaking investigative documentary that exposes a historic showdown inside the Catholic Church. NUNS VS. THE VATICAN follows Gloria, a former nun who risked everything to challenge the church's silence on abuse, corruption and systemic erasure of women's voices within Catholic power structures. After she experienced this abuse at the hands of her mentor and guide, F...

At 15, he took a life. Three days later, his brother’s life was taken. A moving chronicle of forgiveness, family, and the transformative power of art, SONGS FROM THE HOLE weaves music and mixed-media storytelling into an innovative documentary visual album. Through clear-eyed narration and lyrical journal entries, incarcerated musician James “JJ’88” Jacobs reveals his innermost struggles as a pers...

Filmmaker Charlie Shackleton was hot on the trail of the next great American true crime documentary—a riveting account of a highway patrolman's quixotic effort to identify and capture the infamous Zodiac Killer. Shackleton devised a plan, began collecting interviews, and shot “evocative B-roll” footage of ghostly California freeways and parking lots where the killer may have once lurked. And then...

Winner of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Award winner (World Cinema Documentary) Co-directors Sara Khaki & Mohammadreza Eyni's Cutting Through Rocks drops us into the world of the fearless mid-wife Sara Shahverdi, who decides she wants to be the first woman to run for the local area council. Not only does she win, she takes on the local patriarchy in her remote Iranian village. Sar...

Decades after the disappearance of her uncle during Argentina’s Dirty War, a filmmaker joins the Caravan of Mothers, a group of Central American women who travel by bus along the migrant route in search of their loved ones who have disappeared trying to reach the U.S. Their stories intertwine across generations and geographies, the film becomes a powerful testament to resilience, memory, hope, and...

Currently screening at 2025 DOCNYC, FLOPHOUSE AMERICA places us in the middle of the ongoing housing crisis in the U.S.,where many people are forced to live in rundown hotels,  known as flophouses. Twelve-year-old Mikal shares a small, inexpensive room in one of these hotels with his parents and their cat, Smokey. Their home is marked by chaos and alcohol abuse, but also by love and the hope...

Co-directors Peter Yost & Michael Rohatyn’s DROP DEAD CITY is the first-ever feature documentary devoted to the NYC Fiscal Crisis of 1975, an extraordinary, overlooked episode in urban American history that saw an already crumbling city of eight million people brought to the edge of bankruptcy and social chaos by a perfect storm of debt, greed, ambitious social policy and poor governance. Name...

Co-directors Barbara Miller and Philip Delaquis WISDOM OF HAPPINESS shows us a timeless truth: happiness is still possible, even in the midst of chaos and uncertainty. This powerful message of hope is delivered as a personal audience with one of the greatest living thinkers, Nobel Peace Prize winner, Tenzin Gyatso, known to billions around the world as the Dalai Lama.  Speaking as a member of...

Endlessly struggling to feel seen, David becomes infatuated with a mysterious company’s promise to transform people’s lives by permanently changing the color of their eyes. After traveling to India to get the controversial procedure, he begins to question if this artificial beauty will give him the fulfillment he truly seeks. CATERPILLAR explores the lengths that people are willing to go in p...