Cinemafile

THE WHITE HOUSE EFFECT is through the lens of entirely archival footage, and we're given an infuriating fly-on-the-wall perspective of the pivotal years surrounding climate change through the George H.W. Bush administration. A time when global warming was first introduced to the public with scientific-backing and as a non-partisan issue, but as chief of staff John Sununu used climate change to fur...

PLAN C for CIVILIZATION tackles one of the most controversial approaches to mitigating and possibly reversing the dire impacts of climate change.   As emissions pour into the atmosphere and world leaders struggle for solutions to a climate emergency, the controversial climate-cooling technology called solar geo-engineering is entering the world’s stage. It’s an idea so powerful and full of un...

Corky Lee  was born in 1947 in New York to Chinese immigrants who owned a laundry in Queens. He majored in history at Queens College and became a community organizer in Manhattan’s Chinatown in the 1970s. Over the next five decades he photographed countless protests and cultural events in the Asian American Pacific Islander community. Lee’s photographs documented the birth and growth of...

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Lynsey Addario has risked her life to capture the stark realities of war — from the Middle East and Afghanistan to Ukraine. From National Geographic Documentary Films and Academy Award® -winning filmmakers Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, “Love+War” chronicles Addario’s ascent in the male-dominated world of conflict photography . But her work comes at a steep perso...

A gently humanist story of the American West from Max Walker-Silverman (A Love Song), Rebuilding follows Dusty (Josh O’Connor), a reserved, divorced father whose ranch has burned down in a devastating wildfire. Now living in a trailer community on a government-run campsite, Dusty finds solace with his new neighbors who have also lost everything, quietly reassembles his life, and starts reconnectin...

Co-directors Bonni Cohen and John Shenk's latest documentary IN WAVES AND WAR follows highly decorated Navy SEAL Marcus Capone, who returns from Afghanistan and attempts to readjust to civilian life. But years of unprecedented warfare have left Marcus with treatment-defiant PTSD, traumatic brain injuries, and severe depression beyond what current government treatment options can effectively addres...

Creator / Director Sean King O’Grady’s SUSPICIOUS MINDS is a docuseries that investigates the disturbing rise of artificial intelligence as a trigger for delusional thinking. Through powerful firsthand accounts and in-depth interviews with leading experts in psychiatry, neuroscience, and AI ethics, the series unpacks a growing psychological phenomenon: individuals developing complex, often li...

Director Barak Goodman’s KISSINGER, is a new two-part, three-hour biography, offers an incisive portrait of Henry Kissinger, the enigmatic powerbroker who served in the topmost echelons of American diplomacy. Whether celebrated or reviled, Kissinger’s contradictions reflect those at the heart of America’s foreign policy during the second half of the 20th century, a period in which America became t...

Nothing is as it seems when filmmaker Emily Wyland (Brittany O’Grady) teams up with cinematographer Danny (E. J. Bonilla) to shoot an intimate documentary about reuniting with Emily’s estranged mother after a decade apart. When her mother suddenly goes missing, possibly succumbing to the addictions that first tore her family apart, Emily and Danny must piece together increasingly sinister clues to...

Surviving racism, homophobia and childhood trauma, Carl Bean found his voice through song – first as a gospel singer in Harlem’s Christian Tabernacle Choir and then later performing with his group Carl Bean and Universal Love on their 1974 album “Universal Love.” But it was the recording of the 1977 Motown hit “I Was Born This Way” that would earn him fame; the song was celebrated as the world’s f...

With unprecedented access to the global migration crisis, ROADS OF FIRE weaves together three powerful, deeply personal narratives: a human smuggler guiding refugees through the treacherous Darién Gap, an asylum seeker rebuilding her life in New York City, and volunteers working on the frontlines of a mounting humanitarian emergency. ROADS OF FIRE offers an unflinching, intimate look at the human...

Keith Jarrett’s legendary performance in January 1975 nearly didn’t happen. Based on a true story, Köln 75 follows how the concert was conceived and orchestrated by the efforts of a teenage up and coming concert promoter, Vera Brandes, (played by German actress Mala Emde). Her enthusiasm set her to multitasking – from organizing the concert venue (the Cologne Opera House), promoting the event, and...

RIVER OF GRASS is a present-day reimagining of Marjory Stoneman Douglas’s groundbreaking book, “The Everglades: River of Grass,” (1947), which transformed the public’s understanding of the area from worthless swamps to an essential source of freshwater, enabling the ecosystem to endure, just barely, today. In the wake of a hurricane, Douglas visits filmmaker Sasha Wortzel in a dream and...

Resurrection, ancient prophecies, and globe-spanning adventures—this is the outrageous true story of Patrick McCollum, an eccentric spiritual leader who’s been identified by Indigenous Elders as the man foretold to fulfill a sacred prophecy to save the Amazon. McCollum has lived a life so improbable, it sounds like a myth. From carnival worker to renowned jewelry designer, kung fu master, reverend...

Before being the feminist powerhouse that she’s known to be today, Nora “Norita” Cortiñas was a traditional housewife. She was catapulted into her country’s political life when the 1976-82 military dictatorship kidnapped her son Gustavo and thousands of other young activists. NORITA, co-directed by Jayson McNamara & Andrea Tortones, takes viewers on a gripping journey through Argentina's tumul...

Combining magical realism and evocative hand-drawn animation with revelatory interviews and verité footage, "Among Neighbors" examines the story of a small, rural town where Jews and Polish Catholics lived side by side for centuries before World War II. The film brings the Polish response to the Holocaust to life through the last living eyewitnesses, revealing both love and betrayal as it zeroes i...

ISRAEL-PALESTINE ON SWEDISH TV 1958-1989 by archival film maestro Göran Hugo Olsson (The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975) is assembled from a vast stockpile of footage catalogued in the vaults of Sweden’s national television service SVT, where accounts of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are witnessed and represented by Swedish journalists. Stories of the beginning of the Israeli state are interwove...

Obsessed with Light  is a meditation on light and the enduring obsession to create. The film pulls back the curtain on Loïe Fuller, a wildly original performer who revolutionized the visual culture of the early 20th century. Creating a dialogue between the past and the present, the documentary delves into the astonishing influence Fuller's work has on contemporary artists including artis...

Director Klaudia Reynicke subtly weaves a tale of shifts and sacrifices that shows, whatever the familial configuration, strength and loss are necessary parts of growth. Grounded by a strong performance from Jimena Lindo as Elena and a wonderfully inquisitive Abril Gjurinovic, a family is brought to life. Reynicke’s effective direction honors each community the camera focuses on, and her Lima, the...

THERE WAS, THERE WAS NOT follows four women living in the Republic of Artsakh, an unrecognized country reckoning with the aftermath of one war while on the precipice of another. In the midst of this uncertainty, four women build a life with the hope of making their home a better place. When war breaks out again, what began as an observational meditation on women’s roles after conflict becomes an u...

Traveling magician Mr. K (Crispin Glover) is down on his luck. Business is slow, and the few gigs he’s picked up along the road have left him adrift. After spending the night in a remote hotel, he is alarmed when he discovers that he is unable to find the exit. As he explores the maze-like corridors, he hears strange noises and encounters a series of curious inhabitants who have formed their own f...

Director / writer Fawzia Mirza's THE QUEEN OF MY DREAMS' is a vibrant, heartfelt dramedy about a queer Muslim grad student, Azra, who returns to Pakistan after her father's sudden death, confronting her estranged relationship with her conservative mother. As she navigates grief and exclusion from funeral rites, Azra revisits key moments from her family's past—from her mother’s rebellious yout...

Director Miguel Llansó’s INFINITE SUMMER finds Mia and her friends, Grete and Sarah, on a summer break. They all end up trying a meditation app that delivers a mind-bending experience. There, they discover a mysterious young man and his exciting new approach to dating. Through an interactive dating app, a new reality unfolds before their eyes. When one of the girls ends up in a hospital and the ot...

Director Zoë Eisenberg, debut feature film, CHAPERONE focuses on a 29-year-old Misha Miyamoto who lives alone in the house her grandmother left her, has held the same job since high school, and likes her life as is: simple. Unfortunately, her satisfaction disappoints everyone around her. Her boss can't fathom why she won't take a promotion, her lack of ambition dissuades potential love interests,...

An expansive and revelatory inside look at the 18 months John Lennon and Yoko Ono spent living in Greenwich Village in the early 1970s, Oscar®-winning filmmaker Kevin Macdonald and Co-director / Editor Sam Rice-Edwards’ ONE TO ONE: JOHN & YOKO delivers an immersive cinematic experience that brings to life electrifying, never-before-seen material and newly restored footage of Lennon's only full...