After making his Sundance award-winning documentary, Return to Homs , Talal Derki returned to Syria where he gained the trust of a radical Islamist family, sharing their daily life for over two years.
His camera focuses primarily on the children,…
Hundreds of thousands of cats roam the metropolis of Istanbul freely. For thousands of years they've wandered in and out of people's lives, becoming an essential part of the communities that make the city so rich.
Winner of Best First…
Strange things are afoot in Bad City. The Iranian ghost town, home to prostitutes, junkies, pimps, and other sordid souls, is a place that reeks of death and hopelessness, where a lonely vampire is stalking the towns most unsavory inhabitants.…
2018 Academy Award nominee for Best Documentary Feature, Syrian filmmaker Feras Fayyad's breathtaking work - a searing example of boots-on-the-ground reportage - follows the efforts of the internationally recognized White Helmets; ordinary citizens who are the first to rush towards…
Internationally revered Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami has created some of the most inventive and transcendent cinema of the past thirty years, and CLOSE-UP is his most radical, brilliant work. This fiction-documentary hybrid uses a sensational real-life event--the arrest of a…
Not too far from Timbuktu, now ruled by religious fundamentalists, Kidane lives peacefully in the dunes with his wife Satima, his daughter Tonya, and Issan, their shepherd. In town, the people suffer, powerless, from the regime of terror imposed by…
The story of a teacher who becomes at first enchanted, and then ultimately consumed by the poetic genius of her five-year-old student. As the titular protagonist, Nira, discovers that her young student, Yoav, has an otherworldly talent for language and…
This groundbreaking documentary dissects a slanderous aspect of cinematic history that has run virtually unchallenged from the earliest days of silent film to today's biggest Hollywood blockbusters. Featuring acclaimed author Dr. Jack Shaheen, the film explores a long line of…
Renowned visual artist Shirin Neshat offers an exquisitely crafted view of women rights today in Iran as compared to Iran in 1953, when a British- and American-backed coup removed the democratically elected government. The film was adapted from the novel…
Winner at the Sundance Film Festival , 5 BROKEN CAMERAS is a deeply personal, first-hand account of non-violent resistance in Bil'in, a West Bank village threatened by encroaching Israeli settlements. Shot almost entirely by Palestinian farmer Emad Burnat, who bought…
This Oscar -nominated drama follows five free-spirited sisters in a Turkish village. While playing innocent games with their friends, a neighbor passes by and reports what she considers to be illicit behavior to the girls' family. The family overreacts, removing…
From a refugee camp on the Turkish-Syrian border, an 8-year-old girl named Evlin characterizes the resilience of her hometown of Kobane against ISIS militants. In the midst of the tragic war in Syria, Evlin's story provides hope.
Winner of the…
An accident during a bar mitzvah celebration leads to a rift between the men and women in a devout community in Jerusalem in this rousing, good-hearted comedy. Awash with Jerusalem's distinctive glow, THE WOMEN'S BALCONY is a warm, poignant portrait…
In this gorgeously animated drama, the lives of several strong-willed women and a young musician intersect. Their stories reveal the hypocrisies of modern Iranian society, where sex, drugs, and corruption coexist with strict religious law.
In the bustling metropolis of…
A stark testimonial of the previously unseen and unheard, this documentary plunges us into the lives of young teenage girls sharing temporary quarters at a rehabilitation and correction center on the outskirts of Tehran. STARLESS DREAMS is an unforgettable cinematic…
On a cold winter night in modern Tehran, a couple of young lovers run into a serious problem, and they have just a few hours to come up with a solution. They go from hospital to hospital in search for…
From the Academy Award winning director of A Separation and About Elly , Asghar Farhadi's FIREWORKS WEDNESDAY is a dramatic story of marital intrigue and betrayal set against the backdrop of the Persian New Year.
Rouhi, a young bride-to-be, is…
Poignant, often witty and exceedingly cinematic, JELLYFISH tells the story of three very different Tel Aviv women whose intersecting stories weave an unlikely portrait of modern Israeli life.
Batya, a catering waitress, takes in a child apparently abandoned at a…
Nominated for the 2016 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. In 1916, while war rages in the Ottoman Empire, Hussein raises his younger brother Theeb ("Wolf") in a traditional Bedouin community that is isolated by the vast, unforgiving desert.…
When Mika, a suburban teenager, finds a disturbing creature in her pool, she asks her new friendly neighbor Gershon for help. The two end up spending the afternoon together by the pool, but what starts off as a friendly encounter…
