back home

In 1999, 11-year-old Nisha Platzer lost her older brother, Josh, to suicide. Twenty years later, her search for a specialized medical treatment leads her to the door of someone who was once exceptionally close to Josh. And so it is that she finally has the chance to truly know her brother through his chosen family. Captured over five years in which synchronicities continually manifested, Platzer’s documentation of these encounters gently asserts that both grieving and healing are meant to be communal experiences.

Coded Hearts

Filmmaker Krishita Desai explores AI grief technology that lets people interact with digital versions of their deceased loved ones. Through families and experts, the film asks whether it brings comfort or complicates grief and healing.

The In Between

Following the death of her brother, filmmaker Robie Flores returns to her hometown Eagle Pass on the Texas/Mexico border, wanting to turn back time. She collides with unruly experiences of adolescence – quinceañeras, Rio Grande river excursions, teen makeovers and beyond – that invite her to soak up the details of the home her brother adored and she ignored. What emerges is a playful dance between a personal and collective coming-of-age portrait of kids on the border and Robie herself as she rediscovers the possibilities of joy in the aftermath of grief.

Past Projection

Kurnia, a 37-year-old woman, returns to face her past memories through projected images that bring both emotion and sorrow. On this journey, she recounts the stories of love, acceptance, separation, and regret that shaped who she is today. Remininsing her memories, Kurnia slowly finds the strength to let go of her attachment to the past and attain a sense of acceptance.

The Day After

A terrorist attack hits Shira's homeland shortly after she moves to the United States. Picking up a camera, she looks for ways to cope with the tragedy, thousands of miles away from those she loves and lost.

You Cried: Let Me Go

The Director reflects upon and seeks to understand the causes and the events that lead to her drug-addicted prostitute daughter being murdered at the age of 26.

Lamentation

A symbolic and personal representation of the filmmaker's journey with grief, after losing their father in 2015. He owned a pair of gold Crocs which he wore everywhere, from lounging around at home to going to the shops. These shoes have been with the filmmaker's family throughout their childhood and have great sentimental value. Now these Crocs belong to the filmmaker's family and everybody who visits wears them. They have become a staple of their home where they will continue to see many more years of their family's life events.

My Fair Lady

“My Fair Lady” is a completely indie documentary about a house and the Lady who made it the sanctuary it was. We follow three people: my mom, my dad, and I, as we all recall our memories of her while trying to keep her alive in that now empty house. We each discuss topics we’ve never spoken about with each other. It is a story of heartache, pain, and perseverance after having lost.

Die Weisse Arche

Don't Let the Sun Catch You Crying

Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Crying is a short meditation on love, grief, and imagination. The hand-drawn animated documentary was created through a collaboration between mother, elder and narrator Edith Almadi and filmmakers Natalie Baird and Toby Gillies. This poetic piece celebrates life and the transformative ability of art to elevate and transcend us. Through vivid drawings and Edith’s simple yet magical words, the film explores our enduring bond with loved ones who have passed. In honouring her son’s life within the cosmos, Edith’s artworks embody colours, shapes and metaphors that remind us of the timeless power of love, gravity, and grace until our final breaths.

SYNCHRONOUS

SYNCHRONOUS is an intimate portrait of love and the reverse side of love: mourning. The granddaughter/maker looks idealistically at the endless love between her grandfather and grandmother. When her grandfather dies, she decides to look for answers by filming her grandmother. What happens when you've been together all your life and your great love dies? Where is the love then?

A Song For My Father

A Song For My Father is a six-minute poetic documentary that examines grief and the complicated relationship we develop with the things that once connected us to the people we’ve lost. After the sudden death of their musician father, filmmaker Shona Buschlen and her younger brother Eddie, a jazz trumpet player, return to a performance space where their father once played. In the early stages of grief, music becomes difficult to hear, no longer comforting but a reminder of absence. Over time, these feelings begin to shift. Through archival recordings of their father’s bass and live trumpet improvisations by Eddie, the film creates a call and answer across time, tracing how sound becomes a way to sit with grief rather than escape it. Blending voiceover, childhood footage, and sound-driven editing, A Song For My Father explores grief not as something to be resolved, but as something lived with, where healing comes from allowing yourself to feel.

13 Summers Underwater

Parallel stories connected through an intimacy with death. The living and the dead communicate through visions, memories and reality.

The Art of Grieving

After the untimely death of his 35-year old brother, an artist explores the questions that surfaced from grief by painting 365 paintings and to spur conversation in culture.

Death Boom

As a “spiritual follow-up” to 'Fin', 'Death Boom' “pulls back the curtain on the catastrophic mental and environmental impacts of the contemporary death care industry. The film, shown through the lens of the workers at the heart of it as they prepare for the passing of 77 million baby boomers, exposes the toll that embalming, cremation, and traditional burial have on those who’ve passed, their families, and deathcare workers, and the corruption – political, religious, and corporate – that stands in opposition to greener methods being nationally legalized and accessible.”

Life After

Life After opens the dialogue surrounding grief and how we experience it. Through conversations with Nicola Winstanley and Carmen Galavan about what grief is and how it affects us, we learn what it really means to live a life after.

Beautiful Something Left Behind

In New Jersey, the Good Grief community focuses on a holistic way of dealing with grief, where children can give in to rage in ‘the volcano room,' and say goodbye to a dying teddy bear patient in ‘the hospital room.' Over the course of a year, we follow the weekly meetings and get close to Kimmy, Nicky, Peter, Nora, Nolan, and Mikayla and their close companion: grief. It is sometimes heartbreaking, but also humorous, to experience the questions about life and death through their open and curious minds. Grief is high and heavy as a mountain, but it helps you understand what has happened, and that death is irreversible.

PINBALL

In a contemplative coming of age portrait, PINBALL follows Yosef, a spirited athlete, in Louisville, Kentucky as he dives into the memories of his journey from Iraq to America and what it means to chase his dreams in the shadow of a war that displaced his family from their Iraqi homeland.

You Before Me

How well do we really know our parents? And their youth? Do we simply have a vague idea of who they are, and were, before they had us? Cécile embark on a quest to discover truths about her mother and her youth, truths that can't be found elsewhere, than right where it all happened. Southern France. The project is a self-inventory, and an attempt to understand the complexity of parenthood and the dynamics between mother and daughter.

Štreit – I photograph, therefore I am

A creative and personal retrospective of the renowned photographer Jindřich Štreit, accompanied by a selection of his photographs, footage from exhibitions, and encounters with those closest to him.

Heart of a Dog

Musician and performance artist Laurie Anderson reflects on the deaths of her husband Lou Reed, her mother and her beloved dog.

My Mom Jayne

Through deeply personal interviews with her siblings and an examination of the photographs, letters, and belongings left behind, Mariska assembles a new portrait of her mother Jayne Mansfield, an extraordinary and complex woman.

Come See Me in the Good Light

In an intimate and joyful story of love in the face of loss, celebrated poets Andrea Gibson and Megan Falley find strength—and unexpected hilarity—in what might be their final year together.

Looking for Richard

Al Pacino's deeply-felt rumination on Shakespeare's significance and relevance to the modern world through interviews and an in-depth analysis of "Richard III."

Chadwick Boseman: A Tribute for a King

A tribute to Chadwick Boseman, celebrating his life and legacy.

I Am Heath Ledger

The life and career of an actor, artist, and icon. His own journey through his own camera.

Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father

In 2001, Andrew Bagby, a medical resident, is murdered not long after breaking up with his girlfriend. Soon after, when she announces she's pregnant, one of Andrew's many close friends, Kurt Kuenne, begins this film, a gift to the child.

Love, Marilyn

Using the book 'Fragments', which collects Marilyn Monroe's poems, notes and letters, and with participation from the Arthur Miller and Truman Capote estates who have contributed more material, each of the actresses will embody the legend at various stages in her life.

Harry Dean Stanton: Partly Fiction

An impressionistic portrait of the iconic actor Harry Dean Stanton comprised of intimate moments, film clips from some of his 250 films and his renditions of American folk songs.

Uncle Yanco

While in San Francisco for the promotion of her last film in October 1967, Agnès Varda, tipped by her friend Tom Luddy, gets to know a relative she had never heard of before, Jean Varda, nicknamed "Yanco". This hitherto unknown uncle lives on a boat in Sausalito, is a painter, has adopted a hippie lifestyle and loves life. The meeting is a very happy one.

The Curse of the Dragon

A 1993 documentary film about Bruce Lee. The film includes interviews from some of his fellow students and opponents who worked alongside him in his movies.

For the Love of Spock

The life of Mr. Spock, as well as that of Leonard Nimoy, the actor who played him for almost fifty years, written and directed by his son: Adam.

Showrunners: The Art of Running a TV Show

“Showrunners” is the first ever feature length documentary film to explore the fascinating world of US television showrunners and the creative forces aligned around them. These are the people responsible for creating, writing and overseeing every element of production on one of the United State’s biggest exports – television drama and comedy series. Often described as the most complex job in the entertainment business, a showrunner is the chief writer / producer on a TV series and, in most instances, the show’s creator. Battling daily between art and commerce, showrunners manage every aspect of a TV show’s development and production: creative, financial and logistical.

To Kill a Tiger

Ranjit, a farmer in India, takes on the fight of his life when he demands justice for his 13-year-old daughter, the victim of a brutal gang rape. His decision to support his daughter is virtually unheard of, and his journey unprecedented.

Sidney

This revealing documentary honors the legendary Sidney Poitier—iconic actor, filmmaker, and civil rights activist. Featuring interviews with Denzel Washington, Spike Lee, Halle Berry, and more.

As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty

A compilation of over 30 years of private home movie footage shot by Lithuanian-American avant-garde director Jonas Mekas, assembled by Mekas "purely by chance", without concern for chronological order.

Charlie: The Life and Art of Charles Chaplin

Brilliant, long in-the-works story of the life and art of the world's greatest comedian and the cinema's first genius, Charlie Chaplin. Produced, written and directed by renowned film critic Richard Schickel.

The Battered Bastards of Baseball

Hollywood veteran Bing Russell creates the only independent baseball team in the country—alarming the baseball establishment and sparking the meteoric rise of the 1970s Portland Mavericks.

Daguerréotypes

An intimate portrait of the small shops and shopkeepers of the Rue Daguerre in Paris, a picturesque street that has been the filmmaker’s home for more than 50 years.

Struggle: The Life and Lost Art of Szukalski

Artists in LA discover the work of forgotten Polish sculptor Stanislav Szukalski, a mad genius whose true story unfolds chapter by astounding chapter.