Mock Angel Dir. Tomomichi Nakamura, Japan, 13min, 2014, digital, color, 2D animation drama. (This short film will be shown with "June Bride") A girl wanted a change in her bland and uninteresting daily routine. She keeps a bird as a pet to create some change, and finds herself dreaming of having a child with it. The child of a bird and a woman is called a “mock-angel” and is angelic in [Read more...]
Semiotics of Islam Dir. Fouzia Najar, US, 2014, 7min. digital, experimental. (This short film will be shown with "Where Should the Birds Fly.") Inspired by Martha Rosler’s “Semiotic of the Kitchen” (1975, a feminist experimental film in which a housewife expresses her frustration by demonstrating the use of various kitchen products that surround her), this film combats Islamophobia. Queens [Read more...]
Paraíso Dir. Nadav Kurtz, US, 10min. 2012, color, documentary. (This short film will be shown with "Evaporating Borders") Three immigrant window cleaners risk their lives every day rappelling down some of Chicago’s tallest sky-scrapers. Paraíso reveals the danger of their job and what they see on the way down. Best Documentary Awards at the Tribeca, Chicago, Seattle, Cine Las Americas, [Read more...]
1. Rabbit and Deer Dir. Péter Vácz, Hungary, 16’15”, 2013, 2d/3D animation, drama. Rabbit and Deer are living happily and careless until their friendship is put to the test by Deer's new obsession with finding the formula for entering the 3rd dimension. After an unexpected accident Deer finds himself in a new world, unknown to him. Separated by dimensions the two friends have to find the way [Read more...]
June Bride: Redemption of a Yakuza Dir. Derek Shimoda, Japan/USA, 80min, 2015, color, documentary. Japan Premiere! June Bride trailer subbed from UPAF on Vimeo. It took a missing finger to find God. JUNE BRIDE: REDEMPTION OF A YAKUZA is a feature-length documentary about Tatsuya Shindo, a former mobster turned preacher, who seeks forgiveness for a life's worth of disappointment and crime in his [Read more...]
Where Should the Birds Fly Dir. Fida Qishta, Palestinian Territories, 58min, 2013, color, documentary. Japan Premiere! Not recommended for children under 15. WSBF.trailer.subbed from UPAF on Vimeo. Fida Qishta, a native of the Gaza Strip, grew up in the continuing conflict and witnessed her parents’ house of 30 years bulldozed by the Israeli army. Soon the young woman, taking a video [Read more...]
Valley of Saints Dir. Musa Syeed, India (Kashmir region), 83min, 2014, fiction. In war-torn Kashmir, a lakeside city is plunged into a military curfew. Stranded together on breathtaking Dal Lake, a working-class boatman and a beautiful young scientist form an unlikely bond. But as violence spills in from the city, their budding romance may not survive. Sundance Film Festival Audience Award [Read more...]
Little Voices from Fukushima Dir. Hitomi Kamanaka, Japan, 119min, 2015, color, documentary. This film investigates the impact of the 3/11 nuclear disaster on mothers and children living in the post-meltdown area, and draws parallels with mothers and children in Belarus, who learned to survive, scarred but self-educated, after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster 28 years ago. As Kamanaka puts it: [Read more...]
Trap Street, Dir. Vivian Qu, China, 84min, 2013, color, drama Li Qiuming is a young trainee at a digital mapping company. His job is to survey the streets of the ever-changing city and keep the mapping system up to date. To make ends meet, he installs video cameras at public venues, but hides his side job from his strict father who is a senior editor of a government-run magazine. One day [Read more...]
The Battle of Algiers Dir. Gillo Pontecorvo, Algeria/Italy, 1966, drama, music by Ennio Morricone From Wikipedia The Battle of Algiers (Italian: La battaglia di Algeri; Arabic: معركة الجزائر; French: La Bataille d’Alger) is a 1966 war film based on occurrences during the Algerian War (1954–62) against the French government in North Africa, the most prominent being the titular Battle of [Read more...]