I have to admit that Flannery O’Connor is a writer I’ve heard of, but not really delved into. I can identify her as a writer in the Southern Gothic genre, and I know that her writing reflected her Catholicism. So I entered Wildcat, directed and co-written by Ethan...
Three Promises, from Yousef Srouji, is the story of a family living through a very difficult situation—Palestine, during the Second Intifada. It is told through family videos taken by his mother, Suha, with voiceover commentary from Yousef’s interviews with her. The...
The Israeli-Palestinian situation is obviously complex and often controversial. It has been an area of conflict for nearly a century—even before the establishment of the state of Israel. Documentary filmmakers Idit Avrahami and Noam Sheizaf seek to show the...
“I’m on a path.” “It’s good to be on a path.” Gad Elmaleh’s Stay with Us takes us along a path the ponders the meaning of faith, identity, and community. The semi-autobiographical comedy is about a man with Sephardic Jewish roots who is contemplating converting...
The current goal is to send people to Mars within the next decade. That is certainly an ambitious and worthy undertaking. Want to be on that first three-year mission? Perhaps you should watch the Independent Lens documentary Space: The Longest Goodbye before you get...
“My dad used to say that the beginning of liberation is to raise your flag. The highest level of liberation is to burn it.” In Alam (The Flag), directed by Firas Khoury, we see Palestinian youth struggling with a world in which they have had no voice. It is not just...
Even before the current violence in Gaza, the history of Israeli-Palestinian interactions has been filled with violence and death in both groups. It is easy to forget that each of those deaths lead to a grieving family. In Mourning in Lod, documentary filmmaker Hilla...
”WE EXIST!” In the 1990s, the Cabrini-Green housing project in Chicago became a symbol of urban decay and danger. Yet for some it was the only home they knew. In We Grown Now, written and directed by Minhal Baig, we see this world through the eyes of two young boys...
People living with mental illness, may often feel isolated. In On the Adamant, from documentarian Nicolas Philibert, we see a refuge in the middle of Paris that attracts a people and provides a place of acceptance, dignity, and perhaps healing. The Adamant is a...