The Last Patrol
Sebastian Junger
2014 | 86 Minutes
Whether fighting or documenting the realities on the ground as a journalist, how does the context of war transform a person’s identity? What happens to that identity when soldiers return home? Sebastian Junger, war journalist and author of The Perfect Storm, explores these questions on a soul-searching journey with three comrades-in-arms. Junger, joined by Brendan O’Bryne and Dave Roels, protagonists of the Academy Award-nominated documentary, Restrepo, and combat journalist Guillermo Cervera walk along railroad tracks from Washington, D.C. to Pennsylvania. They move with a purposeful invisibility designed to echo the isolation felt by many who return from war. The men live outdoors and discuss the transition from soldier to civilian. With the backdrop of a varied United States revealed by the path of the tracks—ghettos and wealthy suburbs, heavy industry and farm country—the juxtaposition of scenery and conversations uncover diverse and conflicting American perceptions of war and what it means for veterans to come home.
28 Up South Africa
Angus Gibson and Jemma Jupp
2013 | 144 minutes | South Africa
U.S. Premiere | Directors in Attendance
Patterned on the acclaimed British documentary project, this South African documentary series follows a group of people filmed first at age seven and then subsequently every seven years. The work offers a diversity of personal stories which collectively create a unique portrait of the social, cultural, and political history of a country. This fourth installment of the South African series, directed by Angus Gibson,the Oscar nominated director of Mandela and Yizo Yizo, captures a group of 28-year-olds, first filmed as children living under apartheid, whose lives reflect the dizzying and complex layers of change their nation has undergone in the two decades since the repressive system’s fall.
Dr. Sarmast’s Music School
Polly Watkins and Beth Frey
2012 | 97 minutes | Australia, Afghanistan
New York Premiere | Director in Attendance
Is there a place for art in a conflict zone? Dr. Sarmast’s Music School tells the remarkable story of Afghanistan’s first National Institute of Music (ANIM), established during a creative vacuum in 2009, eight years after the Taliban was toppled from power. In a country where no orchestra was capable of playing the national anthem, the road is long and bumpy, but over two years ANIM and its implacable leader Ahmad Sarmast chip away at their dream of a safe space filled with fine instruments and aspiring musicians. Occasional interjections by choppers overhead serve as a reminder that this newfound creativity must be nurtured with great care, as the school’s 150 pupils persevere and—through music—find their lives transformed.
Happiness
Thomas Balmès
2013 | 80 minutes | France, Finland, Bhutan
New York Premiere | Director in Attendance
Happiness traces the arc of progress that began in 1999 in Bhutan when King Jigme Wangchuck approved the use of television and the internet throughout the largely undeveloped nation. Director Thomas Balmès (Babies, 2010) begins filming at the end of the process in Laya, the last of Bhutan’s villages to be enveloped by roads, electricity, and cable television, as an 8-year-old monk watches the upheaval and longs for a TV set of his own. As the boy embarks on a three-day journey to the bustling capital of Thimphu, the passing countryside reveals the seismic technological shift that has taken place, its layers increasingly intense as the city nears. The cars, colorful lights of clubs, and countless other elements of modern life that the boy encounters for the first time punctuate the stark difference between a more isolated past and the future that is about to eclipse it.
H2O MX
José Cohen and Lorenzo Hagerman
2013 | 82 Mins | Mexico
US Premiere | Directors in Attendance
Access to potable water is not a luxury but an essential human right. In the largest city in the Americas, though, Mexico City’s 22 million residents are faced with myriad geographical, economic and political obstacles to a consistent water source. H2O MX investigates the daily issues that the megalopolis faces, from dangerous detergent buildup in the clouds to farmers in Mezquital living off wastewater irrigation to Chalco citizens fending off perennial floods. It’s an unsettling but beautiful watch, and a persuasive one, reminding us that sustainabilityis more than just a buzzword—it’s a philosophy deeply linked to social justice in an urban setting. The film will leave any urban-dweller wondering how a place so massive and unwieldy can find a way to be sustainable.
Kismet
Nina Maria Paschalidou
2013 | 57 min | Greece, U.A.E., Turkey, Egypt, Bulgaria
US Premiere
In the last decade, Turkish soap operas have taken the Middle East by storm, becoming one of the country’s greatest economic exports and inspiring cultural shifts across the region. Strong female characters and taboo-shattering plotlines have yielded sharp criticism in some circles, but the resounding response has been an embrace of the stories and characters that transcends religion and politics. Cities used as locations have become tourist attractions, characters’ names have become increasingly common for newborns, and—most remarkably—the region has seen a spike in divorce in the wake of a few highly publicized television divorces initiated by self-actualized women. Kismet offers a behind-the-scenes look at this phenomenon, with unprecedented access to the industry’s key directors, screenwriters, and stars. The film is interspersed with sociological commentary and the personal stories of women who followed in the footsteps of their heroines to fight for their rights.
The Venice Syndrome
Andreas Pichler
2013 | 80 minutes | Germany, Italy
New York Premiere | Director in Attendance
The well-documented reality that Venice is sinking into the sea has an equally unsettling parallel: it is drowning in tourists—21 million of them per year at last count. Twenty years ago 125,000 people lived there, but the permanent population is now less than half that, and by some estimates actual Venetians will have disappeared completely by 2030. Those who remain are living in a very different place from the Venice of romantic imagination: today, Venice is a city defined almost wholly by its subculture of tourist industries, by oblivious daytrippers, by the massive cruise ships that darken its port and dwarf its crumbling but still-glittering palaces. This film documents the decline of a once-great bastion of culture with nuance and compassion, giving the enduring denizens of the city a voice. The result is daunting, but alive with humor and compassion.
