Pit Dhuwur (2024)

Speeding, of Course

70-year-old Timo makes the most of his short ride to work. Speeding up on a bicycle ends up in a ditch, but the adrenaline rush leaves a feeling of pleasure.

Four on Eleven : The Fading Glory Of Parsi Cricket

The Parsi Community has inked an incredible mark in Cricket, with a rich and storied legacy dating back to the early days of Cricket in India. Parsi Cricketers played a pioneering role in nurturing and popularising the game, producing some iconic cricketers. However, over time, the Parsi Community's influence on the sport has gradually declined, reflecting broader changes. While their contributions remain essential to the history of Indian cricket, the community's active participation on the field has diminished. But, is there still hope left?

Mayor of Lowell

This short documentary chronicles the culture and arts of Cambodian Americans and the Lowell, MA community through the eyes of Sokhary Chau, the first Cambodian American Mayor in the United States. Chau immigrated to the U.S. at seven years old to escape the Khmer Rouge genocide. Through this unique story that showcases the best of Lowell—immigrant success, assimilation, history, and the development of the arts—we see a man born into a war-torn country who comes to America to be a first-in-the-nation leader.

Connection | Isolation

Connection | Isolation presents eight intimate portraits of trans and post-gender individuals navigating the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. Amidst moments of connection and isolation, these participants reveal a deepening awareness of gender, their bodies, and trans community. Created by an all trans and queer crew, this hybrid documentary film interlaces portraits with reenactments, integrating archival material documenting what so many experienced and many still do.

Persecution Blues: the Battle for the Tote!

In 2010, the iconic Tote Hotel – last bastion of Melbourne’s vibrant music counterculture – was forced to close by unfair laws. Filmed over 7 years, “Persecution Blues” depicts the struggle of more than 20,000 fans – and the bands who inspire them – to preserve their history and protect their future, and puts the audience on the front line of an epic-scale culture war.

Les aventurières du vélo

Plot unavailable

Appartement proche Paris, charme atypique

Five floors. Forty apartments. Rats, leaks and debts. In Pantin, I live in a building with a danger order. Under court order, we have to renovate it. Between Dantesque arguments, missing money and humor as a fire extinguisher, I film our collective rescue.

Young At Heart

Documents the true story of the final weeks of rehearsal for the Young at Heart Chorus in Northampton, MA, and many of whom must overcome health adversities to participate. Their music goes against the stereotype of their age group. Although they have toured Europe and sang for royalty, this account focuses on preparing new songs for a concert in their hometown.

The Pool

Bondi Icebergs is the most photographed pool in the world. This is where generations of children have learnt to swim, where the diehard have braved the frigid waters of one hundred winters, where the young and beautiful have come to bond and bake in the hot sun. THE POOL is a stunning cinematic experience with a soundtrack that harks back to the 1960s and a cast of characters who each have a story to tell. It speaks to the enduring power of community and our collective longing to find it. No matter your background or where you’re at – everyone is equal in their swimsuits.

Cathedrals

In CATHEDRALS, filmmaker Dan Algrant embarks on a journey to reconnect with two black collaborators from a film made nearly 50 years ago. CATHEDRALS becomes a powerful exploration of the bonds that tie us together and the experiences that shape our identities. Through the lens of a creative collaboration, the film illuminates the struggles and triumphs that define life in a close-knit community, ultimately reaffirming the importance of human connection and the power of collective memory.

Oyler

A Cincinnati public school fights to break the cycle of poverty in its Urban Appalachian neighborhood, where senior Raven Gribbins aims to become the first in her troubled family to graduate and go to college. When Principal Craig Hockenberry's job is threatened, it becomes clear it's a make-or-break year for both of them.

Making Dust

Making Dust is an essay film, a portrait of the demolition of Ireland's second largest Catholic Church, the Church of the Annunciation in Finglas West, Dublin. Understanding this moment as a 'rupture', the film maps an essay by architectural historian Ellen Rowley on to documentation of the building's dismantling. Featuring oral interviews recorded at the site of the demolition and in a nearby hairdressers, the film invites viewers to pause and reflect on this ending alongside the community of the building. The film is informed by Ultimology, and invites its audience to think about the life cycles of buildings and materials, how we mourn, what is sacred, how we gather, what we value and issues of sustainability in architecture.

The Lost Highway

Once the main road between Toronto and Ottawa, Highway 7 is a black ribbon of failed businesses and derelict properties. Howard Gibbs's 80-year-old gas station needs new tanks or the inspectors will shut him down. He's desperate to lure his daughter back from the city to help carry on the family legacy. Next door, David and Linda, a couple who moved from the city, are set to open an upscale B&B. But what would lead them to build here, along a derelict stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway?

Balmoral

As historic ships vanish from British waters, a group of passionate volunteers fights to save the Balmoral—a 1949 passenger vessel moored in Bristol’s iconic harbour—battling time, bureaucracy, and financial struggles to preserve a piece of maritime history before it’s lost forever.

Lions in the Corner

In the rural mountains of Virginia, "Scarface" starts a fight club in his backyard to end gang violence. He calls it Streetbeefs.

We Will Speak

The Cherokee language is deeply tied to Cherokee identity; yet generations of assimilation efforts by the U.S. government and anti-Indigenous stigmas have forced the Tri-Council of Cherokee tribes to declare a State of Emergency for the language in 2019. While there are 430,000 Cherokee citizens in the three federally recognized tribes, fewer than an estimated 2,000 fluent speakers remain—the majority of whom are elderly. The covid pandemic has unfortunately hastened the course. Language activists, artists, and the youth must now lead the charge of urgent radical revitalization efforts to help save the language from the brink of extinction.

We Met in Virtual Reality

Filmed entirely inside the world of virtual reality (VR), this immersive and revealing documentary roots itself in several unique communities within VR Chat, a burgeoning virtual reality platform. Through observational scenes captured in real-time, in true documentary style, the film reveals the growing power and intimacy of several relationships formed in the virtual world, many of which began during the COVID-19 lockdown, while so many in the physical world were facing intense isolation.

Freedom Road: Women / Ikwewag

Shoal Lake 40 women talk about their struggles, and those of their parents and grandparents, in trying to raise their families in a hazardous state of enforced isolation. Everyone in the community has a harrowing story of a loved one falling through the ice while trying to get across the lake, with pregnant women and new mothers fearing for their babies and having no choice but to make the trek in dangerous conditions. The film shows the key role of the community’s women in demanding funding for the road from three levels of government, and how their reconnection to culture and ceremony give them the strength to keep going.

The White Caravan

The neon sign ‘Circus’ illuminates the wide street of Naples’ suburbs: four circus families were abandoned by the institutions, and now they’re awaiting the pandemic will disappear, like a magic show. The circus has stopped, but their lives go on.

Acts of Reparation

Two friends, one Black and one white, journey to their Southern ancestral homes, exploring reparations' meaning. Their travels uncover opportunities that transform their bond, communities, reclaiming and reckoning with their roots.

Ballymanus

10 May 1943. Something is spotted drifting ashore off the coast of Northwest Donegal, Ireland. Something that would change the lives of the local people forever.

Between Land and Sea

This observational feature– at times intimate, at times epic – embeds itself in the Big Wave surf community to present a thoroughly engaging and visually stunning portrait of the ever-changing life at land's end. Against the backdrop of Ireland's stunning west coast, this film digs deep into the day to day lives of the surf community, taking the audience beyond the bluster of the typical adrenaline fueled film to create a very real portrait of those who choose the surf lifestyle.

Jaripeo

Set against the vibrant spectacle of the jaripeo, a symbol of Mexican cowboy tradition and machismo, this story unveils a hidden world of queer desire and quiet rebellion. As glances and gestures disrupt the rigid norms of masculinity, the rodeo becomes a stage for our protagonists to navigate identity, community, and the search for belonging in an oppressively traditional space.

Set In Stone

The race to save the world's only dedicated Māori World War One Memorial from collapse reveals an unknown soldier's heroic story to the community he was once part of.

Sydney Castells: Spirit of Catalunya

'Sydney Castells: Spirit of Catalunya' is a documentary exploring Catalan climbing and culture. Bringing light to a relatively unknown community based in Sydney, NSW. Viewing insights into the personal lives of individuals who partake in this thrilling sport.

One Book at a Time

Sarah Kamya is a school counselor in New York City. She began the project Little Diverse Libraries on June 3rd and has already raised over $13,000, supported black owned bookstores, and has distributed 775 books to Little Free Libraries across all 50 states. Sarah is helping educate communities while most importantly amplifying and empowering black voices.

Wild Horses at the Door

(Short Documentary) A homeless man recovering from alcoholism escapes to a remote southern Colorado mesa and forges a new path living amongst wild horses.

Silver's Uprising

Raised in an orthodox home, Amos Dov Silver dreams of becoming Prime Minister. But when the State continues to shun him, he soon finds unexpected solace in the velvety smoke of Marijuana. Spreading his new Torah, he establishes an online community using a mobile app called "TeleGrass" that turns into the largest marketplace for drugs in Israel, raising Silver to Messiah status. Through exclusive footage of Silver, his family and his partners’ investigations, as well as secretly filmed footage of Silver in the Ukrainian prison, a polarizing portrayal of the man charged with heading a crime organization emerges. Champion of the people, or a lost soul corrupted by power?

The Tunes

A café in the north of Brussels. Days are punctuated by the songs that the customers sing at all hours, to amuse themselves, to remember or to pass the time. Those songs transform the place little by little, making the film a strange musical.

Cultural Preservation

'Cultural Preservation' is a short documentary film which discusses the importance of community and how the development of gentrification can become a threat to it. With this film, Hussain looks at Whitechapel Road market in East London, one of the most popular markets in London and uncovers the reason behind this popularity. Through interviews with the public, he learns about the problems the community face within itself and with the changes to the area.

Rom Boys: 40 Years of Rad

When a tragedy strikes the worlds most unique skate park, a dogged group of old school skaters, BMXers and street artists team up to fight for its survival.