This film presents only a small portion of what can be found in the poetry collection titled Suburban Zen: Tiny Stories, Poems, Humorous Reflections & Deep Thoughts.

To be Black and a police officer in the United States' third largest local law enforcement agency, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), is to take an oath to serve while facing racial disparities within the department itself. Black Before Blue holds space for a forum of intimate conversations between twenty-one Black retired and active police officers as they unveil racial and gender discrimination they've experienced in the department.

Their assimilation into the blue brotherhood came with hurdles that were setup by their counterparts, and anchored by bigotry. As a result, these Black officers struggled in the hiring process, experiencing disproportionate promotion opportunities despite having qualifications in alignment with their colleagues, and they frequently experienced increased disciplinary sanctions when compared to their peers. Black women in particular often experienced careers riddled with discriminatory consequences related to both their gender and ethnicity— a "double-edged sword."

As the officers' stories of the past parallel those of present day, they express their frustrations about recent viral incidents of police brutality and the resulting worldwide civil unrest, concerned that history could repeat itself. From recalling the days before squad cars were racially integrated to anecdotes about their white colleagues' frequent use of the n-word, these emotionally honest stories expose the truth about what concerned them about the department, and give insight into what inspired them to see their journeys through.

Five unique individuals take us on a journey where their achievements shine beyond preconceived ideas of what is possible.

A love letter to her grandmother, this experimental documentary explores the filmmaker's early memories in the Philippines and her search for refuge from pandemic anxiety and domestic claustrophobia.

Crossed by greed, two hundred and seventy-two people were buried by tailings from the Vale mining company in Brumadinho (MG), Brazil. Emptiness now crosses those who try to carry on.

In 2014, the citizens of Toledo, Ohio, had to go without running water for three days when a bloom of toxic algae entered the drinking water plant from Lake Erie. This should have been a wake-up call for politicians, big agriculture, and citizens everywhere that freshwater resources are at risk of becoming toxic worldwide. THE ERIE SITUATION explores the confluence of science, public sentiment, politics, and the powerful farming lobby as Ohio wrestles with how to confront the drivers of toxic algae. What's at stake? Who's at risk? And will volunteer measures be enough to confront this growing crisis, both in Ohio and beyond?

While an eternal student will do anything to become famous on socials, his witty sister seems to think that her celebrity wannabe of a brother might be a topic better suited for her own documentary.

Roz Pichardo is more than a domestic violence and gun violence survivor, she’s a warrior. Despite of - or because of - being thrown off a bridge by an abusive ex-boyfriend, the unsolved murder of her brother, and the suicide of her identical twin sister, she’s able to channel her trauma into service by helping the often-forgotten people of North Philadelphia.

From giving comfort to families of murder victims to saving the lives of over 500 men and women in active opioid addiction, Roz knows that her healing and her survival depends upon healing others.

Ethiopia Blue Nile has flowed wild and untamed through the landscape. It is the life blood of the local tribes and a haven for all the wildlife. But this powerful force of nature is under threat. The impending completion of Africa's largest hydro electric dam is about to flood 280 kilometres of the river. We join explorers Charlie Head and Ben Peters will travel these waters facing the dangers and splendour to record and forever preserve 'The Last Descent'. Starring Benjamin James Peters and Charlie Head

Based on his soon to be published autobiography, OLEG tells the incredible life story of Oleg Vidov. Born in communist Russia to a teacher, by the age of 25, Oleg had become one of the Soviet Union’s most celebrated actors of his time. However, no amount of fame could save him from the political system that tried to control his life. He married into General Secretary Brezhnev’s inner circle only to wind up blacklisted, threatened with death, and forced to defect to the West. Reinventing himself in Hollywood, his efforts to counter anti-Russian stereotypes were attacked by the same forces that ruined his career decades earlier. Finally, in October 1991, with Oleg’s fears of persecution calmed by rise of perestroika, he returned to Moscow to star in a Danish film. Two months later, on Christmas Day 1991, President Gorbachev resigned from office and the USSR collapsed.

Otonashi a philosophical
journey through inner and outer worlds of experience of the human being - an audio-visual
meditation of futuristic transmutations on the Japanese Hannya Shingyō.

In the last 25 years, the independent comics community made deliberate efforts to be inclusive and elevate under-represented voices. This is the story of how the community has changed over those years and evidence that if you want to change a culture, you need to change its stories, starting with the storytellers.

Nehemiah, a Black dancer trapped in a pandemic lockdown in Cleveland, receives a call to join a mostly white dance troupe to create a silhouette-based dance seeking solutions to police brutality.

A 40-minute documentary that captures the transformational story of how idealistic college students and black activists teachers came together in a small Midwestern town to find their humanity and the common ground to fight as one in the freedom struggle that would define a nation and alter the course of history.

U-Trip is the story of a day in the life of Berlin’s metro. Trains and stations become the meeting point of a vast array of characters drawn from the rich and tattered fabric of 21st century Berlin.

"It doesn't matter if I die. I will say what I want to say."

During World War II, numerous girls and women were lured by fake promises to the Comfort Stations around the world where they were forced into sexual slavery for the Imperial Japanese Army. Half a century later, the surviving victims in South Korea decided to give their testimonies to the world telling their horrible memories in the Comfort Stations and life-long traumas. The film shines a light on the atrocious sexual violence that occured around the world during this period, while employing metaphorical and fairytale-like visuals so as not to perpetuate violent imagery and revictimize the survivors.

A short documentary that follows Five Star Theatricals and Teatro Frida Kahlo, two non-profit theaters in southern California as they attempt to reopen amidst the Covid19 pandemic. With the threat of surging coronavirus cases and bureaucratic hurdles, how will they save the art form that has sustained them both financially and emotionally?

Residents of and visitors to the Tularosa Basin, site of the first detonation of an atomic bomb, contribute to the production of public memory as they offer advice, reckonings, and plaintive cries about making "the journey of the dead." Made in remembrance of the 75th anniversary of the detonation of nuclear weapons in Japan and the US and the 340th anniversary of the 1680 Pueblo Revolt. Made in resistance to nuclear colonialism.

A diverse group of middle-school students go on the journey of a lifetime when they compete in a nationwide competition sponsored by MIT to code satellites aboard the International Space Station.

ÁINE is a story about raising a daughter in a world that has already defined her potential. This documentary short film follows the life of a young girl with Down Syndrome from her mother's pre-natal findings through to her present day challenges. As the family navigates unexpected turns, this little girl will sass you with her tenacity for life and her love of music.

This award winning story follows the life of a young pilot who flew in Alaska’s frontier arctic. Experience the front-seat thrills of bush planes and helicopters operating in the most dangerous conditions on earth, airborne among the magnificent mountains, glaciers and rivers that only Alaska has to offer. Includes true-life experiences of accidents, comradeship, humor and heartbreak of life in early Alaska, gone forever when dismantled into parks in the 1980’s. Based on the book Last of the Long Hunters by Mark Rose, the scene opens with an early history of the Great Land and those that lived in it through interviews with several life-long Alaskans, including Hilda Lidner, Ray Atkins and Gale Ranny to name a few. Leading up to the introduction of the authors use of a new tool of transport – the single engine airplane, but not without extracting a terrible price. Experience what it was like to growing up among the dangerous game, hunting the massive caribou herds and absorbing the greatness of the county. Pilots will gain from the flying experiences related, and every boy, man and aviator will be compelled to grapple with its final truth, concluding with a crisis encounter that forever changed the pilot's life forever. Filmed on Location in Alaska. Premiere's Spring 2020. www.alaskalonghunters.com

In northern Kentucky there sits a gigantic replica of Noah’s ark, a 510-foot-long behemoth that towers over its surroundings. Built by a controversial fundamentalist Christian organization, “Ark Encounter” is designed as a teaching aid for what its builders say is the Bible’s literal truth — including the contentions that the Earth was created in six days and that dinosaurs coexisted with humans.

But this latter-day ark is not only about the past. In the short documentary above, it is also a colossal reminder of those interpretations of the Bible that foretell an apocalypse. And in an era like ours, when even nonbelievers may be carrying a sense of apocalyptic dread, it’s worth considering: What should you do when you believe the end is nigh?

Dustin Clark is a musician, an artist, and a man who sees challenges as possibilities.

Dustin briefly chronicles his history with Muscular Dystrophy, what has inspired him to keep creating, his current musical process and his hopeful view of the future.

Filmmaker Q&A Part 1

Filmmaker Q&A Part 2

Filmmaking While COVID

The Flame You Keep chronicles the plight of refugees across the globe, including the story of Yusra Mardini who fled from the war in Syria and became an Olympian swimmer and a Good Will Ambassador for UNHCR.

Fragments is a short film which documents a young girl’s journey to understanding her biracial identity, broken home and the effects this has on her.

Private KIM, a man who loves drawing, is badly burned from an accident in the military and survives a year of painful treatment. Finally, the day has come to unwrap the bandages…

Independent Filmmaking Roundtable

In Old Moshi, Tanzania, a head is missing. The head is of Chief Meli who fought the German colonial occupation of territory in Kilimanjaro and was executed as a result in 1900. His head is said to have been shipped to Germany at the request of scientists. Until today, Chief Meli's grandson is waiting for it to return.

Numerous parents have been impacted by the opioid crisis in America. Struggles with substance abuse can lead to family turmoil and instability for young children. Head Start centers around the country are actively working to help bridge that gap and support those families.

"Piece by Piece" is an animated short story about one mother's journey to recovery and empowerment.

Guided by the meticulous work of Dr. David E. Martin, Plandemic: Indoctornation, tracks a three decade-long money trail that leads directly to the key players currently managing the COVID 19 pandemic.

Plandemic connects the dots between all forms of media, the medical industry, politics and the financial industry and unmasks the major conflicts of interests between those in charge.

Risk Factor uncovers the impact of racism in healthcare in the United States, a country with Black infant and maternal mortality rates comparable to those of developing countries. Risk Factor chronicles the experiences of three Black women who’ve suffered an infant loss in Cleveland – a city that has experienced Black infant death at six times the rate of white infants.

The River is a documentary about how communication and purpose play into the success and failures of managing the homeless encampment in Aberdeen, Washington. Director Rick Walters goes to The River Camp to live with and talk with the displaced inhabitants to search for meaning in their experience, and to find catharsis for his own battles with addiction and security. This film was made because of the ideas and inspiration of executive producer Judy Isaacson, and by the engine that runs it: producer Heather Pilder Olson. Edited by David W. Phillips. The River won the Donald E. Lacy Social Justice Award at the Studio City International Film Festival in 2020, and was nominated for Best Documentary at the LA Festival of Cinema in 2021.

Salvage questions the allure of old objects by reimagining obsolete tools as reliquaries haunted by the souls of disgruntled workers who resent their new jobs. This hybrid intersectional documentary uses magic realism to critique the inequities of gender, ethnicity, and class that underpin consumer capitalism.

On the barrier island of Sapelo, two brothers are growing up in the last remaining enclave of the Saltwater Geechee people. Their greatest joy is exploring the island like their adoptive mother, Cornelia Walker Bailey, did as a child. As Sapelo’s storyteller and elder matriarch, she works to preserve what remains of this unique community established by her ancestors.

“Song Sparrow" is about immigration. People of different color and race and culture, old and young, embark on journeys, eager to find some place they can call home, or just some place they can live in. Many brave perils more formidable than the ones they ran for in the first place. It is not always weathering storms till and onto shores of calm and prosperity; many a time storms keep them company on and off shores. They dream of better lives while in reality having little choice.
It is about a real event which happened in Austria in August 2015, where flesh and bone of human and animal become intermingled.
This short movie may inspire the viewer to ask: "is it better to go or stay", or more accurately: "is it worse to stay than to go? Is a large chunk of humanity entrapped by events befallen their lands many centuries before they were even born?
" Song Sparrow" uses dolls to pose these questions. It is no less disturbing even though dolls have no life in them. But an attempt is made to show the situation faced by those that have no choice but to put their lives in peril to escape perils of staying, and to trade staying within chaos for a chaotic escape.

Part music video, part magic realism, ‘Wall Piano’ shows a wall as something other than an immovable barrier. As it passes through the imagination of a group of young children, the concept of a powerful wall controlling their lives, out of nowhere, becomes something else. The idea for the short film came from 12 year-old Nada, who also featured in the film.

Short biopic of Australian sign, showcard and ticket writer Barbara Enright. This is the fourth short film in the 'When Better Letters Met' series.

Women in Film Panel