Schedule Of Events:

Thursday October 19, 2023

Session 1

5:30Pm - Opening Night Reception

Music By Potential Jazz Ensemble

6:00Pm - Opening Words By Palo Alto Mayor, Patrick Burt

6:30Pm - Celebrating 15 (Azerbaijan, 6 Min)

Director: Atanur Nabiyeva

"We are a happy family!" are the lyrics of the song we hear. Akerovs' family is preparing to celebrate Nigar's 15th birthday. The family doesn't know yet that the missile attacks on Ganja will destroy all of their lives. The walls of the destroyed house and their belongings left behind to tell the stories of the family and their happy past memories.

6:45Pm - Waterman (Us, 93 Min)

Director: Isaac Halasima

Hawaiian Icon. American hero. Five-time Olympic medalist and Native Hawaiian Duke Paoa Kahanamoku shattered records and brought surfing to the world while overcoming a lifetime of personal challenges. Narrated by Jason Momoa, features commentary from surfing's biggest stars, including Olympic gold medalist Carissa Moore. From modest roots in Waikiki, Duke swam his way to fame, becoming the face of a changing Hawaii - and a vital part of its tourism industry - as it evolved from an independent Kingdom to the 50th American state. Through Duke's incredible athletic accomplishments, personal doctrine of Aloha, and enduring gift of surfing to the world, the film explores a theme that still resonates today – the role of sports in breaking societal barriers.

8:30Pm - Still Working From 9-5 (Us, 95 Min)

Directors: Camille Hardman, Gary Lane

When the highest grossing comedy, 9 to 5, starring Jane Fonda, Dolly Parton, Dabney Coleman and Lily Tomlin, exploded on the cinema screens in 1980, the laughs hid a serious message about women in the office. Still Working 9 to 5 explores why workplace inequality 40 years later is no longer a laughing matter.

Friday October 20, 2023

Session 2

4:45Pm - Home River (Finland, 25 Min)

Directors/Producers: Kati Eriksen and Scott Thornton

In 2017, three Sámi women broke the law to protect their traditions. The Sámi people had fished the Deatnu River as a livelihood and spiritual practice for centuries until Finland enforced unprecedented restrictions on the river. In a monumental case for Indigenous rights, Kati, Ánne, and Heidi fought the state to keep their culture alive.

5:20Pm - Category Woman (Us, 76 Min)

Director: Phyllis Ellis

When international sport governing bodies rule that 'identified' female athletes must medically alter their healthy bodies, under the guise of fair play, four champion runners from the Global South, fight back against racism, the policing of women's bodies in sport and the violation of their human rights.

Session 3

7:00Pm - Bahati (Canada/Rwanda, 11 Min)

Director: Harun Yasin Tuna, Leila Shifteh

Animated docu-short "Bahati" follows a Rwandan refugee's deeply personal story of displacement and survival. Through hand-drawn animation and her own voice, Bahati's journey captures one young woman's attempt to regain control of her life, as she faces her past to make space for her future.

7:20Pm - The Neighborhood Storyteller (Jordan/United Arab Emirates, 50 Min)

Director: Alejandra Alcala

War tragically pushed Asmaa out of her home country, Syria, where her destiny had been written as a wife and mother with only 16 years of age. Asmaa rebuilt her adult identity as the neighborhood storyteller and began using reading aloud to children for fun as a bridge to tackle critical issues in her new community at the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan. Six years later, with Asmaa's first born daughter reaching adolescence, a flashback of her education-deprived past emerges and inspires her to embark on a new read aloud project to empower teenage girls to build a future of opportunities she never had. Despite her complex living situation as a refugee and the community's conservative mindset, Asmaa is determined to raise a conscious generation of successful women.

8:20 Pm - Smoke Sauna Sisterhood (Estonia, 89 Min)

Director: Anna Hints

In the darkness of a smoke sauna, women share their innermost secrets and intimate experiences, washing off the shame trapped in their bodies and regaining their strength through a sense of communion.

Saturday October 21, 2023

Session 4 Unaff and Kids Program (Free Admission)

1:00 Pm - Light (Kenya/Us, 13 Min)

Director: Nicole Watson

Light takes us on a journey, in a classic land rover defender, with a passionate team, into the last mile region of Northern Kenya. There we discover the impact that portable solar light has on students who live without electricity access. At the same time learning the challenges these students face in getting an education.


1:30 Pm - Hellbent (Us, 19 Min)

Directors: Justin Grubb, Annie Roth

In a small rural town in Pennsylvania, the refuge of a rare salamander and the only source of clean drinking water for 700 people is threatened by the installation of a fracking waste injection well, prompting community members to band together and mount an epic fight for the rights of their people and nature.

Session 5

2:30 Pm - Abundance: The Farmlink Story (Us, 25 Min)

Director: Owen Dubeck

As the largest food crisis in a century unfolds, a group of college students decides to take matters into their own hands. They rent uHaul trucks to deliver extra food from farms to their local food bank that is on the verge of closing its doors. The group's grassroots efforts spread like wildfire, inspiring hundreds of other students across the country to join in delivering food to families in need of food assistance.

3:05 Pm - Greener Pastures (Us, 82 Min)

Director: Samuel-Ali Mirpoorian

Greener Pastures is an urgent and intimate look at American farming, told through the stories of farmers living at the intersection of climate change, globalization and a mental health crisis. Greener Pastures captures the day-to-day lives of four small, multigenerational family farms over the course of four years. Through an intimate, observational lens we examine the various farm stressors, policies and politics farmers must maneuver to survive, connecting the dots between mental health, industrialization, food production and climate change. It is a story of perseverance, patience and determination that tackles nothing less than the future of farming in America.

Session 6

6:30 Pm - The Enigma Of Faina (Azerbaijan, 5 Min)

Director/Producer: Durna Safarova

Faina, a 33-year-old woman from Azerbaijan, loses her life under suspicious circumstances in a prison in 2007. Silenced today by the authorities and forgotten by society, Faina's story is about a female activist who fought for freedom, justice and democracy.

6:45Pm - It's Just Business (Greece/New Zealand, 8 Min)

Director/Producer: Judy Boyle

It's Just Business is a short film about the crime of human trafficking and modern slavery. But the point of view is unexpected and disturbing. The film is surreal, dreamlike, non-linear and experimental. ?It's Just Business was filmed primarily in Greece and New Zealand-Aotearoa.

7:00Pm - To Kill A Tiger (Canada/India,120 Min)

Director: Nisha Pahuja

On the night of a family wedding in Jharkand, India, Ranjit fears the worst after waking up to find his daughter is not home. Dragged into the woods, she was gang raped by three men. The village solution is to marry her to one of them. Ranjit refuses. Instead, he challenges the status quo, determined to get justice for his daughter. On his quest, he works with a gender-justice NGO that sees in him an example for other men to follow. As the financial and emotional pressure of the case mounts, the villagers turn against Ranjit, and the boys' families threaten murder.   

Sunday October 22, 2023

Session 7

1:00 Pm - The Forest Beyond (Peru/Us, 22 Min)

Directors: Jeremy Seifert, Fred Bahnson

Though Senen Kaisi has lived her entire life in the Peruvian Amazon, she has never seen a virgin forest. As a young Shibibo woman living along the Ucayali River in the community of Santa Isabel de Bahuanisho, Senen Kaisi grew up hearing about the massive bahuanisho trees for which her community was named. In recent years, illegal loggers, colonizing settlers, and palm plantations have increasingly devoured the Shipibo's ancestral forests, and now Senen Kaisi vows to discover the primary forests of her people's lands. She sets off on a journey up the Ucayali River by boat, then travels by motor car deep into the jungle to a remote Shipibo community on Lake Imiria, where she meets Sanken Kena, an elderly woman who is one of the Shipibo's forest guardians.

1:30 Pm - Ever Green (Us, 30 Min)

For almost 40 years, partners Marianne Edain and Steve Erickson have worked continually to retain the rural character and ecological diversity of Whidbey Island in Puget Sound, north of Seattle. Through their organization, Whidbey Environmental Action Network, Edain and Erickson have monitored county applications for development and logging; challenged projects that violate state environmental law and led the way in science-based environmental public policymaking. In partnership with citizens and communities up and down Whidbey Island, they have helped keep trees standing and protected sensitive island ecosystems.

2:10 Pm - Windshipped (Us, 39 Min)

Director/Producer: Jon Bowermaster

What started as one man's Quixotic dream has turned to reality. For the past three years the 65-foot "Schooner Apollonia" has been delivering goods up and down the Hudson River by sail -- sans fossil fuels -- a throwback to a day when there were 1,200 such boats on the river each day. It turns out buyers prefer the non-polluting, anti-Amazon way of making deliveries.

3:00 Pm -  Panel "Climate Change Challenges" (Free Admission)

Session 8

4:10 Pm - Nanobots, A Fantastic Voyage (Us, 30 Min)

Director: Robert Brown

A documentary on the leading edge of science and technology. Nanobots, A Fantastic Voyage explores the realm of science fiction becoming science fact, as nanobots go from the theme of a cleverly crafted movie plot, to a real life technology that can potentially have a giant impact on humanity and our future.Biography:Robert Brown is passionate about storytelling, whether it is fictional or non-fictional. He prefers to blend the two and create a fantasy world within the real world we are all familiar with. He has a background in journalism. This degree from Humboldt State University, taught him the importance of research, sourcing, organizing, directing, and producing. He obtained a master's degree in film from San Diego State University, which strengthened his knowledge and ability to direct and produce, along with learning the fundamentals of cinematography.

4:50 Pm - The Recycling Myth (Germany/Bulgaria/Turkey, 52 Min)

Directors: Tom Costello, Benedict Wermter

What really happens to our plastic waste once we put it in the recycling bin? As the plastic pollution crisis has become an international scandal, the biggest consumer goods brands on earth have declared they have a solution: recycling. But our plastic packaging is still more likely to end up being burned or dumped than recycled. We show how the oil, packaging and consumer goods industries spin the recycling fairytale to allow them to continue polluting without consequence. As we all pick up the bill for a world drowning in plastic, the film asks: who is getting rich?

Session 9

7:00 Pm - 13 Driver's Licenses (Germany/Us, 27 Min)

Director: Ryoya Terao

The discovery of 13 confiscated driver's licenses from 1938 leads Lichtenfels, a small town in Germany, to face its horrendous and regrettable past. With no other clue but those licenses, a group of high-school students and their tenacious teacher research the fates of the town's former Jewish citizens. A year later, an unexpected turn takes place. The modern-day Germans and some of the Jewish descendants from overseas gather in "their hometown," and a fortuitous friendship begins.

7:40 Pm - Andrei Sakharov On The Other Side Of The Window (Israel/Russia, 73 Min)

Director/Producer: Dmitry Zavilgelsky

The film tells about the fate of the famous physicist, human rights activist, and Nobel Peace Prize winner Academician Andrei Sakharov. The film refers to previously unpublished declassified materials from the archives of the KGB of the USSR and the Central Committee of the CPSU as well as video recordings of the KGB of the USSR made during exile in the city of Gorky, memories of friends, and Sakharov himself. From the film, the viewer learns not only a lot about the fate of Academician Sakharov, but also about how the hydrogen bomb works and how it differs from the atomic one; what is the essence of a nuclear reaction; what is thermonuclear fusion and much more.

9:00 Pm - Unarchived (Canda/Us, 84 Min)

Director/Producer: Hayley Gray

In community archives across British Columbia, local knowledge keepers are hand-fashioning a more inclusive history. Through a collage of personal interviews, archival footage and deeply rooted memories, the past, present and future come together, fighting for a space where everyone is seen and everyone belongs. History is what we all make of it.

Monday October 23, 2023

Session 10

4:00 Pm - Overtown's Living Legacy (Us, 7 Min)

Director/Producer: Gina Margillo

When developers and city planners say they are "revitalizing" the historic black neighborhood of Overtown, in Miami Florida, they ignore its rich history and the community that has been living there for decades.

4:15Pm - A Gunshot's Cry (Us, 7 Min)

Director: Nyla Melvin

As the epidemic of mass shootings and gun violence rip through American communities, filmmaker Nyla Melvin turns the camera on herself and her poetry. Speaking also to the disproportionate amount of police brutality against African Americans Melvin creates an unvarnished account of the most devastating -- and intractable -- problems of our time.

4:30Pm - Move When The Spirit Says Move: The Legacy Of Dorothy Foreman Cotton (Us, 89 Min)

Directors: Ry Ferro, Deborah C. Hoard

Dorothy Foreman Cotton was a bold and highly effective civil rights leader, who educated thousands about their citizenship rights and inspired generations of activists with her powerful freedom songs. The only woman on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. 's executive staff, Dorothy was a charismatic, courageous and consistently overlooked key player in the Civil Rights Movement, whose freedom schools, freedom songs and messages of empowerment are profoundly needed today.

6:15Pm - Panel "The Power Of Civil Rights Movements" (Free Admission)

Session 11

7:30Pm - Ezequiel Baraja (Argentina/Germany, 7 Min)

Director/Producer: Juan Fernandez Gebauer

After an armed robbery, Ezequiel was arrested and sent to prison. During his imprisonment, he discovered an opportunity that never appeared in life before when being free. This is his story.

7:50Pm - What These Walls Won't Hold (Us, 39 Min)

Director: Adamu Taye Chan

Set against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic at San Quentin State Prison, What These Walls Won't Hold chronicles the organizing and relationships of people who came together beyond the separations created by incarceration, to respond to this crisis. The film is shot from the perspective of filmmaker Adamu Chan, who was incarcerated at San Quentin during the height of the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020.

8:40Pm - A Crime On The Bayou (Us, 91 Min)

Director/Producer: Nancy Buirski

In 1966, young Black fisherman Gary Duncan tries to break up a fight between white and Black teenagers outside a newly integrated school in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana. During the confrontation, he touches one of the white teens on the arm. That night, police arrest 19-year-old Duncan for assault on a minor. In Washington, DC, a young Jewish attorney named Richard Sobol leaves a prestigious law firm to offer his legal services in New Orleans as a volunteer for the Lawyers Constitutional Defense Committee. With Sobol's help, Duncan confronts a racist Louisiana legal system—manipulated by segregationist and de facto Parish boss Leander Perez—to challenge his unfair arrest.

Tuesday October 24, 2023

Session 12

4:00Pm - You Always See Myself (Us, 15 Min)

Directors/Producers: Christian Bruno, Natalija Vekic

A portrait ofa group of talented neuro-diverse artists whose daily practice is nurtured and encouraged at Creativity Explored. The CE studio space and art gallery has transformed the personal and professional lives of numerous artists over the decades. When Covid-19 shuts down the beloved studio and threatens their community, they devise a collaborative fashion show that reunites the artists and instructors after 2-years apart.

4:30Pm - A Still Small Voice (Us, 97 Min)

Director: Luke Lorentzen

A Still Small Voice follows Mati, a chaplain completing a year-long hospital residency, as she learns to provide spiritual care to people confronting profound life changes. Through Mati's experiences with her patients, her struggle with professional burnout, and her own spiritual questioning, we gain new perspectives on how meaningful connection can be and how painful its absence is.

6:20Pm - Panel "Solving Health Crises" (Free Admission)

Session 13

8:00Pm - Unnamed (Iran, 13 Min)

Director/Producer: Iranmehr Salimi

Zainab is a successful girl who supports her family financially, but considers herself a boy in spirit, and now she has decided to undergo gender transition, but in addition to her family's opposition and the society's inappropriate view of this issue, she has more difficulties There is something more important to come. she, who played in the country's national volleyball team for a while and is now in the Bartar league, if she does this, she will be removed from professional volleyball forever due to her short stature compared to men, and not only will she lose her professional future, but also her livelihood and her family who are under her care will be in trouble.
8:30Pm - The Human Trial (Us, 92)

Directors: Lisa Hepner, Guy Mossman

In 2011, filmmakers Lisa Hepner and Guy Mossman heard about a radical stem cell treatment for diabetes, a disease that kills more than five million people each year. Driven by a desire to cure Lisa of her own type 1 diabetes, they secured unprecedented access to a clinical trial led by San Diego–based biotech company ViaCyte—only the sixth-ever embryonic stem cell trial in the world. What follows is an intimate journey with the patients and scientists who put themselves on the line to be first. In the world of biotech and medical research, there are no tidy solutions.

Wednesday October 25, 2023

Session 14 (Unaff In Schools Free For Students And Teachers)

3:10Pm - Citizens Of Nowhere (Us, 11 Min)

Director/Producer: Alicia Sully

Millennials in the US discover their lack of legal nationality, sparking a search for recognition and belonging that unites them and offers hope for the future.


3:30Pm - Brief Tender Light (Ghana/Nigeria/Rwanda/Tanzania/Us/Zimbabwe, 93 Min)

Director/Producer: Arthur Musah

At America's elite MIT, a Ghanaian alum follows four African students as they strive to graduate and become agents of change for their home countries: Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe. Over an intimate, nearly decade-long journey, all must decide how much of America to absorb, how much of Africa to hold on to, and how to reconcile teenage ideals with the truths they discover about the world and themselves.

Session 15

6:30Pm - He Had Wings (Us, 29 Min)

Director: Jeanne Marie Hallacy

He Had Wings presents a portrait of the prolific artist, Ronnie Goodman, and the impact of his creative activism to stand for social justice. He Had Wings provides insight into the trauma and resilience of Ronnie's journey as one of the thousands experiencing homelessness in San Francisco. The film shows how people like him, and his friend, Alton "Coach" McSween can have a positive impact on those who battle the crisis currently affecting the wealthy City by the Bay.


7:10Pm - When We Were Bullies (Us, 35 Min)

Director/Producer: Jay Rosenblatt

When We Were Bullies begins with a mind boggling "coincidence" from 25 years ago which ultimately leads the filmmaker to track down his 5th grade class (and 5th grade teacher) to see what they remember of a bullying incident from 50 years ago. In a playful yet poignant way, he begins to understand his complicity and the bully in all of us.

Session 16

8:00Pm - My Name Is Siri (Us, 15 Min)

Director/Producer: Sarah Moshman

In the San Francisco Bay Area, the Chettipally family has been quietly raising 3 children for the past 30 years. One of their children is the incredibly special Siri, who was diagnosed with non-verbal autism at age 3. Against all odds, Siri bravely fought through many hurdles to create a meaningful life while also learning to communicate like never before. My Name Is Siri is an inspirational story about resilience, a mother's unconditional love, and a family determined to create a better life for their daughter.

8:30Pm - The Secret Song (Us, 90 Min)

Director: Samantha Campbell

The Secret Song chronicles the final months of Doug Goodkin's fabled 45-year career teaching music to children in San Francisco. Goodkin's time-tested methods are thrown into disarray as the pandemic forces schools into "distance" learning, and a music program that always prioritized singing and learning "through the ear, not through the eye" has to adapt to an online format. The film shows the dynamism and adaptability that all teachers find and bring forth in the classroom, and how a sense of belonging helps us surmount hardships and adversity.

Thursday October 26, 2023

Session 17

4:00Pm - Town Destroyer (Us, 53 Min)

Directors/Producers: Alan Snitow, Deborah Kaufman

Town Destroyer explores the ways we look at art and history at a time of racial reckoning. The story focuses on a dispute over historic murals depicting the life of George Washington: enslaver, general, land speculator, President, and a man Seneca leaders called "Town Destroyer" after he ordered their villages destroyed during the Revolutionary War.The murals, at San Francisco's George Washington High School, were painted in 1936 by leftwing artist Victor Arnautoff, a student of Diego Rivera. The murals both praise Washington and—rare for the time—critically depict him overseeing his slaves and directing the bloody seizure of Native lands. Most controversial is a provocative image of a dead Indian—life-size, eye-level, and at the center of the school.Opponents of the murals, led by Native American parents, demand the School Board order them painted over. For them, the murals' graphic depictions of slavery and genocide are racist and harm students, Native students in particular. Defenders of the murals warn of the dangers of censoring priceless works of art, and urge the Board to `teach the murals.' Heated debates spill into the community and make national headlines.

5:00Pm - King Lear: How We Looked For Love During The War (Ukraine, 91 Min)

Director: Dmytro Hreshko

Due to the full-scale Russian invasion in Ukraine, tens of thousands of Ukrainians, fleeing the war, found refuge in a small town in western Ukraine. A local director decides to involve non-professional actors – displaced people – in bringing his dream into life to stage the King Lear play.

6:40 Pm - Panel "The Ways We Look At Art, Creative Space And History" (Free Admission)

Session 18

7:50pm What Would Your Sign Say (Us, 7 Min)

Directors/Producers: Gabriel Diamond and Candice Holdorf

If you were to make a sign that revealed something you normally hide and hold it in public, what would it say? That's the question that Vulnerable Rally asks of its participants. Co-founded in 2016 by Gabriel Diamond and Candice Holdorf, Vulnerable Rally invites connection between strangers through the power of vulnerability. What Would Your Sign Say documents the touching, curious, and hilarious moments shared during a San Francisco Vulnerable Rally in 2018.

8:00pm - Backlash: Misogyny In The Digital Age (Canada/France/Italy/Us, 79 Min)

Directors: Guylaine Maroist, Léa Clermont-Dion

The film plunges us into the vortex of online misogyny and documents hatred towards women. This bleak opus, reminiscent of a psychological thriller, follows four women across two continents: former President of the Italian parliament Laura Boldrini, former Democratic representative Kiah Morris, French actor and YouTuber Marion Séclin, and Donna Zuckerberg, a specialist in online violence against women and the sister of Facebook's founder. This tour de force reveals the devastating effects such unapologetic hatred has on victims, and brings to light the singular objective of cyber-misogyny: to silence women who shine.

Friday October 27, 2023

Session 19

4:00Pm - When The Bomb Drops (Iraq/Netherlands, 51 Min)

Director: Jochem Pinxteren

This documentary shows the aftermath of a bomb that was dropped by a Dutch F16 on an ISIS bomb factory. The Netherlands was part of the US-led coalition that defeated ISIS. The bomb killed around 68 innocent civilians and injured many more in the Iraqi town of Hawija. The survivors tell their story and what happened that horrific night. Many of them were refugees from other parts of Iraq, having fled violence and terror in search of safety.

5:00Pm - Israelism (Israel/Palestine/Us, 84 Min)

Directors: Eric Axelman, Sam Eilertsen

Two young American Jews - Simone Zimmerman and Eitan - are raised to defend the state of Israel at all costs. Eitan joins the Israeli military. Simone supports Israel on ‘the other battlefield:' America's college campuses. When they witness Israel's mistreatment of the Palestinian people with their own eyes, they are horrified and heartbroken – the Jewish institutions that raised them not only lied, but built their Jewish identity around that lie. Their stories reveal a generational divide in the American Jewish community as more young Jews question the narratives their synagogues and Hebrew school teachers fed them as children.

6:30Pm - Panel "Making Peace During The War" (Free Admission)

Session 20

7:40Pm - Theaters Of War: How The Pentagon And Cia Took Hollywood (Us, 87 Min)

Director/Producer: Roger Stahl

If you've seen Top Gun or Transformers, you may have wondered: Does all of that military machinery on screen come with strings attached? Does the military actually get a crack at the script? Theaters of War digs deep into a vast new trove of recently released internal government documents to bring the answers to these questions into sharp focus. Traveling across America, filmmaker and media scholar Roger Stahl engages an array of other researchers, bewildered veterans, PR insiders, and industry producers willing to talk. In unsettling and riveting detail, he discovers how the military and CIA have pushed official narratives while systematically scrubbing scripts of war crimes, corruption, racism, sexual assault, coups, assassinations, and torture. From The Longest Day to Lone Survivor, Iron Man to Iron Chef, and James Bond to Jack Ryan, Theaters of War uncovers an alternative "cinematic universe" that stands as one of the great Pentagon PR coups of our time. As these activities gain new public scrutiny, new questions arise: How have they managed to fly under the radar for so long? And where do we go from here?

9:10Pm - I Wanted To Be A Man With A Gun: Three American Soldiers In World War Ii (Us, 90 Min)

Director: William Farley

Three American soldiers, two Jewish and one Christian, recount their experiences in WWII through the prism of their 90-year old selves, revealing the shocking secrets of taking revenge on the enemy, the consequences of which still linger heavily in their lives. This powerful and poetic film employs a haunting original score integrated with rare archival footage, ultimately revealing that even in a justifiable war no soldier escapes the trauma of the requirement to kill or be killed.

Saturday October 28, 2023

Session 21

1:00 Pm - The Test (Ghana/Us,16 Min)

Directors/Producers: Claudia Myers, Laura Waters Hinson

A Ghanaian maintenance technician at a Virginia retirement community dreams of becoming an American citizen to provide a better life for his family. With their future at stake, he enlists the help of two elderly residents to prepare for the biggest test of his life: the US Citizenship exam.

1:30 Pm - Fear Not (Côte D'ivoire/Us, 21 Min)

Directors/Producers: Annette King, Ivanovitch Ingabire

Growing up impoverished in the Ivory Coast, Evelyne Keomian was deprived of education and slipped into schools in a culture where only boys were educated. Determined to break the cycle of poverty through education, she founded the Karat School Project (KSP) in the Ivory Coast to empower the next generation of leaders. After immigrating to the US, she notices families living in vehicles around Silicon Valley who face barriers she once endured. Refusing to be a bystander, Evelyne expands the KSP to educate and empower families to become financially independent. Challenging the education system to help kids without a permanent address to register for school, Evelyne must now prioritize addressing poverty and barriers to education in her home country, and in her new community.

2:00 Pm - Seeking Asylum (Mexico/Us, 70 Min)

Director: Rae Ceretto

Seeking Asylum is a feature documentary that bears witness to the endless deterrents migrants face when petitioning for asylum in the United States. In a dismantled system that has been designed for failure, we follow one woman's journey as she searches for protection for her and kids. Many people view getting to the United States as the final hurdle of the migration journey, but we quickly learn that once in the U.S. the fight has just begun. During one of the most uncertain times in our country's history, Seeking Asylum documents the challenges asylum seekers face and shows why asylum is an integral part of the American Dream that we cannot afford to lose.We have partnered with incredible organization on advocacy and our impact strategy including; KIND, AILA, Welcome with Dignity, UNHCR, This is About Humanity, Jewish Family Service, Center for Gender and Refugee Studies, Young Center for Immigrants Rights, Dr. Bronner's Family Foundation, Interfaith Immigration Coalition, Grove Foundation, and Silicon Valley Community Foundation.

Session 22

3:20 Pm - Evangelicals From Faith To Power (France/Us,155 Min)

Director: Thomas Johnson

How a religious movement became a political weapon. Evangelical Christianity has extended to all spheres of society, bringing leaders like Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro to power. From the Cold War to the present day, Evangelicals, From Faith to Power traces the extraordinary rise of the movement on all continents, mapping its growing influence in religious, social and political arenas.

6:00 Pm - Panel "Religion And State" (Free Admission)

Session 23

7:30 Pm - A Hand To Hold (Us, 23 Min)

Director: Reed Martin

In the heart of Los Angeles, two members of an innovative Street Medicine team devote their livelihood to helping their unhoused patients receive care, hope, and connection.

8:00 Pm - Holy Prostitution (Indonesia, 25 Min)

Director: Natasha Dematra

Holy Prostitution documents the experience of a young woman in a Mut'ah marriage. Also known as a "marriage of convenience," the practice of Mut'ah marriage is regarded by many as an exploitative form of legalized prostitution and is widely banned. This film explores this young Indonesian woman's experience in the Puncak region through her own testimonial and re-enactments.We applaud her courage to share her story and have done everything to protect her identity.

8:40 Pm - Let It Be Law (Argentina, 87 Min)

Director/Producer: Juan Solanas

In Argentina, one woman dies every week as the result of illegal abortions. In 2018, for the seventh time, a motion supporting legal, secure and free abortion was presented to the National Congress. The project provoked a fierce debate, revealing a society divided more than ever between the pro-life and freedom to choose positions. Through an assemblage of passionate testimonies, Let It Be Law documents the determination of women fighting bravely to secure the right to physical self-determination, and bears witness to their massive mobilization in the streets of Buenos Aires. Let It Be Law marks luan Solanas' return to Cannes Official Selection - a powerful, militant and necessary documentary revealing the urgent, vital struggle for the recognition of women's rights.

Sunday October 29, 2023

Session 24

1:00 Pm - Baseball Behind Barbed Wire (Japan/Us, 30 Min)

Director: Yuriko Gamo Romer

Baseball Behind Barbed Wire tells the story of the WWII incarceration of Japanese Americans, through the uncommon lens of baseball. Japanese Americans incarcerees had their citizenship and civil rights taken away and were forcibly confined from 1942-45. Playing baseball was a chance to assert their citizenship and affirm their loyalty as Americans, even as camp guards in towers pointed their rifles inward and the barbed wire kept them confined. The concepts of "gaman" (endurance) and "gambaru" (to persevere and keep working hard) are core to the Japanese soul.

1:40 Pm - The Movement And The ‘Madman' (Us, 54 Min)

Director: Stephen TalbotProducer: Robert Levering

A story about the power of protest. Two enormous antiwar demonstrations in the fall of 1969, the largest the country had ever seen, caused President Nixon to cancel his secret "madman" plans for a massive escalation of the U.S. war in Vietnam, including threats to use nuclear weapons. At the time, protestors had no idea what they had prevented. This film reveals what happened from the perspective of antiwar organizers and those inside the White House working with Nixon and his top foreign policy aide, Henry Kissinger.

Session 25

3:00 Pm - Don't Come Back - In The Ruins Of Mosul (Iraq/Italy/France, 67 Min)

Directors: Chiara Avesani, Matteo Delbò

July 2017, Mosul is freed but left in ruins. Ghadeer, a young journalist who fled to Brussels when Mosul fell into the hands of ISIS, decides to abandon the promise of a future in Europe to return to the city that had seen him growing up. He and several friends create Radio One FM, a radio station independent from any religious, communitarianism or political ties, one that could help to restore social and political dialogue as well as peaceful coexistence in a war-torn society.The first two years are utopic for the team of journalists. Radio One gains a national audience thanks to its documentation of the country's hardships. But without external financing nor advertisement, the Radio faces economic instability, trying to overcome its situation by opening a café whose revenues are supposed to finance it. The story of Radio One mirrors the disillusion progressively affecting the Iraqi people as their country teeters once again on the edge of chaos, 20 years after the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and its promises of democracy and state-building.

4:20 Pm - Stripped For Parts: American Journalism At The Crossroads (Us, 90 Min)

Director/Producer: Rick Goldsmith

In 2011, a Wall Street hedge fund, Alden Global Capital, started buying up chains of newspapers nationwide.Alden found a way to profit from distressed industries, but the effects on the newspapers' journalism were disastrous. In 2015, reporter Julie Reynolds began investigating this hedge fund that had bought her own small-town daily along with more than 100 other newspapers nationwide.She exposed how these self-described "vulture capitalists" would strip the newspapers of their real estate, gut their newsrooms and run away with the profits.Reynolds' reporting reached The Denver Post's Chuck Plunkett, whose subsequent editorial criticizing Alden would trigger the "Denver Rebellion." Much has been written about the precipitous decline in local journalism.Our film takes it one step further: "Yes, journalism is in crisis, but what are we doing about it?"

Session 26

6:10 Pm - By My Side (Us, 30 Min)

Directors: Vicki Topaz, Wynn Padula

?BY MY SIDE tells a story of journey and return, of veterans and their families rescued by their service dogs from the pitfalls of PTSD to a promising sense of hope and restoration.

6:50 Pm - Downwind (Us, 96 Min)

Directors: Mark Samuel Shapiro, Douglas Brian Miller

Hiroshima. Nagasaki. Mercury, Nevada? The latter was the site for the testing of 928 nuclear weapons on American soil from 1951 to 1992. The fallout is still lethally impacting Americans today. Martin Sheen narrates this harrowing exposé of the United States' disregard for everyone living. When we embarked on this journey of discovery, we wanted to understand exactly who was impacted by the detonations at the Nevada Test Site and why, since winds dispersed radioactive fallout from atmospheric blasts (mushroom clouds) and underground testing (venting) in a seemingly unpredictable manner. Despite a moratorium on testing, the Nevada Test Site remains operational and off-limits with the possibility that testing could resume any day.

8:30 Pm - Awards Ceremony And Closing Night Reception
Music By The Potential Jazz Ensemble

Date: October 19-29, 2023

Location:

Mitchell Park Community Center, 3700 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto, CA 94303

Stanford University Stanford Medical School Alway Building, 300 Pasteur Drive, Room Alway M106, Palo Alto, CA 94304

Eastside College Preparatory School - Eastside Theater, 1041 Myrtle St, East Palo Alto, CA 94303

San Francisco, Roxie Theater, 3117 16th Street, San Francisco, CA 94103

Stanford University - Anderson Collection, 314 Lomita Drive, Stanford, CA 94305

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