Embrace of the Serpent
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At once blistering and poetic, the ravages of colonialism cast a dark shadow over the South American landscape in Embrace of the Serpent, the third feature by Ciro Guerra and a 2016 Academy Award-nominee. Filmed in stunning black-and-white, Embrace of the Serpent centers on Karamakate, an Amazonian shaman and the last survivor of his people, and the two scientists who, over the course of 40 years, build a friendship with him. The film was inspired by the real-life journals kept by Theodor Koch-Grunberg (portrayed by Jan Bijvoet) and Richard Evans Schultes (Brionne Davis), who traveled through the Colombian Amazon in search of the sacred and difficult-to-find psychedelic Yakruna plant.
The Lost Okoroshi
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In The Lost Okoroshi, Abba T. Makama plays with different influences, from Nollywood to North American music videos, and the result is a surreal, visually eclectic film unlike any being produced by his contemporaries.
But style never trumps substance, as beneath the formal play, Makama is probing pressing questions about modernity and masculinity that, when the laughter subsides, aren’t easily answered.
The Catechism Cataclysm
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Storytelling in all its forms is skewered in THE CATECHISM CATACLYSM. In this divinely bizarre tale, wild characters infuse stories within stories until the lines between the Bible, Mark Twain, and campfire tales are hilariously blurred.
Father Billy (Steve Little), an eccentric young priest, is forced to take a sabbatical by his superiors when he is discovered telling inappropriate parables to his flock. Billy tracks down his high-school idol Robbie (Robert Longstreet), who begrudgingly agrees to a canoe trip. On the water, the two men reminisce about Billy's days as the keyboardist in a Christian band and Robbie's as a guitarist for a metal band. When night approaches, they realize they have lost their way--and that's when things get weird.
Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
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Master filmmaker Sidney Lumet (The Verdict, Dog Day Afternoon, Serpico) delivers "one of his greatest achievements" (Roger Ebert) with this riveting and compelling suspense thriller. Oscar®-winner* Philip Seymour Hoffman (Capote) is Andy, an overextended payroll executive who lures his younger brother, Hank (Ethan Hawke, Training Day), into a larcenous scheme: the pair will rob a suburban mom-and-pop jewelry store that appears to be the quintessential easy target. The problem is, the store owners are Andy and Hank's real mom and pop, and when the seemingly perfect crime goes awry, the damage sends them hurtling toward a shattering clash that may obliterate their already precarious lives.
Redlands
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The lives of three residents of Redlands, California, intersect and ultimately collide in this claustrophobic exploration of radical creativity, sexuality and violence in America. From director and photographer John Brian King (Punk Daze: Los Angeles 1977–84) comes an arthouse take on a film noir storyline with elements of black humor. Redlands is a dark, voyeuristic film that slowly builds to a savage denouement.
In The Soup
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Broke and desperate filmmaker Adolpho Rollo (Steve Buscemi) is a Manhattan wannabe in love with the mysterious woman next door, Angelica Peña (Jennifer Beals). He puts out an ad offering to sell his 'fabulous' movie script for $500, and gets a response from Joe (Seymour Cassel), who gives him a thousand and says he'll raise the 250,000 to make the picture. The problem is, Joe is a semi-connected wiseguy with a hemophiliac brother Skippy (Will Patton) and a habit of committing oddball crimes.
Falcon Lake
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Director Charlotte Le Bon’s Falcon Lake is both a love story and a ghost story. During a lakeside vacation, a shy teenager experiences the joy and pain of first love when he forms a bond with an older girl. Falcon Lake was a selection of the 2022 Directors’ Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival.
Lump
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Ralph, a mourning detective, discovers an unwelcome lump and an equally unwelcome partner, Xavier. The investigator contends with Xavier's exuberance as they navigate a partnership between unlikely cases, themselves and a lump.
What Happened Was
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Winner of the Grand Jury Prize and the Screenwriting Award at the 1994 Sundance Film Festival, WHAT HAPPENED WAS... is Tom Noonan's directorial debut; a darkly humorous take on dating dread. Featuring powerhouse performances by Noonan and Karen Sillas as two lonely hearts spending one claustrophobic Friday night together in an imposing apartment, the film exposes with startling clarity the ways in which people struggle to connect. As relevant now as ever, Oscilloscope Films undertook a brand new restoration from the film's original 35mm negative and is making this pristine version widely available for the first time since the '90s.
Relaxer
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Doom and gloom are on the way. The Y2K apocalypse can't be stopped. Abbie's older brother issues him the ultimate challenge before it goes down: beat the infamous level 256 in Pac-Man and no getting up from the couch until he does so. Abbie’s survival story begins here; inside a rotting living room with no food or water, and a revolving door of numb-nut friends and acquaintances. It’s THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL by way of SLACKER.
Topology of Sirens
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Cas, an academic assistant and amateur musician, moves into her aunt’s old home. In the bedroom closet, she finds a cache of mysteriously labeled microcassette tapes, containing cryptic recordings of sounds ranging from everyday objects to abstract soundscapes. Cas’s curiosity to discover the origin of these tapes leads her on a meditative journey through unknown verdant Californian landscapes, encountering experimental music performances, eccentric shop owners, and early music treasures along the way. As her adventure progresses, the mystery unravels in equally enigmatic and enlightening ways, reflecting Cas’s own evolving relation with time and sound.
Dream Team
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Dream Team is a postmodern, soft-core fever dream from directors Lev Kalman & Whitney Horn, and produced by Jane Schoenbrun (I Saw the TV Glow). "Think Baywatch Nights directed by Maya Deren," says the film's label Yellow Veil. In this absurdist homage to 90’s basic cable TV thrillers, two Interpol agents investigate a coral smuggler's mysterious death. The investigation leads the agents down a rabbit hole, revealing a surreal international conspiracy involving utopian basketball leagues, sensual scientists, and a psychic network of coral reefs.
Warm Blood
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Set in the underbelly of 1980s Modesto, California, Warm Blood uses the real-life diary of a teenage runaway named Red (newcomer Haley Isaacson) returning home to find her father. In his narrative feature debut, director Rick Charnoski’s history as a skate video director informs the frenetic storytelling style, as he combines Red’s nihilist musings with a collage of documentary and B-movie meta-narratives that paint a seedy picture of life on the outskirts of town. Talk-radio bits and punk music underscore the auditory cacophony of doom, while frequent Kelly Reichardt collaborator Christopher Blauvelt (First Cow, The Bling Ring) lends his immersive, naturalist lens shooting on gritty 16mm film.
Hellaware
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Hellaware gently satirizes the world of high-brow art through the eyes of a wannabe photographer who becomes consumed by the bright lights of mainstream success. Jaded by the “incestuous, New York, socialite shit” that sells at prominent art galleries, Nate (Keith Poulson) embarks on a quest for a more authentic brand of contemporary art. When a coked-up YouTube search leads to a music video from Delawarean Goth rappers Young Torture Killers, an Insane Clown Posse knock-off, Nate knows he’s found his subjects. He soon drags his friend-with-benefits Bernadette (Sophia Takal) to rural Delaware to shoot the group playing in their parents’ basement. To “immerse himself” in the group’s culture and add an extra layer of realism to his work, Nate befriends the rappers and makes return trips to get to know them. But as his relationship with the group develops, he becomes increasingly aware that, while you can take the boy out of the art world, you can’t take the art world out of the boy.
The Low Life
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Great young stars, rave reviews and powerhouse performances give you an edge on business.Tell your customers to get a life: The Low Life. Starring Kyra Sedgwick, Rory Cochrane, Sean Astin, and more.
A Man Imagined
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Pushing at the limits of non-fiction cinema, A Man Imagined is a bracingly intimate and hallucinatory portrait of a man with schizophrenia surviving amidst urban detritus and decay. Made in close collaboration with 67-year-old Lloyd, this immersive documentary fable follows the jagged path of a decades-long street survivor, across harsh winters and blistering summers, as he sells discarded items to motorists, sleeps in junkyards and lapses into near-psychedelic reveries.
NFTV 3
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