Every day people are being replaced by machines worldwide. After 1,400 years, thousands of muezzins in Cairo are no longer calling people to pray as wireless receivers replace them in reciting the adhan. CAIRO IN ONE BREATH unfolds as the Adhan Unification Project takes hold and as Egypt undergoes Revolution and regime change.
2016
Best of Fest
Documentary Feature
Egypt, United States
Runtime:
1 hour(s)
20 minutes
Director:
Anna Kipervaser
Special Jury Award for Truth in Storytelling
Narrative Feature
United States
Runtime:
1 hour(s)
35 minutes
Director:
Chris Brown
THE OTHER KIDS follows six teenagers as they struggle through their final days of high school in the small, gold rush town of Sonora, CA. ISAAC, a Mexican national abandoned as a child by his family, barely treads water in a culture hostile to non-whites. Poor and living on his own in an abandoned trailer, Isaac works three jobs (landscaping, dishwashing and metalworking), studies hard, and dreams of someday becoming a diplomat. Isaac's girlfriend, SIENNA, a stable-hand and natural cowgirl, is forced to cope not only with the brutal dissolution of her family, but with her parents' violent objections to her relationship with Isaac.
Special Jury Award
Narrative Short
United States
Runtime:
28 minutes
Director:
Colby Holt
When he cant afford a retirement community, a nursing home, or a caregiver, Rudy Hendricks and his husband are forced to move back to his hometown in Kentucky to care for his ailing conservative father. Along the way, he grows closer with his single mother, sister and his gay but repressed best friend who never left home.
Special Jury Award
Narrative Short
United States
Runtime:
34 minutes
Director:
Zach Bandler, Kelly Blatz
A moving performance by Anthony Heald (Silence of the Lambs, Red Dragon, Boston Public) highlights THE STAIRS, as an older man who hires a male escort for company on Christmas Eve. Faced with the realities of his own loneliness, he finds a strange kinship with the young man in this late-night exploration of solitude, intimacy and the basic human need for connection.
Special Jury Award
Narrative Short
Serbia
Runtime:
10 minutes
Director:
Luka Popadic
Two fishing buddies, Big brother and some fish stew. BAITS AND HOOKS is a black comedy inspired by the style oft he Czech New Wave about how two workers of an old factory face the transition from socialism to capitalism. A short and sweet film about friendship and cooking, but also about a generation of workers who have to deal with the changed system.
Documentary Feature
United States
Runtime:
1 hour(s)
16 minutes
Director:
Brandon Kramer
CITY OF TREES tells a deeply personal story about the struggle to implement a high-stakes, stimulus-funded green job-training program at the height of the recession. CTY OF TREES follows the point-of-view of three long-term unemployed DC residents hired by the program Charles, Michael, and James; and Steve, the director tasked with managing the multi-million dollar stimulus grant. When local racial tensions and a marginalized communitys entrenched distrust of outsiders complicate a seemingly simple goal of putting unemployed people back to work by planting trees, CITY OF TREES thrusts viewers into the inspiring but messy world of job training and the paradoxes changemakers face in urban communities everyday.
Narrative Short
United States
Runtime:
11 minutes
Director:
Anietie Antia-Obong
Six year-old Priyanath imagines himself to be a superhero taking down imaginary villains with his extraordinary powers. But when he learns of a real danger near his home, Priyanath must decide if hes actually got what it takes to be a real life superhero.
Narrative Feature
Hong Kong, SAR China
Runtime:
1 hour(s)
20 minutes
Director:
Dax Phelan
A year after his wife's murder, once-successful Hong Kong businessman Leonard To (Jason Tobin) is still reeling from the tragedy. Having lost his job, friends and all sense of order in his life, Leonard becomes obsessed with a mysterious stranger he sees at his wife's grave, believing him to be responsible for her death.
Experimental
United States
Runtime:
9 minutes
Director:
H. Paul Moon
Combining cinematic western landscapes with intimate poetry recitation, MINING THE MOTHER LODE is an agrarian dirge on wasted resources, our culture of consumption, and brokers who trade on our most precious resource: water.
Documentary Short
United States
Runtime:
17 minutes
Director:
Thomas Southerland
A 70 year-old Kentuckian loses sleep after buying a second-hand lamp.