For half a decade, Basel Adra, a Palestinian activist, filmed his community of Masafer Yatta being destroyed by Israel’s occupation. He built an unlikely alliance with an Israeli journalist that wanted to join his fight. The result is the Academy Award winning documentary No Other Land.
Director’s Statement: We’re making this film together, a Palestinian-Israeli group of activists and filmmakers, because we want to stop the ongoing expulsion of the community of Masafer Yatta, and resist the reality of Apartheid we were born into–from opposite, unequal sides. Reality around us is becoming scarier, more violent, more oppressive, every day–and we are very weak in front of it. We can only shout out something radically different, this film–which at its core, is a proposal for an alternate way Israelis and Palestinians can live in this land–not as oppressor and oppressed, but in full equality.
Read More
Johan Grimonprez’s Soundtrack to a Coup d’État is a gripping documentary that examines the intersection of music, politics, and Cold War-era power struggles in Africa.
The film explores the 1961 assassination of Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba, revealing how Western governments —particularly the U.S. and Belgium — manipulated political events to maintain control over Africa’s resources. Against this backdrop of covert operations and geopolitical maneuvering, the documentary highlights the role of jazz musicians, such as Louis Armstrong, who were sent as cultural ambassadors, often unknowingly aiding in political cover-ups.
Read More
Relive the zany antics of Andy Kaufman with Thank You Very Much, Alex Braverman’s new documentary about the madcap comedian!
In his short, enigmatic life, Andy Kaufman entertained and transfixed audiences while simultaneously driving them away. His work dissolved the boundaries separating reality from fiction, and his commitment to performance, both on stage and off, rendered any distinctions between his characters and his real life useless. Was he a comic, an affable sit-com star, a washed-up lounge singer, a bus boy, a professional wrestler, a hoaxer, a provocateur or a pest? Nearly 40 years after his supposed death, one question still puzzles fans and haters alike: “was that for real?”
Read More
Chantal Akerman Month continues with 1976’s News from Home, a meditative exploration of isolation, distance, and the immigrant experience.
The film juxtaposes static and slow-moving shots of 1970s New York City — its streets, subways, and anonymous crowds — with Akerman’s voiceover reading letters from her mother in Belgium. These letters, filled with mundane updates and expressions of maternal concern, contrast with the urban alienation and quiet detachment of the visuals, creating a poignant reflection on homesickness and the unspoken tensions of familial bonds.
Read More
Join us for a very special screening of the new documentary Time Passages with an in-person Q&A with director Kyle Henry after the screening!
A pandemic rages across the globe. In the final months of his mother Elaine’s late-stage dementia, gay filmmaker Kyle Henry uses his extensive family archive to travel back in time, exploring the complicated bonds of identity, history, and belonging in his large Texas family. Charting Elaine’s promising early life through her years of motherhood and self-sacrifice, finally tracing their relationship to its inevitable end.
Time Passages explores Kyle’s conflicting feelings of love, grief, guilt, and helplessness. Beneath the Kodachrome smiles and grainy Super-8 home movies lie the difficult truths that so many families hide. With their unearthing, Time Passages becomes a memento mori: a testament to love, legacy and the things that carry us through life’s most challenging times.
Read More
Experience a one night only screening of the iconic 1980s docu-drama Rude Boy in a brand new 4K restoration!
In Rude Boy, Jack Hazan and David Mingay (A Bigger Splash) once again merge documentary and fiction in their tale of Ray Gange, a roughneck roadie for the most fiery, revolutionary rock ‘n’ roll band of their era–The Clash.
Proving a difficult, sometimes reactionary subject and a foil to the band’s idealism, Gange plays observer to The Clash’s legendary 1978 Rock Against Racism concert in London’s Victoria Park and their studio recording of Give ’Em Enough Rope. Set against a background of riots, racist and anti-racist demos, and police hostility towards black British youth, this unforgettable, absorbing film portraits a UK on the brink of Thatcherism, and a moment when subcultural shock troops met those of a rising right wing in the streets.
Read More
Revisit the rivalry between two legendary 90s bands in DIG! XX, a new edition of Ondi Timoner’s acclaimed 2004 documentary!
The film chronicles the tumultuous relationship between two bands, The Dandy Warhols and The Brian Jonestown Massacre. This enhanced version delves deeper into their intertwined journeys, highlighting the collision of art and commerce through their star-crossed friendship and intense rivalry.
Read More
Join The Orange County Center For Contemporary Art as they team up with The Frida Cinema to bring you a very special screening of the 2012 documentary Beauty Is Embarrassing followed by a discussion with Wayne White and Neil Berkeley!
Raised in the Tennessee mountains, Wayne White started his career as a cartoonist in NYC. He quickly found success as one of the creators of the Pee-wee’s Playhouse TV show which soon led to more work designing some of the most arresting and iconic images in pop culture. Recently his word paintings featuring pithy and and often sarcastic text statements finely crafted onto vintage landscape paintings have made him a darling of the fine art world. The movie chronicles the vaulted highs and crushing lows of an artist struggling to find peace and balance between his professional work and his personal art. This is especially complicated for a man who struggles with the virtues he most often mocks in his art…vanity, ego and fame.
White’s multi-disciplinary career spans decades of influence in art, television, and pop culture.
Read More
The Artist and The Astronaut is the story of two people on seemingly divergent life paths who were affected and profoundly changed by the sociopolitical events and trends of the 1960s and 1970s. Highlighted by the simultaneous struggle for peace and equal rights with the greatest human challenge of all time – to reach for the stars – this film offers a surprising, inspiring and deeply touching narrative of true Americana seen through the life intersections of Apollo/Skylab astronaut Gerald P. “Jerry” Carr and renowned artist Pat Musick.
Read More
Join us for a screening of award-winning feature documentary film The Strike, which tells the story of a generation of California men who endured decades of solitary confinement in California’s notorious supermax Pelican Bay State Prison. Against all odds, they launched the largest hunger strike in U.S. history and forced the prison to reduce its use of mass-scale solitary confinement.
Following the film, there will be a panel with Directors Lucas Guilkey and JoeBill Muñoz; solitary survivors who were part of the hunger strike in Pelican Bay, Jack L. Morris and Michael Saavedra; and attorney Jules Lobel, lead counsel on Ashker v. Governor of California, a federal class action lawsuit challenging the practice of solitary confinement at Pelican Bay.
Read More
