Ex Libris – The New York Public Library

Beautiful and troubled 20-something Donya, an Afghan translator who used to work with the U.S. government, has trouble sleeping. She lives by herself in Fremont, California, in a building with other Afghan immigrants and often dines alone at a local restaurant watching soap operas. Her routine changes when she’s promoted to writing the fortunes at her job at a fortune cookie factory in the city. As her fortunes are read by strangers throughout the Bay, Donya’s smoldering longing drives her to send a message out to the world, unsure where it will lead. Shot in black and white, and with warmth and a wry sense of humor, director Babak Jalali has crafted a loving portrait of a young woman haunted by the past but still filled with desire for companionship and connection. Featuring a cast of unforgettable, unique characters, and anchored by a beguiling debut performance from real-life Afghan refugee Anaita Wali Zada, Fremont is an ode to the curious beauty of trying to build a new life in a strange land.

Seventeen-year-old Ree is desperately searching for her father, who disappeared after pawning the family home to pay his bail. If the man doesn’t show up at his trial, the girl, her sick mother and her younger brothers are going to be forced to leave their home and have nowhere else to go. The girl is hampered by a wall of lies, codes of silence, subterfuges and threats by their neighbors and finally puts her life at stake in order to save her family. Despite the difficulties, the mystery slowly begins to dissolve.

Set at the Newport jazz festival in 1958, this documentary mixes images of water and the town with performers and audience. The film progresses from day to night and from improvisational music to Gospel. It's a concert film that suggests peace and leisure, jazz at a particular time and place.

Raised by two ardent white supremacists, Bryon bears hatred deep in his heart – and visibly on his skin: even this young skinhead’s face is covered in tattoos, many of which feature right-wing slogans and symbols. But then he meets and falls in love with mother-of-three Julie who has just turned her back on the right-wing scene. Deciding that he too wants to get out, he seeks help from human rights activist Daryle. But Bryon’s racist ‘family’ will not let him go. In Skin, Israeli director Guy Nattiv brings together an outstanding cast to tell, in oppressively authentic images, the true story of Bryon Widner who broke out of the scene and whose change of heart found a physical expression: in an extremely painful procedure, Widner spent months having most of his tattoos removed.

Werner Herzog gains exclusive access to film inside the Chauvet caves of Southern France and captures the oldest known pictorial creations of humanity

Frances (Greta Gerwig) lives in New York, but she doesn’t really have an apartment. Frances is an apprentice for a dance company, but she¹s not really a dancer. Frances has a best friend named Sophie, but they aren’t really speaking anymore. Frances throws herself headlong into her dreams, even as their possible reality dwindles. Frances wants so much more than she has but lives her life with unaccountable joy and lightness. FRANCES HA is a modern comic fable that explores New York, friendship, class, ambition, failure, and redemption.

The story about three radical environmentalists coming together to execute the most intense protest of their lives: the explosion of a hydroelectric dam.

Hushpuppy, an intrepid six-year-old girl, lives with her father, Wink in 'the Bathtub', a southern Delta community at the edge of the world. Wink’s tough love prepares her for the unraveling of the universe—for a time when he’s no longer there to protect her. When Wink contracts a mysterious illness, nature flies out of whack—temperatures rise, and the ice caps melt, unleashing an army of prehistoric creatures called aurochs. With the waters rising, the aurochs coming, and Wink’s health fading, Hushpuppy goes in search of her lost mother.

The only thing more outrageous than the great artist Robert Mapplethorpe's photographs was his life. Born in a suburb of New York, he began to take highly aesthetic images of sexually excited men in his mid twenties. It is the era of Andy Warhol’s Factory and a new dawn of hedonistic sexuality. In MAPPLETHORPE: LOOK AT THE PICTURES, the well-known homosexual tells without shame about the passions that influenced his art. Intimate recollections by those who knew him cast additional, sometimes critical, light on the biography of an artist whose provocative subject matter begged the question as to where art ends and pornography begins. Filmmakers Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato receive unprecedented access to previously unpublished archive material and shine a new light on a key figure of 20th century photography.

Stevie is a sweet 13-year-old about to explode. His mom is loving and attentive, but a little too forthcoming about her romantic life. His big brother is a taciturn and violent bully. So Stevie searches his working-class Los Angeles suburb for somewhere to belong. He finds it at the Motor Avenue skate shop.