Archives: Events

Shorts Program 2: Unbreakable Spirits

Eaton Cinema 1201 K STREET NW, WASHINGTON, DC, United States

With thousands of miles and a war between them, two sisters are determined to stay connected to each other before it's too late.nThe Silent Witness is a documentary about Tomiko Morimoto West’s horrifying experience as a 13-year-old girl in Hiroshima when the first atomic bomb dropped. The film details how she survived, what she witnessed, and how she was affected.nBubjan tells the story of Parwiz Zafari, a former member of the Iranian parliament who worked toward making Iran a progressive, modern, and free society - until the Islamic Republic swept it all away in 1979, and he was forced to leave behind everything he knew.nSummer 2021, as Kabul falls to the Taliban, members of the Under-18 Afghan National Women’s Football Team attempt a daring evacuation from their homeland.

20 Days in Mariupol

Eaton Cinema 1201 K STREET NW, WASHINGTON, DC, United States

An AP team of Ukrainian journalists trapped in the besieged city of Mariupol struggle to continue their work documenting atrocities of the Russian invasion. As the only international reporters who remain in the city, they capture what later become defining images of the war.

DC/FRAME: Lost & Found

Eaton Cinema 1201 K STREET NW, WASHINGTON, DC, United States

American citizen Emad Shargi is taken hostage while visiting Iran, his country of birth, as a pawn in ongoing nuclear negotiations. His wife Bahareh and daughters are forced into unlikely roles to bring him home.nSolitude and community; aging and migration; local and world history in a single historic apartment building in Mt. Pleasant, Washington DC.nIn 1838, Jesuit priests sold 272 enslaved people in order to keep Georgetown University afloat. Six generations later, with the aid of digital DNA databases, their descendants are finding each other and regrowing their family trees.

The Disappearance Of Shere Hite

Eaton Cinema 1201 K STREET NW, WASHINGTON, DC, United States

Shere Hite’s 1976 bestseller The Hite Report liberated the female orgasm by revealing the most private experiences of thousands of anonymous survey respondents. Her findings rocked the American establishment and presaged current conversations about gender, sexuality, and bodily autonomy. So how did Shere Hite disappear?

Shorts Program 3: Out/Spoken

Eaton Cinema 1201 K STREET NW, WASHINGTON, DC, United States

The Script explores the complicated relationship between trans and nonbinary communities and medical providers regarding gender-affirming care. The film invites its participants and audience to envision a liberated, gender-expansive future, beyond the rigidity of our current moment.nThis punk rock fairytale doubles as a portrait of Shoog McDaniel — a fat, queer, and disabled photographer whose work has transformed the way fat people view themselves and how a fat phobic society views fat bodies.nAs a young Chinese filmmaker returns to his hometown in search for himself, a long overdue conversation with his mother propels the two of them into a quest for acceptance and love.nMnM is an exuberant portrait of two emerging runway divas in the drag ballroom community, celebrating their joy, siblinghood, and unapologetic personas.

Shorts Program 4: View Askew

Eaton Cinema 1201 K STREET NW, WASHINGTON, DC, United States

In a hotel room, a woman in her 60s shares a surprising and provocative story of longing and unlikely connection.nAn artist and VFX instructor connects with her grandmother, Margie, in a documentary short on collecting, art-making, and obsessiveness as a way to enhance our realities.nA lyrical portrait of a long ferry ride where overheard conversations, pensive glances, and fragments of lives in transit come into view, as passengers cross from one riverbank to the other.nProlific background actor Jill Goldston takes center stage in this unique portrait.nLeaves, mycelium, and roots playfully examine how humans experience the world, and the (supposedly) silent watchers consider what language those swift blurs of human might possibly understand.nOn a remote island off the coast of Iceland, teenagers Birta and Selma take it upon themselves to counteract humanity's damaging impact on nature; exchanging night-time parties for nocturnal puffin rescues, in a coming-of-age story for young adults and puffins alike.

DC/FRAME: Rhythms of Resilience

Eaton Cinema 1201 K STREET NW, WASHINGTON, DC, United States

Pepe Gonzalez (aka Spanish Joe), takes a walk through the neighborhood that raised him, and introduces the people that drove him to become one of DC’s most legendary bass players.nFierceness Served! The ENIKAlley Coffeehouse is a short documentary (34 minutes) on the history of a DC Black LGBTQ creative space active from the 1980s to the mid-1990s. The Coffeehouse was the epicenter of a cultural renaissance in literature, music, photography, film, visual arts and performance galvanized by local Black Queer artists, which has influenced LGBTQ artists of color internationally and intergenerationally.nThe Black Fire documentary recounts the story of the label’s founders and the musicians, producers and radio personalities they influenced. The film depicts iconic images of the 1970s and shows how the music and activism of that era shaped the terrain of independent music business and paved the way for innovative jazz and Afro-future creatives.

Richland

Eaton Cinema 1201 K STREET NW, WASHINGTON, DC, United States

A US nuclear company town stakes its identity on its little-known atomic origin story in this timely examination of the habits of thought that normalize the extraordinary violence of the past.

Our Body

Eaton Cinema 1201 K STREET NW, WASHINGTON, DC, United States

Veteran documentarian Claire Simon observes the everyday operations of the gynecological ward in a public hospital in Paris and in the process, questions what it means to live in a […]

Shorts Program 5: Beyond Bars

Eaton Cinema 1201 K STREET NW, WASHINGTON, DC, United States

Over the course of two years, How We Get Free follows Elisabeth Epps as she works to abolish cash bail in Colorado, first as an activist and then as a political candidate.nSet amidst the COVID-19 pandemic within the confines of San Quentin State Prison, What These Walls Won't Hold chronicles the people who came together beyond the barriers of incarceration, to organize and respond to the prison crisis.

DC/FRAME: I Did It My Way

Eaton Cinema 1201 K STREET NW, WASHINGTON, DC, United States

Allen Woods, otherwise known as the One Wheel Bandit, rides his bike around town, impressing every passerby with his one-wheeled magic.nCrowned Queen of the Underworld, a Black female gangster runs the most lucrative gambling ring in DC in the 1950s, and manages to keep the DC police in her back pocket.nA Chocolate Lens chronicles Steven Cummings’s photographic journey through a disappearing Black Washington.nOne of the only Black drivers in NASCAR forges an unlikely path from virtual racing to the sport's penultimate series.