highlight films

Colony

Directors: Ross McDonnell, Carter Gunn
Producers: Morgan Bushe, Macdara Kelleher
Fastnet Films

Ireland/USA | 84 min.

The unexplainable phenomenon known as Colony Collapse Disorder has left landscapes of empty beehives all across America, threatening not only the beekeeping industry but our food supply. As scientists and beekeepers search for the cause, Colony captures the struggle within the beekeeping community to save the honeybee and themselves, through the eyes of veteran beekeeper Davis Mendes and Lance and Victor Seppi, two young brothers getting into beekeeping when most are getting out. As Mendes tries to save the nation's collapsing hives, the Seppis try to keep their business alive amidst a collapsing economy.

For More Information: visit the film’s website

Family Affair

Director/Producer: Chico Colvard
Producer: Liz Garbus
Executive Producers: Abigail E. Disney, Dan Cogan
C-LineFilms, LLC

USA | 82 min.

Like a scene torn from The Color Purple or Capturing The Friedmans, this deeply personal and uncompromising documentary examines the complex levels of pedophilia and how it can manipulate and control an entire family for life. Family Affair is also a story about resilience, survival and understanding a child's capacity to accommodate a parent's past crimes in order to satisfy a basic longing for family.

For More Information: visit the film’s website

For Once in My Life

Directors: Jim Bigham, Mark Moormann
Producer: Jim Bigham
Executive Producer: Lourdes Little
Big Blue Box Productions

USA | 91 min.

For Once in My Life is a documentary about a unique band of singers and musicians, and their journey to show the world the greatness—and killer soundtrack—within each of them. The band members have a wide range of mental and physical disabilities, as well as musical abilities that extend into ranges of pure genius. In a cinema vérité style, the film explores the struggles and triumphs, and the healing power of music, as the band members' unique talents are nurtured to challenge the world's perceptions.

For More Information: visit the film’s website

HolyWars

Director/Writer: Stephen Marshall
Producers: Lisa Kawamoto Hsu, Allison Kunzman
Producers/Executive Producers: Brian Beletic, Brian Carmody, Patrick Milling Smith
Smuggler Films

USA/UK/ Lebanon/ Pakistan | 82 min.

Touching down in four hotbeds of religious fundamentalism—Pakistan, Lebanon, UK, and heartland America—HolyWars goes behind the scenes of the 1,400-year-old conflict between Islam and Christianity. The film follows a danger-seeking Christian missionary and a radical Muslim Irish convert, both of whom believe in an apocalyptic battle, after which their religion will ultimately rule the world. Tracking their lives from the onset of the “War on Terror” to the election of Barack Obama, HolyWars shows that even the most radical of believers can be transformed by our changing world.

For More Information: visit the film’s website

Most Valuable Players

Director/Producer: Matthew D. Kallis
Writer/Producer: Christopher Lockhart
Canyonback Films, LLC

USA | 95 min.

Across the USA, high school sports are regularly lavished with funding, publicity and scholarships, while theater departments, hoping for some attention of their own, struggle to put on a school musical. It's no different in sports-crazy Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania, except for the “Freddy Awards,” a live television event that recognizes excellence in local high school musical theater. Illustrating that arts education encourages the same teamwork, camaraderie and confidence as sports, Most Valuable Players follows three theater troupes on their creative journey to the elaborate award ceremony—the “Super Bowl” of high school musical theater.

For More Information: visit the film’s website

My Perestroika

Director/Producer: Robin Hessman
Producer: Rachel Wexler
Red Square Productions

USA/UK/Russia | 88 min.

My Perestroika follows five ordinary Russians living in extraordinary times—from their sheltered Soviet childhood, to the collapse of the Soviet Union during their teenage years, to the constantly shifting political landscape of post-Soviet Russia. Using a wealth of footage rarely seen outside of Russia—including home movies from the USSR in the 1970s—the film combines an intimate view of the past with the contemporary lives of these former schoolmates, painting a complex picture of the dreams and disillusionment of those raised behind the Iron Curtain.

For More Information: visit the film’s website

Steam of Life (Miesten vuoro)

Directors: Joonas Berghäll, Mika Hotakainen
Producer: Joonas Berghäll
Oktober Oy

Finland/Sweden | 84 min.

Naked Finnish men in saunas speak straight from the heart and in the warmth of rusty stoves, cleansing themselves both physically and mentally towards the film's deeply emotional and unforgettable finale. The film travels through Finland, inviting men of all walks of life in many different saunas to share their touching stories about love, death, birth and friendship—about life. Steam of Life reveals the men's naked souls in an exceptionally intimate and poetic way.

Summer Pasture

Directors: Lynn True, Nelson Walker
True-Walker Productions

United States/Tibet/China | 86 min.

Filmed in the high grasslands of eastern Tibet, with unprecedented access to a place seldom visited by outsiders, Summer Pasture is a rare and intimate glimpse into the life of a young couple and their infant daughter during a time of great transition. Locho and Yama are nomadic herders who carve their existence from the land as their ancestors have for generations. But now, as traditional nomadic life confronts rapid modernization, Summer Pasture captures a family at a crossroads, ultimately revealing the profound sacrifice they will make to ensure their daughter's future.

For More Information: visit the film’s website

This Way of Life

Director: Tom Burstyn
Writer/Producer: Barbara Sumner Burstyn
Cloud South Films Ltd.

New Zealand | 88 min.

Set against the imposing mountains and isolated beaches in a remote part of North Island, New Zealand, This Way of Life is an intimate portrait of a Maori family—Peter and Colleen Karina and their six children, ages 2 through 11—and their relationship with each other, nature and horses. This Way of Life is a blueprint for how to live with little. It is a modern parable of one family’s unconventional and incredibly positive response to the questions that confront many families in these anxious times.

For More Information: visit the film’s website