Bintou in Paris
A "fictional documentary" concerning the volatile topic of female excision, Bintou In Paris tells the story of a young Malinese mother faced with the critical decision of whether or not to excise her baby daughter.
Kirsten Johnson
Julia Pimsleur
Also Directed by Kirsten Johnson
As a visually radical memoir, CAMERAPERSON draws on the remarkable footage that filmmaker Kirsten Johnson has shot and reframes it in ways that illuminate moments and situations that have personally affected her. What emerges is an elegant meditation on the relationship between truth and the camera frame, as Johnson transforms scenes that have been presented on Festival screens as one kind of truth into another kind of story—one about personal journey, craft, and direct human connection.
With this inventive portrait, director Kirsten Johnson seeks a way to keep her 86-year-old father alive forever. Utilizing moviemaking magic and her family’s dark humor, she celebrates Dr. Dick Johnson’s last years by staging fantasies of death and beyond. Together, dad and daughter confront the great inevitability awaiting us all.
A U.S. military surveillance balloon floats on a tether high above Kabul, Afghanistan. Its capacities are both highly classified and deeply mysterious.
A documentary on Illinois Governor George Ryan, who, with 60 days left in office, makes a decision on the fate of death row prisoners.
Also Directed by Julia Pimsleur
Filmmaker Julia Pimsleur used to make up elaborate lies about her brother Marc, rather than explain that he had dropped out of college, turned his back on his Jewish heritage and moved to a Christian commune in Alaska. She and her mother initially feared that Marc had joined a cult. This documentary traces Julia's efforts to understand his conversion and to revive their relationship, despite her fundamentalist brother's disapproval of her bisexuality. Julia travels from New York City to her brother's religious community, where she and Marc search for common ground and discover the meaning of family.