American Documentaries
Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love
Part of our “New U.S. Indies and World Cinema” program.
Director: Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi
Country: U.S. (2008)
Language: French, English
Running Time: 102 minutes
Screening: Sunday, March 29, 2009, 5:00 p.m.
Senegalese pop sensation Youssou Ndour has spent the last 20 years in the spotlight as a world-renowned musician and the iconic representative “voice of Africa.” At the height of his career, Youssou became frustrated by the negative perception of his Muslim faith and composed Egypt, a deeply spiritual album dedicated to a more tolerant view of Islam.MORE »
Older Than America
Part of our “Native Voices” program and the Native American women filmmakers night.
Director: Georgina Lightning
Country: US (2008)
Language: English
Running Time: 102 minutes
Screening: Thursday, March 26, 9:00 p.m.
Director Georgina Lightning will be on hand for Q&A.
A woman’s haunting visions reveal a Catholic priest’s sinister plot to silence her mother from speaking about the atrocities that took place at her Native American boarding school.MORE »
Native Nations: Standing Together for Civil Rights
Part of our Opening Night “Native Voices” program.
Writer/Director: Michelle Danforth
Country: US (2008)
Language: English
Running Time: 60 minutes
Screening: Opening night, Wednesday, March 25, 9:30 p.m.
Co-producer Syd Beane will introduce the film.
Co-produced by Minnesota filmmaker and community organizer Syd Beane (Mdewakanton Dakota/Flandreau Santee Sioux), along with Frank Blythe and Michelle Danforth, Native Nations, narrated by Peter Coyote, chronicles the American Indians’ struggle for civil rights, and the creation of the National Indian Lutheran Board to raise fundMORE »
The Dhamma Brothers
Part of our “Buddhist Wisdom” program.
Director: Jenny Phillips
Country: U.S. (2008)
Language: English
Running Time: 69 minutes
Screening: Friday, March 27, 2009, 9:00 p.m.
An overcrowded maximum-security prison is the end of the line in Alabama’s correctional system. But some of the men there are changed forever by the influence of the ancient meditation discipline of Vipassana.MORE »
Daughters of Wisdom
Part of our “Buddhist Wisdom” program.
Director: Bari Pearlman
Country: U.S. (2007)
Language: English
Running Time: 68 minutes
Screening: Friday, March 28, 2009, 5:30 p.m.
Bari Pearlman’s film is an intimate portrait of the 300 nuns of the Kala Rongo Buddhist Monastery in Nangchen, in remote northeastern Tibet north of the Himalayas. Here, they receive an unprecedented education and religious training in a culture in which women’s subservient roles are traditionally confined to the domestic sphere of home and family.MORE »
American Teen
Director: NANETTE BURSTEIN
Going beyond nerd and jock high school stereotyping — so engrossing it could be fiction American Teen follows the lives of four teenagers in a small town in Indiana through their senior year of high school.
MORE » The Betrayal (Nerakhoon)
Director: ELLEN KURAS & THAVISOUK PHRASAVATH
DIRECTOR PRESENT SAT. ONLY!
Celebrated cinematographer Kuras (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Summer of Sam) makes her directorial debut with this powerful documentary, a nominee for the Grand Jury Prize at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. The Betrayal is a 20-year journey through the life of Kuras’ co-director and longtime friend Thavisouk Phrasavath.
MORE » Encounters at the End of the World
Director: WERNER HERZOG
The stark and intensive beauty of Antarctica fills the screen in this latest documentary by Werner Herzog. The powerful attraction of the South Pole has extended its magnetic pull to filmmaker Herzog.
MORE » 
Director: BLACKANDWHITE
A rare glimpse into the fascinating mind of the man who created such classic films as Eraserhead, The Elephant Man, Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart, and Mulholland Drive, Lynch playfully uses a proxy to disguise its director’s name.
Director: RON DAVIS & STEWART HALPERN
MISS GAY AMERICA CONTESTANT ROBERT MARTIN PRESENT
Pageant goes behind the scenes at one of the country’s most glamorous events: the 34th Annual Miss Gay America competition.
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