A passionate tale of love and liberation set amidst the conservative confines of modern Georgian society, AND THEN WE DANCED follows Merab, a devoted dancer who has been training for years with his partner Mary for a spot in the National Georgian Ensemble. The arrival of another male dancer, Irakli—gifted with perfect form and equipped with a rebellious streak—throws Merab off balance, sparking both an intense rivalry and romantic desire that...

Férid Boughedir charmingly pulls off a lighthearted comedic fable about, of all things, the 2011 Arab Spring uprising in Tunisia. This year we’re treating the Friends of the Film Festival to the sweet story of Zizou, a naive and sincere optimist whose crush on a beautiful girl leads him to become the unwitting face of a revolution. With two years of university under his belt, but very little common sense, Zizou leaves his Saharan village and finds...

Actress Behnaz Jafari is distraught when she comes across a young girl's video plea for help after her family prevents her from taking up her studies at the Tehran drama conservatory. Behnaz abandons her shoot and turns to filmmaker Jafar Panahi to help with the young girl's troubles. They travel by car to the rural Northwest, where they have encounters with the charming and generous folk of the girl's mountain village. But Behnaz and Jafar also discover...

Well into their 30s, Juan Nuñez (Gael García Bernal) and Benjamín Wilson (Leonardo Ortizgris) still can’t seem to finish veterinary school or leave their parents’ homes. Instead, they wallow in comfortable limbo in the district of Satelite, Mexico City’s version of an American suburb. On a fateful Christmas Eve, however, they decide it’s finally time to distinguish themselves by executing the most infamous cultural artifacts heist in all...

Based on a thrilling true story, **Sundance** Award-winner THE NILE HILTON INCIDENT is a crime noir that plays “*like an Arabic riff on Chinatown*” (***Entertainment Weekly***). Weeks before the 2011 Egyptian Revolution, Noredin, a police officer in Cairo, investigates a pop singer’s murder at the Nile Hilton Hotel. What initially appears to be a crime of passion turns into a complicated case involving the power elite of Egypt. When Noredin...

Set in the West Bank, where Palestinian widow Salma Zidane tends her lemon grove. However, when Israeli Defense Minister Navon moves in across the way, his security guards demand she removes the trees, which could shelter terrorists. Refusing to bow down, she engages lawyer Ziad Daud to take her case to the Supreme Court, which brings international attention.

In this riveting historical drama, 10 political activists (including Nelson Mandela and his inner circle of Black and Jewish supporters) face a possible death sentence for conspiracy to commit sabotage after they are arrested by the apartheid South African government during a raid in the town of Rivonia during the summer of 1963. Bram Fischer, a sympathetic lawyer, risks his career and freedom to defend these men. Gold Award winner at the 2017 **Mill...