Home of the Brave
Director: Paola di Florio
Producers: Paola di Florio and Nancy Dickerson
35 mm 75 min. USA

Home of the Brave is the story of the only white woman murdered in the civil rights movement--and why we don't know who she is. It's told through the eyes of her children, who revisit the mystery of their mother's death, which effectively tore their family apart. Their harrowing tale reveals FBI subterfuge, a corrupt justice system and generations destroyed by a smear campaign that erased this heroic woman from history.

PROGRAM B

In The Realms of the Unreal
Director: Jessica Yu
Producer: Susan West
35mm 81 min. USA

A feature documentary exploring into the parallel lives of Henry Darger, reclusive janitor by day, visionary artist by night, whose 15,000-page novel details the exploits of the Vivian Girls, seven angelic sisters who lead a rebellion against godless, child-enslaving men. The film uses animation and other innovative techniques to bring this mysterious story to life.

PROGRAM C

Let the Church Say Amen
Director: David Petersen
Producers: David Petersen, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Mridu Chandra
35 mm 87 min. USA

Fifty years after the Brown v. Board of Education decision to improve the lives of people of color in American society, the rewards have yet to reach many residents of Washington, DC, where that very court decision was made. Blocks away from the Capitol and White House stands a tiny storefront church that serves as the backbone of strength for an urban community working hard to create a better life in the nation's capital. This powerfully intimate and moving portrait reveals a side of inner city life rarely shown in America media--one of hope, dignity and self-determination.

PROGRAM D

Born into Brothels
Directors: Ross Kauffman, Zana Briski
Producers: Ross Kauffman, Zana Briski
35mm 83 min. India/USA
Distributed by THINKFilm in association with HBO/Cinemax Documentary Film

In Calcutta's red light district appear a group of unforgettable children. Feisty, resilient and wickedly funny--they are the children of prostitutes. Trying to evade a doomed future, they embark on a transformational journey with New York-based photographer Zana Briski, who teaches them photography. This humorous and heartfelt story portrays the power of art and the courage of those willing to change their own lives.

PROGRAM E

Repatriation
Director: Kim Dong-won
Producer: Kim Dong-won
35mm 149 min. South Korea/North Korea

In the spring of 1992, filmmaker Kim Dong-won became acquainted with two long-term "unconverted" political prisoners. Sent to South Korea as spies, they were arrested and spent 30 years in prison, serving out their sentences without renouncing their Communist beliefs. Drawn to their stories and their personalities, Dong-won filmed them for more than a decade. By the end of the 1990s, relations between North and South Korea had significantly improved, and even the most hardened unconverted cases were released. How did these men survive the dehumanizing conversion process of systematic torture for more than 40 years? What awaited them in the outside world? What was their final destiny?

PROGRAM F

Z Channel--A Magnificent Obsession
Director: Xan Cassavetes
Producers: Rick Ross, Marshall Persinger
35mm 120 min USA
An IFC Original

The unprecedented account of the rise and fall of Z Channel, LA's first legendary pay-cable station (1974-1989) and its visionary but controversial Programmer Jerry Harvey whose revolutionary programming included an eclectic blend of Hollywood films, international, classic and independent films from all over the world. Interviewees such as Robert Altman, Quentin Tarantino, James Woods, Jacqueline Bisset, Paul Verhoeven and many others tell of the enormous influence that Z had on their work. Although Harvey,s life ended in a tragic murder/suicide, we discover why Z,s legacy lives on today.

PROGRAM G

This Ain't No Heartland
Director: Andreas Horvath
Producer: Andreas Horvath
35mm 105 min. USA

This Ain't No Heartland is a portrayal of the American Midwest during the Iraq War. In April 2003, Austrian photographer and filmmaker Andreas Horvath went straight to the "heart" of superpower America to look beneath the notoriously friendly surface. What he unearthed is scary, hilarious and sometimes shocking.

PROGRAM H

The Conscientious Objector
Director: Terry Benedict
Producer: Terry Benedict
Exec. Prod.: Gabe Videla
35mm 101 min. USA/Japan

The true story of Pfc. Desmond T. Doss, a conscientious objector and US Army medic in World War II, who overcame incredible odds to save the lives of 75 of his fellow soldiers high on the 400-foot Maeda Escarpment during the battle for Okinawa. For his heroism he was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.

The Ritchie Boys
Director: Christian Bauer
Producers: Dagmar Biller, Donna Zuckerbrot
35mm 93 min. Germany/USA

The Ritchie Boys is the untold story of a group of young men who fled Nazi Germany and returned to Europe as soldiers in US uniforms. They knew the psychology and the language of the enemy better than anyone else. In Camp Ritchie, Maryland, they were trained in intelligence and psychological warfare. Not always courageous, but determined, bright and inventive, they fought their own kind of war. They saved lives. They were victors, not victims.

PROGRAM J

Hotel City
Director: Phoebe Tooke
Producer: Phoebe Tooke
16mm 16 min. USA

Hotel City is a short social and poetic documentary about the struggles of tenants living in SRO (Single Residence Occupancy) hotels and how they are empowering themselves to make changes. SROs have become the housing of last resort, the first step out of homelessness and the last step to homelessness.

Collateral Damages
Director: Etienne Sauret
Producer: Etienne Sauret
16mm 60 min. USA

Collateral Damages is a feature-length documentary in which filmmaker Etienne Sauret exposes the emotional and psychological impact of September 11, 2001, on New York City firefighters in the year following the attack. The film takes an intimate look at how they suffer still from the horrors witnessed that day. The memories of 9/11 engulf the lives of these men, causing them to experience overwhelming pressure from having survived the attack, but being forced to live with the constant reminder of the lives they could not save. As these firefighters face the impossibility of forgetting what they have been through, their testimonies express the mental anguish of an aftermath with no end.

PROGRAM K

Chavez Ravine: A Los Angeles Story
Director: Jordan Mechner
Producers: Jordan Mechner, Don Normark, Andrew B. Andersen, Mark Moran
35mm 23 min. USA

Narrated by Cheech Marin and scored by Ry Cooder and Lalo Guerrero, Chavez Ravine: A Los Angeles Story tells the bittersweet story of how an American community was betrayed by greed, political hypocrisy and good intentions gone astray. In 1952, the city of Los Angeles razed the Mexican-American neighborhoods of Chavez Ravine to build Dodger Stadium. Fifty years later, Don Normark's haunting black-and-white photographs reclaim and celebrate a lost village from a simpler time.

Hardwood
Director: Hubert Davis
Producers: Erin Faith Young, Peter Starr
35mm 29 min. USA/Canada

Hardwood is a personal journey by director Hubert Davis, the son of former Harlem Globetrotter Mel Davis, who explores how his father's decisions affected his life.
Elegantly structured into three chapters entitled "love," "recollection" and "redemption," Davis uses personal interviews, archival footage and home movies to delve into his father's past in the hope of finding a new direction for his own.

With No Direction Home
Directors: Roger Weisberg, Maria Finitzo
Producers: Roger Weisberg, Maria Finitzo
35mm 24 min. USA

With No Direction Home is an intimate portrait of Thomas Hudson, who was physically and sexually abused as a child and spent the past decade in foster care, shuttling between group homes, shelters and mental institutions. Once he turns 21 and his foster-care case is officially closed, Thomas packs a suitcase and runs away from Chicago and his troubled past. After a brief stint of homelessness in Florida, Thomas returns to Chicago with a renewed determination to make it on his own.

PROGRAM L

Philosopher's Paradise
Director: Pawel Kuczynski
Producers: Pawel Kuczynski, Rafal Wieczynski
35mm 52 min. Poland/Canada/USA

A Warsaw University philosopher tries to save mankind through his world unity theory of "Universalism," while his filmmaker son tries to understand how his agnostic father can leave God out of the equation. Can the struggle between the mystical and the rational unite father and son?

White Cane and Wheels
Director: Paul Apelgren
Producers: Betsy Comstock, Kari Stringham
35mm 26 min. USA

White Cane and Wheels is a nonfiction performance piece chronicling the day-to-day struggle of a husband and wife, their disabilities, their humor and their choreographed lives.

PROGRAM M

The Future of Food
Director: Deborah Koons Garcia
Producer: Deborah Koons, Catherine Lynn Butler
35mm 91 min. USA/Mexico/Canada

There's a revolution going on in the farm fields and on the dinner tables of America—a revolution that's being fought behind the closed doors of corporate boardrooms, courtrooms and government agencies over the use of genetically modified organisms in our food. The Future of Food offers an in-depth investigation into the disturbing truth behind the unlabeled Genetically Modified Organism (GMO) products that have quietly filled grocery store shelves over the past decade.