Top New Films

Bronx Princess follows headstrong Rocky's journey as she leaves behind her mother in New York to reunite with her royal father in Ghana, West Africa. Brook and Syeed highlight Rocky's confrontations with her immigrant parents and their ideas of adulthood and faith and Rocky's efforts to reconcile her African heritage and way of life with her dream of independence.

For centuries, the women of rural Tibet have been relegated to subservient roles. Regarded as capable of little more than churning butter, bearing children and saying prayers, they have lived servile lives without access to education or the time to practice Buddhism to the same degree as men. In Daughters of Wisdom, the filmmaker creates a vivid, intimate portrait of the lives of these women, and witnesses their culture, a culture on the verge of positive social change realized through education and religious cultivation.

A personal and global search by award-winning Israeli director Yoav Shamir for a better understanding of anti-Semitism is the focus of Defamation. Shamir seeks reactions from the man in the street to opinons about anti-Semitism posed by experts. And the filmmaker seeks answers to basic questions as well: "When we are talking about anti-Semitism, what do we mean? What is anti-Semitism in a daily sense? Does it take different forms in different places? How serious is it? Is there a 'new anti-Semitism?' Is being an Israeli detachable from being a Jew?"

The "Grandmothers" come from around the world - Africa, Asia, the Arctic Circle, and North, South and Central America. They are shamans, medicine women, prayer people, and the respected elders of their tribes. Together they share years of sacred wisdom handed down to them over generations going back thousands of years. The Grandmothers gathered together for the first time in October 2004 to form the Global Women's Gathering, a group with a mission to explore renewable resources, education for all children, preservation of cultures and species, integration of traditional and Western medicine, and environmental protection.

Four Seasons Lodge is a counterintuitive and spiritually uplifting film about 100 Polish, Russian and Hungarian Jews who survived the Holocaust and, in 1979, bought 44 acres of land in the Catskills. They created a refuge, a bungalow colony with communal buildings called Four Seasons Lodge. They cooked, swam, raised children, prayed together and safely swapped stories about the war years. Their inspirational dedication to living righteous and full lives was, as they saw it, the best revenge. As one member put it: "To live this long, to live this well, is a victory."

Leap of Faith follows the lives of six individuals of different backgrounds who are pursuing parallel paths in their search for personal meaning. The feature-length documentary is the first cinema verité look at the journey of conversion from gentile to Orthodox Jew. In Leap of Faith, individuals forsake the religion of their parents, abandon childhood traditions and enter into a wholly new and radically different system of belief and practice of worship.

Puerto Rican American rapper Hamza Perez ended his life as a drug dealer 12 years ago, and started down a new path as a young Muslim. Now he's moved to Pittsburgh's tough North Side to start a new religious community, rebuild his shattered family, and take his message of faith to other young people through his uncompromising music as part of hip-hop group. But when the FBI raids his mosque, Hamza must confront the realities of the post-9/11 world, and challenge himself.

Outside the Box explores the universal theme of dual identity, and the story is rooted in Lacey Schwartz's Jewish family experience. The narrative follows her upbringing in a white, Jewish family and her discovery, at the age of 18, that her biological father is African-American. Lacey is a Harvard-educated lawyer who continued to believe throughout her childhood that her "Jewishness" accounted for her "otherness," until she attended college at Georgetown and decided to ask for the truth from her family.

Two Americans, a Hindu and a Muslim, sneak into the war zone of Kashmir to uncover the truth of what is happening in what is considered to be one of the most dangerous places on earth. Project Kashmir follows these two friends as they begin to grapple with their personal identities both in religious and political terms.

Imran, a young American Muslim, struggles to take over his father's neighborhood slaughterhouse in New York City. The son of an immigrant, Imran must confront his mixed heritage and gain acceptance from his father's conservative community. On one of Islam's holiest days, Imran must lead a sacrifice that will define him as a Muslim, as an American and as a son.

Taking Root pays homage to Wangari Maathai, winner of the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize. Maathai is a spiritual leader and passionate advocate for women's rights, democracy and the environment in Kenya. Imprisoned and beaten repeatedly for her courageous stands on these issues, Wangari Maathai has brought hope and economic gain to thousands of Kenyans. Emmy-award winner Alan Dater and his wife, artist and educator Lisa Merton, will bring to light formative events in Wangari's life in Kenya and trace the turbulent history of the Green Belt Movement founded by Maathai, which became the vehicle for Kenya's women's rights and the pro-democracy movement.