For the first time ever, this year’s 21st edition of the imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival set to take place entirely online, from October 20 – 25, 2020, will open with a shorts film program. Throughout the Festival four short programs will be screened, each named after one of the four colors in the medicine wheel. For the Opening Gala on Tuesday, October 20, imagineNATIVE begins in the YELLOW quadrant and will feature a gathering of international short films, standing together. The short program YELLOW is composed of works created by artists from seven different nations: Êmîcêtôsêt: Many bloodlines by Theola Ross (Cree); Between Two Lines by Jack Steele (Wiradjuri); Te Wao Nui byNgariki Ngatae (Māori); Nuxalk Radio by Banchi Hanuse (Nuxalk); Audrey’s Story by Michelle Derosier (Anishinaabe); Kapaemahu by Hinaleimoana Wong-Kalu (Kanaka Maoli); and The Fourfold by Alisi Telengut (Mongolian, Telengut). The fluidity of the works in YELLOW speaks to the artful nuance of Indigenous Cinema.
The feature music documentary Fandango at the Wall, directed by Varda Bar-Kar and Executive produced by Quincy Jones, Andrew Young, and Carlos Santana will premiere on HBO Latino, Friday, September 25. The film follows Multi-GRAMMY Award-winning musician Arturo O’Farrill and Multi-GRAMMY Award-winning producer Kabir Sehgal who journey to Veracruz, Mexico to recruit master musicians for a live album recording at the U.S.-Mexico border wall.
Golden Globe-winning actress Robin Wright narrates First Ladies, a new CNN Original Series about America’s most iconic first ladies, premiering Sunday, October 4, at 10 p.m. ET. The six-part docuseries profiles Michelle Obama, Jackie Kennedy, Nancy Reagan, Eleanor Roosevelt, Lady Bird Johnson, and Hillary Rodham Clinton.
The 56th Chicago International Film Festival will open on Wednesday, October 14th, with the world premiere of the documentary film Belushi, directed by R.J. Cutler, chronicling the celebrated career and untimely death of native son and The Second City alumnus John Belushi.
The Asian Film Awards Academy (“AFAA”) announced the nominations for the 14th Asian Film Awards (“AFA14”) lead by Bong Joon-ho’s Oscar-winning Parasite with 10 nominations, followed by So Long, My Son by Wang Xiaoshuai and A Sun by Chung Mong-hong, which have both been nominated in 7 categories.
Cinedigm in partnership with Glass House Distribution released the award-winning independent film Saviors, winner of the Jury Award at the Madrid International Film Festival and the Beverly Hills Film Festival Audience Choice Award. Saviors starring Megan Johnson, Nathaniel Stroud, and Joe Cadiff is now available on Digital and DVD.
Sony Pictures released the trailer for the award winning film Yellow Rose which opens in theaters on October 9, 2020. Yellow Rose is the timely story of a Filipina teen from a small Texas town who fights to pursue her dreams as a country music performer while having to decide between staying with her family or leaving the only home she has known.
“My Brothers’ Crossing” is a spiritually uplifting film that depicts a true story about a black pastor that unintentionally has a head on collision with his car into a motorcycle killing a white couple shortly after the Missouri riots in August 2014. The movie will play in select Regal and AMC theaters throughout the US starting Thursday September 3rd.
The international premiere of the Colombian film Forgotten We’ll Be (El olvido que seremos), directed by Fernando Trueba and starring Javier Cámara, will close, out of competition, the Official Selection at the San Sebastian Festival’s 68th edition. The film, an adaptation of Héctor Abad Faciolince’s homonymous novel, is part of the Official Selection of Cannes 2020, cancelled due to the pandemic.
Written and directed and by Kenyan filmmaker Sam Soko, Softie is the first film from Kenya to ever premiere at the Sundance Film Festival. The documentary film which won the Special Jury Award for Editing at the festival will be released in virtual cinemas nationwide starting September 18th.
Army of Lovers in the Holy Land, is Asaf Galay’s new award-winning documentary about the Jewish roots of the Swedish queer disco-pop band Army of Lovers and its charismatic singer Jean-Pierre Barda’s extraordinary journey to make aliyah – examining the notions of home, identity and family along the way.
