2023 Films and Events

Brian and Maggie, a struggling couple, decide to kidnap London MP Richard Hardy while visiting their local area. Hoping for a big payout, they're disappointed when Hardy's wife refuses to pay the ransom. Things take a surprising turn when Hardy offers to pay the ransom himself in return for keeping him there longer, knowing how good this will be for his political profile. But can they all trust each other to stick to the plan?

After a run in with the local hangman, a young outlaw finds himself bound and dangling by the ankles from an old ranch gate. He’s accused of robbing a stagecoach and making off with $1200 worth of bank bonds. And he isn’t alone. Strung up beside him are two others, accused of the same crime. The deal is simple: they tell the Hangman where to find the bonds, and he’ll set them free. But who, if anyone, is guilty? There’s Barry, down on his luck without a penny to his name. There’s this mysterious new guy who swears he “ain’t no outlaw” but whose stories aren’t adding up. And then there’s the man in the mustache; folks call him Catfish, the slipperiest eel in the West. Will he find them a way out of this? Or does he have plans of his own?

Shot over an unparalleled 10 years, BATATA follows the plight of Maria and her family of Syrian migrant workers who, after toiling for decades in Lebanon's fertile Bekaa valley, find themselves unable to return back to their hometown of Raqqa, Syria. Unique among the numerous refugee stories to date, director Noura Kevorkian's intimate camera captures an entire decade of marriages, births, and deaths, all the while documenting not just the age-old conflict between Syria and Lebanon, but, more importantly, the unbending spirit of a woman who puts family ahead of everything else.

A desperate theater owner resuscitates his struggling business with off-the-wall productions, all the while losing sight of why he chose this life at all.

Four strangers come to Eden, a clandestine company in the middle of nature, to escape the troubles that plague them once and for all: a young woman broken by guilt who cannot forget her past, an old man who wants to avoid inflicting pain on his loved ones, a charismatic woman with a personality disorder, and a desperate man who hides a dark secret. But is it so simple to escape from the deepest trials of life?

Following a miserable breakup, Jessica must now play maid-of-honor at her best friend's off-the-grid wedding in the woods, where she will be confronted by her more successful friends from college, her perfect ex-girlfriend, and every bad decision she’s made in life so far.

KNOW YOUR PLACE is a slice-of-life drama set in present-day Seattle, WA. Robel Haile, an Eritrean-American boy of 15, embarks on an errand to deliver a huge and heavy suitcase across town destined for a sick family member in his parents’ homeland. He enlists the help of his best friend, Fahmi Tadesse. An unexpected turn transmutes his simple task into an odyssey across the city of Seattle, forcing him to navigate challenging directions to make his delivery on time and weather the challenges of familial responsibility, self-identification, and dislocation amid the ongoing redevelopment and economic displacement of the only community he’s ever known as home.

For years, Patrick Dykstra has dedicated his life to traveling the globe and following and diving with whales. Over the years, Patrick has learned how whales see and hear, how they perceive other creatures in the water, and how they behave at close quarters. He has a finely tuned sense and knows how to act when within touching distance of a whale - what to do, what not to do, and when to do it. This allows him to consistently get closer to whales than anyone else alive - a truly unique skill. Patrick recently experienced a life-changing event. In Dominica, he had a close encounter with a female sperm whale. She seemed to be curious about him, coming within touching distance, pulsing him with her sonar. She studied him as he studied her. Patrick felt an overwhelming sense that she was genuinely trying to communicate. We follow Patrick as he travels to Dominica again to find this special whale he named “Dolores” so she can help him show us the hidden world of her species. Using stunning underwater footage, Patrick explores the fascinating nature of the sperm whale, attempting to shine a light on its intelligence and complexity, as well as highlighting its current and past relationship with humankind. The film follows his personal journey and explores the psychology of a man who has sacrificed everything in his single-minded quest to connect with and understand one of the biggest creatures in the ocean.

Beth (Vivian Kerr) has recently been laid off and struggles to maintain the appearance of a successful middle-class lifestyle as she bounces around Los Angeles. Hoping to land a new job and change her situation before her estranged older brother Ben (Anthony Rapp) finds out, Beth must confront her own pride in order to reconnect with him and provide for her young daughter, Birdy. Meanwhile, Ben and his wife Stacy (Lana Parrilla) consider a third round of IVF and Stacy, a successful attorney, must reevaluate her own conflicted relationship to motherhood.

“Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” -Barack Obama

“'The right hand doesn’t know what the left is doing' is a phrase that refers to times when people ought to know, but don’t know, about something that is happening very close to them. For instance, you ought to know about the man who watches you when you sleep." - Lemony Snicket

"First thing in the morning you look after yourself, you brush your teeth and wash your face, don’t you? Well, the second thing you must do is to look after the planet." - Antoine De Saint-Exupery

“If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.” – George Bernard Shaw