More Virtual Titles – a/perture cinema

More Virtual Titles

Run Time: 80-120 min.

Stephanie, a restless and vibrant actress, meets Gerard, an NYPD counter-terrorism specialist who’s an aficionado of experimental theater (and maybe out of his mind). Flirtation ensues, ends disastrously, and forces Stephanie to the ramshackle upstate home of musician Eleanor Friedberger, yet this supposed escape is infected by violent memories of her past life. A miniature epic of paranoia, espionage, subterfuge, music, and performance captured on lush and invigorating 16mm, Slow Machine heralds major new talent.

Not rated, 72 minutes

To the tight-knit community of Sainte-Adeline, Quebec, Magalie appears as a normal suburban high school sophomore surrounded by friends. But this popular teenage girl is harboring a shocking secret: she’s pregnant. When Magalie refuses to identify the father, suspicions among the townsfolk come to a boiling point and the layers of a carefully maintained social varnish eventually crack.

Not rated, 103 minutes

Asia is the single mother of 17-year-old Vika. Vika’s deteriorating health urges Asia to finally find her voice as a mother and to embrace and cherish their time together. Asia never chose to be a mother, yet she deeply loves her daughter. While Asia devotes herself to caring for Vika, she still cannot quite understand what she, as a mother, can offer her daughter. Asia’s failed attempts at helping Vika, eventually bring them closer together. Asia gets to know her daughter; her fears and her longings. She learns that what Vika needs most is her unconditional love.

Not rated, 85 minutes

Suzanne is 16. She is bored with people of her age. Every day on her way to high school, she passes a theater. There, she meets an older man, and becomes obsessed with him. Despite their age difference, they find in each other an answer to their ennui and fall in love. But Suzanne is afraid she’s missing out on life – that life of a 16-year-old, which she had struggled so much to enjoy in the same way as her peers.

with the support of UniFrance

Not rated, 73 minutes

The next generation of Romanian filmmaking talent finally arrives in the U.S. with Paul Negoescu and Two Lottery Tickets. A buddy comedy produced on a shoestring budget, starring three of the most recognizable faces in Romanian movies, Two Lottery Tickets suggests Pineapple Expressby way of Abbas Kiarostami. A winsome, riotous comedy of errors, Negoescu’s second feature is an audience-friendly social satire which merges a stoner’s shaggy-dog story with the sophisticated, intensely realistic style that has made the Romania cinema one of the most popular national film movements in the world.

Not rated, 86 minutes

City of Ali is a feature-length documentary that tells the story of how the death of Muhammad Ali brought the people of his Kentucky hometown – and the world – together for one unforgettable week. Ali’s passing on June 3, 2016, came in the context of a bitter U.S. presidential election, a proposed Muslim ban and the global expansion of the Black Lives Matter movement. Yet on the day of Ali’s funeral procession, more than 100,000 people lined the streets of Louisville to celebrate his life, and an estimated one billion people worldwide watched events like Ali’s memorial, held in the packed KFC YUM! Center as stories of the Louisville Lip’s wit, generosity, swagger and commitment to justice were retold by President Bill Clinton, Billy Crystal, Lonnie Ali, and many others.

Not rated, 81 minutes

Ilmar and Aldo López-Gavilán are virtuoso Afro-Cuban musician brothers, born in Havana in the 70s. At 14, Ilmar outgrew his island teachers and was sent to the U.S.S.R. to study violin. He never lived in Cuba again, ultimately landing as a working chamber violinist in the U.S. Younger brother Aldo grew up mentored by Cuba’s impressive jazz and classical pianists, his extraordinary talent achieving renown on the island, but stymied elsewhere by the 60-year-old U.S. embargo. Though they see each other when family finances and visa restrictions allow, they’ve never had a chance to collaborate musically—something they’ve longed for all their lives. Tracking their parallel lives, poignant reunion, and momentous first performances together on stages across the U.S., LOS HERMANOS / THE BROTHERS is a nuanced, intensely moving view of nations long estranged, through the lens of music and family.

Not rated, 84 minutes

Imagine if your country began to change. Imagine if it became dangerous for some people to live in your country. Imagine if one of those people was your own father. That is the situation Anna faces in 1933 Berlin. Anna is not sure who Hitler is. She is nine years old when everything begins, too busy to take much notice of his face on posters all over the city. But when her own father goes missing one day, she comes to realize that the man on the posters is about to change the whole of Europe –starting with her ownsmall life. She is forced to uproot her entire existence and hastily flee Germany with her family, leaving even her favorite stuffed pink rabbit behind. From now on, Anna lives in exile. She does not speak the local language or know the customs. She misses her friends and loved ones. Her family is running out of money and fears xenophobia. Eventually, Anna grows up, finds new friends, and learns to take responsibility. When her family must move away once again, she is certain she can do anything.

Not rated, 119 minutes

Michael (Charlie Tahan) is a recent graduate whose post college plan is derailed when his girlfriend leaves him for a job in New York City. When the bus service hires a security guard to watch over the night shift, Michael comes face to tattooed face with Pineapple, a 300-lb punk rock Samoan who challenges him with a kick in the ass to break from the loop and start living or risk driving in circles forever. Enjoy a pre-recorded Q&A which is attached to the film – moderated by actor, comedian, musician and cast member Dave Hill joined by the film’s stars Charlie Tahan, Pineapple Tangaroa and Kara Hayward and co-directors John Carlucci and Brandon Laganke

Not rated, 100 minutes

With his first electronic single, “Go,” in 1991, Moby helped define the music of an era, and the mega-success of his 1999 album Play — and its soulful, infectious songs’ presence in clubs, films, ads, and on TV — brought him into the stratosphere of fame when it became the biggest-selling electronic album of all time. But just a few years earlier, he was living in an abandoned building, making remixes and trying to make sense of a disruptive, dark childhood. By 2008, alcohol and drug use overwhelmed him, and despite massive success he considered suicide — until a 12-Step program, music, and animal activism grounded him. A former philosophy student, he wondered: If he got everything he wanted…why wasn’t he happy?

Not rated, 92 minutes

Hanif is a Muslim casket maker and ritual body washer in Newark NJ. He mentors two kids – Furguan, a confident 12-year-old who comes from a rough home, and Naz, a 17-year-old who has been fighting through his own struggles as a young black man growing up in Newark. Hardship comes when Furguan’s home life becomes more turbulent and Naz gets caught up in a serious arrest. Hanif fears he has failed as a mentor and begins to fall into a downward spiral. During their darkest moments, they take what they’ve learned from each other to pull through. And through faith, brotherhood and redemption, they find their purpose.

Not rated, 82 minutes

The fates of an unlucky pig farmer, a feisty home-owner defending her property, a lovestruck busboy, a disenchanted rich girl, and an American expat pursuing the Chinese Dream converge and collide as thousands of dead pigs are found floating down the Huangpu River, towards a modernizing Shanghai in Cathy Yan’s (BIRDS OF PREY) debut feature.

Not rated, 130 minutes

Hanif is a Muslim casket maker and ritual body washer in Newark NJ. He mentors two kids – Furguan, a confident 12-year-old who comes from a rough home, and Naz, a 17-year-old who has been fighting through his own struggles as a young black man growing up in Newark. Hardship comes when Furguan’s home life becomes more turbulent and Naz gets caught up in a serious arrest. Hanif fears he has failed as a mentor and begins to fall into a downward spiral. During their darkest moments, they take what they’ve learned from each other to pull through. And through faith, brotherhood and redemption, they find their purpose.

Not rated, 82 minutes

An African immigrant struggles to make a new life for himself in the big city in director-co-writer Burhan Qurbani’s (We Are Young. We Are Strong.) audacious, neon-lit reinterpretation of Alfred Döblin’s 1929 novel. After surviving his perilous journey, Francis vows to be a good man, but he soon realizes how difficult it is to be righteous while undocumented in Germany – without papers, without a nationality, and without a work permit. When he receives an enticing offer for easy money from the psychopathic gangster Reinhold (Albrecht Schuch), Francis initially resists temptation, but eventually he is sucked into Berlin’s underworld and his life spirals out of control.

Not rated, 183 minutes

Director, writer and star, Rajat Kapoor, the “godfather” of Indian independent film ( Raghu Romeo, Ankhon Dekhi), has created a charming “meta-movie” about filmmaking itself in his newest, RK/RKAY. Working in the tradition of such classics as Being John Maklovich and The Purple Rose of Cairo, with a light, markedly Indian touch, the film tells the story of a film director whose main character usurps control of the plot line, and eventually, real life.RK is a filmmaker (played by Rajat Kapoor), making a new picture in which he also plays the lead character of Mahboob. With a high-maintenance actress as the female lead Gulabo (Mallika Sherawat), the film-within-a film is a retro tribute to the cinema of the 1960s. When shooting is finished, and the editing begins, RK has a sinking feeling that the film is not going to come together, that this time he has really screwed up. Sure enough, one afternoon RK gets a call from the editing room – something terrible has happened. Mahboob has “run away, run out of the film” and somehow has entered the real world.

Not rated, 95 minutes

Set in a small Icelandic farming community, The County tells the story of Inga, a middle-aged dairy farmer who rebels against the all-powerful local Cooperative. Inga tries to get other farmers to join her in rising up against the Co-op’s corruption, but encounters great resistance, forcing her to confront the community’s dependence and loyalty to this single, dominant enterprise. Inga must use her resourcefulness and cunning to break free of the Co-op’s grasp and finally live life on her own terms.

Not rated, 92 mins

Winner of awards at Tribeca and Vancouver, MY WONDERFUL WANDA is a delightful satire of the haves and the have-nots set against the backdrop of a gorgeous lakeside villa in Switzerland. At the story’s center is Wanda (Agnieszka Grochowska) a Polish caretaker who has left her own small children in Poland to look after Josef (André Jung) the stroke-ridden patriarch of the wealthy Wegmeister-Gloor dynasty. Wanda is adept in navigating the tricky family dynamics between the two grown (if still childish) offspring and the elegant if controlling matriarch Elsa (an amazing Marthe Keller), along with the sporadic intervention of animals stuffed or alive. But an unexpected turn of events turns everything upside down. While MY WONDERFUL WANDA exposes present-day realities of class injustice, thanks to writer-director Bettina Oberli’s empathetic lens, it is never less than a very human comedy.

Not rated, 111 minutes

A poetic debut feature circling the origin of the death myth from the Chinookan people in the Pacific Northwest, małni – towards the ocean, towards the shorefollows two people as they wander through their surrounding nature, the spirit world, and something much deeper inside. At its center are Sweetwater Sahme and Jordan Mercier, who take separate paths contemplating their afterlife, rebirth, and death. Probing questions about humanity’s place on earth and other worlds, Sky Hopkina’s film will have audiences thinking (and dreaming) about it long after.

Not rated, 80 minutes

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