BaddDDD Sonia Sanchez is, in her own words, a “woman with razor blades between her teeth.” A comprehensive portrait of the poet, playwright, scholar, teacher, and social activist, this performance-rich film explodes with life and the words that love Sonia while she loves them back. An architect of the '60s Black Arts Movement, Sanchez has stood as a persistent voice for equality when, as the film reveals, many preferred to stand down. Hers is a mighty, loud, sassy, and strong Black female voice. The performances of Sanchez’ poems light up the screen. This is especially true when she performs as a paramount jazz player of her own words. Sanchez is a revelation when backed by her band, as she “plays” the words in intricate rhythmic phrases and virtuosic solos that resonate long after the film ends. With appearances by Ruby Dee, Nikki Giovanni, Amiri Baraka, Haki Madhubuti, Questlove, and more.

“I am a good boy, from a good family,” says young Agu (newcomer Abraham Attah), about the simple life he once knew with his parents, brothers, and sister. But being good is not the measure of survival when you live in a country embroiled in a brutal civil war. After militants raid his West African village, tear apart his family, and kill his father, he is forced to join a group of rebel fighters led by a ruthless warlord known only as Commandant (a fearsome Idris Elba), who takes Agu as his “charge.” Agu becomes part of his battalion of jungle-based child soldiers—armed with machine guns and grenade launchers—where fresh trauma is easily manipulated into murderous rage. Told from Agu’s pre-adolescent point of view, writer/director Cary Fukunaga’s (True Detective, Season 1, Sin Nombre) adaptation of Uzodinma Iweala's 2005 book of the same name is a powerful marker of just how easily violence breeds violence.

For students, parents, educators, and anyone who cares about the future of the American education system, Beyond Measure is a call to action that demonstrates how innovation can and does work to break the stifling status quo. Director-producer Vicki Abeles has crafted a smart companion piece to her award-winning Race to Nowhere (MVFF 2009) that challenges the current education model of cookie-cutter teaching methods and a narrow, test-driven culture that leaves little room for creativity. Following a diverse group of educators across the country who are successfully pioneering fresh and often radically new approaches in their schools, the film showcases the viewpoints of faculty, students, and renowned thought leaders in the education field. It offers a collective “yes, we can” in answer to the big question of whether individuals and communities can drive the US teaching system back to the vital business of helping kids learn how to learn.

Director Phan Dang Di follows his first film Bi, Don't Be Afraid! with another gorgeously photographed meditation on distant fathers and wayward sons. While his debut prize-winning feature viewed the chaotic adult world through the voyeuristic eyes of a boy in Hanoi, Big Father, Small Father and Other Stories unfolds through the lens of Vu, an adolescent poised on the threshold of manhood in late 1990s Saigon. Studying photography and living on his father's boat on the Mekong River, Vu clings naïvely to Thang, an effortlessly charismatic hunk who tends bar and deals drugs at a club that caters to all sexual preferences. But when some of his friends become desperately indebted to a local gangster, Vu invites them to lay low in the jungle Eden of his hometown. There he, Thang, and the others spend a season of unbridled sensuality, even as Vu faces ongoing conflicts with his father.

Master-director Ousmane Sembène first illuminated international screens in 1966 and the results have only grown more powerful and relevant with time. With Black Girl, his first feature film, Sembène exhibits all the power, beauty, and signature style of an already-formed auteur. The story centers on Diouana, a vivacious young Senegalese woman with high hopes for the future who leaves home for employment and adventure but quickly finds herself captive in a strange and sterile environment called France. Working as a domestic servant for a French bourgeois married couple, Diouana’s silent acquiescence to the day-to-day drudgery of housecleaning and childcare is sharply contrasted by her resistant inner voice—the voice of a woman and, metaphorically, an entire culture that will not submit to subordination or indignity. Deceptively simple in its beautifully spare, minimalist style but subtly nuanced and devastatingly powerful in its impact, Sembène’s film is essential viewin

Mythological themes are mined from petty human dramas when the circus travels to a volcanic archipelago two hundred miles off Brazil’s northeast coast. Exiled as a child by his mother, the Cannon Man returns home to find the years have not diminished the taboo attraction between him and his sister. Natural opposites—the brother is shot into the air in nightly performances while the sister spends her days deep-sea diving—their reunion completes a cycle of fate. Director Lírio Ferreira hails from Pernambuco, the Brazilian state currently incubating a spare, compelling regional cinema, but his inspiration seems to come from elsewhere, borrowing the make-believe aesthetics of Fellini and the soap-operatic intensity of Cacá Diegues. Conscious of its theatricality, the film employs disorienting camera angles, direct address, and stock characters (including a ghost rider and a blind seer played by Cinema Novo’s Paulo César Peréio and Ruy Guerra) to ensure the fulfillment of

As suggested by the title, corporeality is at the crux of this striking, darkly funny Polish dramedy, whether focusing on the bodies examined by widowed prosecutor Janusz or the disappearing frame of his anorexic daughter Olga. Even the disembodied have a presence, channeled by therapist Anna, who is helping Olga manage her grief over the death of her mother. When father and daughter discover Anna’s unique gift, a surprising course is set for all three to try and transform their individual suffering into something that can be shared and thus assuaged. Despite the serious elements at its heart, Body is leavened by flashes of quirky humor, from the man who gets up and walks away from the tree he was hanging from to Anna falling asleep while trying to summon a ghost. Ultimately, Malgorzata Szumowska’s delightfully unpredictable film explores how bodies reveal and betray their owners, while also giving solace and helping to heal.

Malcolm, Jarad, and Alec are talented musicians on the brink of rock-god stardom. They have an agent, a record contract, and have performed in front of thousands of screaming fans. They’re also in middle school. These boys are Unlocking the Truth, a Brooklyn metal band who gained a massive online following after posting videos of their street-corner performances. Breaking a Monster follows the band over the course of a yearlong industry roller coaster ride. These are thoughtful kids who often seem more down-to-earth than the giddy record execs. The film documents UTT’s passion and excitement and witnesses absurd versions of music business tropes (like agent Alan Sacks putting his foot down when his guitarist demands more Coke…the kind in a red-and-white can). Through everything the band’s spirit shines through. This is more than a portrait of three artists as young men; this is the future of rock.

A dramatic thriller set against the backdrop of historic events, Bridge of Spies is the story of James Donovan, a Brooklyn lawyer thrust into the center of the Cold War when the CIA sends him on the near-impossible task of negotiating the release of a captured American U-2 pilot. Screenwriters Matt Charman and three-time Academy Award®-winners Ethan Coen and Joel Coen weave this remarkable experience in Donovan’s life into a story inspired by true events that captures the essence of a man who risked everything and vividly brings his personal journey to life. Directed by three-time Academy Award-winning director Steven Spielberg, Bridge of Spies stars two-time Academy Award winner Tom Hanks as James Donovan; three-time Tony Award® winner Mark Rylance as KGB agent Rudolf Abel; Academy Award nominee Amy Ryan as James’ wife, Mary; and Academy Award nominee Alan Alda as Thomas Watters, a partner at Donovan’s law firm.

The mist-drenched Welsh valley of Bridgend exudes an ineffable force that has compelled scores of young adults to end their lives in its midst. What made them do it? That question haunts this unforgettable coming-of-age tale, based on fact but suffused with brooding subjectivity. Hannah Murray (Game of Thrones) stars as a wide-eyed teenaged outsider drawn into the insular culture of Bridgend’s mystery. While her peers carry out their private rituals, gathering in the woods and online chat rooms to pay tribute to the dead, Sara’s detective father searches for answers. Is this some kind of cult? Is the Internet to blame? Escalating in tone from romantic realism to impressionistic nightmare, acclaimed Danish documentarian Jeppe Rønde’s first fiction feature is less an investigation than an empathetic evocation of ordinary adolescent desires—for love, identity, belonging—driven to inexplicable extremes. As one boy tells the detective, with that retort of teens everywhere: “You’ll never und

Where is home? It’s the burning question at the heart of every immigrant story. For Eilis Lacey (Saoirse Ronan), the solo journey from Ireland to America is both a search for home and for self. Young, smart, and industrious, Eilis is also humble, tentative, and homesick. On her own in 1950s New York, having left her mother and sister Rose behind, she struggles with conflicting feelings of hope and loss—the intoxicating possibilities of her new world versus the familial comfort of the old. Inevitably, young men and romance factor into the equation, but Eilis’s choices are, ultimately, hers to make. With extraordinary subtlety, Ronan radiates exquisitely from scene to scene, conveying every nuance of emotion Eilis must endure. Written by Nick Hornby from Colm Tóibín’s bestselling novel, Brooklyn is a masterful work of storytelling that transcends the traditional tale of the poor immigrant making it in the big city. This is life, pure and profound.

In an effort to better her life, 22-year-old Coralie (KT Gorique) leaves Switzerland for Paris with big dreams of making it as an MC in the city’s underground hip-hop scene in this music-infused drama. Settling in the rough Parisian suburb of Saint-Denis, Coralie introduces her pseudonym “Brooklyn” and first tests her skills before an audience at a poetry slam. As her star rises, she garners the attention of scene luminary Issa (Rafal Uchiwa), whose advances fall into a gray area between romantic courtship and jealous rivalry. With a touch of Cassavetes mixed with an unmistakably French style and a rousing, spectacular soundtrack featuring real-life Parisian hip-hop artists (all of whom appear in the film as fictional versions of themselves), Brooklyn marks the arrival of two up-and-coming artists: Gorique, a successful MC making her first big-screen appearance, and writer/director Pascal Tessaud, who makes a dynamic, nuanced feature debut.