First-time director Sara Nodjoumi teams with her husband and co-director Till Schauder to uncover the story of her father, seminal modern artist Nickzad “Nicky” Nodjoumi, who fled Iran after the vandalization of his 1980 exhibition criticizing the Iranian Revolution. Decades later, with Iran once again embroiled in protests,…

Courageous South Korean pastor Seungeun Kim acts as a guide for those risking their lives to flee the oppression of North Korea, a land they grew up believing was a paradise. When a family of five—including small children and an elderly grandmother—contacts Kim for help, he embarks with them on a treacherous journey into the…

Three-time Academy Award® nominee Agnieszka Holland's (THE SECRET GARDEN, EUROPA EUROPA) eye-opening new feature immerses audiences in the dangers faced by asylum seekers along European borders while reflecting the moral choices that fall to ordinary people every day. Set in the treacherous forests that make up the so-called…

Over the course of two years, Elisabeth Epps works to abolish cash bail in Colorado and put an end to the criminalization of…

With unprecedented access to Taiwan’s sitting head of state, director Vanessa Hope investigates the election and tenure of Tsai Ing-wen, the first female president of Taiwan. Thorough, incisive and bristling with tension, INVISIBLE NATION is a living account of Tsai’s tightrope walk as she balances the hopes and dreams of her…

Esteemed documentarian Hilla Medalia (TO DIE IN JERUSALEM, DANCING IN JAFFA) returns to HIFF with her newest work, which follows the fates of three Israeli and Palestinian families intertwined by a vicious cycle of violence in the city of Lod, Israel. In depicting the complex mixture of anger, grief, love and forgiveness that…

Accompanied by her best friend, pregnant Layal drives through the night to a clandestine abortion clinic in present-day…

The gender fluidity of the eponymous hero/heroine of Virginia Woolf’s ''Orlando: A Biography'' has inspired readers for almost a century. Taking Woolf’s novel as his starting point, academic virtuoso-turned-filmmaker Paul B. Preciado mixes personal essay, historical analysis, and social manifesto. In his brilliant Berlinale…

PRAYING FOR ARMAGEDDON is a chilling political docu-thriller that reveals the power and influence of U.S. fundamentalist Evangelicals as they aim to fulfill the prophecy of a Holy War that will trigger the Second Coming of Christ. Award-winning director Tonje Hessen Schei (iHUMAN, DRONE) gains unprecedented access to…

In this rousing and intimate look at the war in Ukraine, executive produced by Liev Schreiber, the conflict is seen through the eyes of Ukrainian artists who remain in their country to make art as a defiant act in the face of aggression. Using live music performance, painting, street art, and the act of filmmaking itself, David…