In person: director Havana Marking

Afghanistan’s not just war-torn. It’s pop-crazed, too. After 30 years of war and Taliban repression, an American Idol-like competition is now consuming the country. Through the lens of the popular show Afghan Star, director Havana Marking offers a fascinating glimpse into a wildly diverse, remarkably young country (60 percent are under 21) coming to terms with music (outlawed under Taliban rule), freedom, (somewhat) independent media and gender equality. The stakes are high: The text-messaging voting system seems an incipient form of democracy. Only three female competitors dare enter the contest, and one, after breaking a taboo against dancing, receives death threats. With drama like that, it’s no wonder the final show is watched by a third of the country. Entertaining, colorful and at times edge-of-seat tense, this unconventional pop adventure is an unforgettable introduction to a culture in major transition. (IK)

Screenings: Thursday, Feb. 26 / 9:00PM / Windsor; Saturday, Feb. 28 / 1:00PM / Blue Note

In person: director Dan Stone

Their opponents call them pirates, but Paul Watson and his Sea Shepherd Conservation Society don’t mind. Using whatever nonviolent means they can dream up, these eco-pirates harass and confront those who are ravaging our seas, particularly the enormous Japanese ships that excuse their slaughter of endangered whales by calling it “scientific research.” Dan Stone’s compelling, provocative debut feature tracks the Sea Shepherd activists in the midst of their nail-biting 2006-2007 campaign on the Antarctic sea. With a crack team of cinematographers, Stone puts us right there, feeling the splash of the waves, the high stakes and the significant danger. We also meet the crew and learn what makes the 46 volunteer, inexperienced crusaders tick, and revel in Watson’s low-tech variations on James Bond gadgets, including the “can opener” — a sharp metal protrusion designed to puncture hulls. (PS)

Screenings: Thursday, Feb. 26 / 7:00PM / Macklanburg; Saturday, Feb. 28 / 8:00PM / Forrest

In person: director John Maringouin and co-director Molly Lynch

If Martin Strel is the most famous man in Slovenia, why hasn’t the rest of the world heard of him? Maybe because this overweight, wine-swilling endurance swimmer is hardly anybody’s idea of a world-class athlete. Yet, there’s no denying Strel’s accomplishments. A four-time world-record holder in endurance swimming, Strel has swum literally thousands of miles on rivers around the world, from the Mississippi to the Yangtze. But then there’s the Amazon — not only the longest river in the world, but also the most dangerous. And what starts out as a simple “sport” documentary quickly transforms into a psychedelic epic that is part Holy Mountain, part Fitzcarraldo and healthy dose of Apocalypse Now. Maringouin (Running Stumbled) is one of the most visionary directors working today, and he doggedly follows Strel down the muddy rabbit hole and returns with this off-the-rails epic. (DW)

Screenings: Saturday, Feb. 28 / 6:00PM / Blue Note; Sunday, Mar. 1 / 4:00PM / Windsor

In person: director Richard Parry, producer Vaughan Smith and subject Robert King

The famed war photographer Robert King believes he was put on this earth as a messenger of human suffering. He serves as a wry, insightful guide to world’s bleakest, bloodiest war zones, from Bosnia to Chechnya to Iraq. Richard Parry’s brutally intimate film follows King’s transition from naïve, 24-year-old aspiring war photographer — who dreamed of being the youngest photojournalist to win the Pulitzer Prize — to self-described “damaged goods,” a scarred war veteran trying not to lose himself in booze and women and who can’t begin to count the number of dead bodies he’s stepped over. His stories are harrowing, his photos bleakly gorgeous, but it is King’s eyes that reveal the deeper truths about war, violence and suffering. After all he’s seen, King is a survivor, his energy and humor intact. And that itself is an indelible image. (BH)

Screenings: Thursday, Feb. 26 / 9:30PM / Macklanburg; Saturday, Feb. 28 / 10:30AM / Blue Note

In person: co-directors Musa Syeed & Yoni Brook

Imagine the end of high school and the feeling of going forth in the world. Imagine being the first in your family to attend college. Now imagine your mother is an immigrant beauty-shop owner and your father is the chief of a village in Ghana. Bronx Princess follows Rocky, a seventeen-year-old New Yorker, as she faces these issues and more. Syeed & Brook, who last appeared at T/F with A Son’s Sacrifice, tell Rocky’s story with an energetic pace and impressive visual style. Plays with Lies (13 min.), three perfectly true stories about lying by Jonas Odell, who asks, “After all, aren’t filmmakers the biggest, most glorified liars of them all?” We meet a clever burglar, a sneaky child, and a serial liar in this brilliant animated documentary that won best Sundance short. And Tommy (dir. Tora Martens, 18 min.), which colorfully introduces us to the joyful yet lonely life of a gay guesthouse owner in Havana. (DF)

Screenings: Saturday, Feb. 28 / 3:00PM / Forrest; Sunday, Mar. 1 / 10:30AM / Little Ragtag

In person: Anders Ostergaard

This certifiable classic, a tense suspense thriller in the guise of a new-form political documentary, begins in 1988, when Burma’s military junta brutally shot and killed 3,000 demonstrators, imprisoned opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, and outlawed independent journalism. In the years since, the Democratic Voice of Burma, a “television station in exile,” has begun sneaking images of the repression out of the country. Using cheap handicams, cell phones, short-wave radio and satellite feeds, the DVB transmits startling footage across the globe, fueling international outrage against the totalitarian government. When the nation’s Buddhist monks decide to take to the streets in September 2007, joined by tens of thousands of students, the DVB was there, allowing the world to watch both this event and its brutal aftermath. A testament to the courage of journalists and a cautionary tale for dictators, Burma VJ is truly inspiring. (PS)

Screenings: Saturday, Feb. 28 / 6:30PM / Missouri Theatre; Sunday, Mar. 1 / 3:30PM / Missouri Theatre

In person: director Mercedes Stahlenhoef

Sneak preview. As far as 17-year-old Carmen can tell, nothing much happens in her town of Glod, Rumania… that is, until Sasha Cohen arrives, duping the impoverished residents there into becoming stand-ins for the people of Kazakhstan for his mockumentary film Borat. Mercedes Stahlenhoef shows us the before and after in Glod, following the outraged citizens who plan a lawsuit after realizing they had been portrayed as bumbling whores and thieves by Cohen. Carmen Meets Borat is a crazy-quilt mix: a sensitive coming-of-age story; a slice-of-life portrait of a “godforsaken place” (as Carmen calls it); an incisive look at a media circus; and a reflection on Hollywood ethics. Bouncing along to a lively Gypsy-influenced score, Carmen builds big crowd-pleasing scenes while displaying empathy with its Glod-based characters, including Carmen’s grandfather, depicted in Borat as an abortionist. This time, he’s no caricature, but remains deeply entertaining nonetheless. (PS)

Screenings: Friday, Feb. 27 / 8:00PM / Macklanburg; Saturday, Feb. 28 / 10:30AM / Windsor

In person: director Joe Berlinger

It’s the David vs. Goliath of the petrochemical age: Two young Ecuadorian attorneys, Pablo Fajardo and Luis Yanza, are taking on Texaco (now Chevron) on behalf of 30,000 indigenous people who believe their land was illegally poisoned by its oil processing plants. With potential damages in the billions, this is one of the most expensive — and potentially groundbreaking — lawsuits of all time. This hefty, comprehensive documentary by Joe Berlinger (Brother’s Keeper) includes testimony from both parties, including heartbreaking stories of cancer and poisoned rivers; an exploration of the power of modern messaging, which both sides try and control; the power of celebrities to affect change, as Sting and his wife come to the aid of the Ecuadorians; and the maddening intricacies of international law. As admirably complex piece of non-fiction storytelling, Crude is both a stirring call-to-arms and an ambivalent portrait of environmental struggle in the 21st century. (PS)

Screenings: Saturday, Feb. 28 / 6:00PM / Windsor; Sunday, Mar. 1 / 10:30AM / Macklanburg

In person: director Robert Stone

Before the publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring in 1962, America’s relationship to nature would be best categorized as one of fear and contempt. But the nearly half-century since has witnessed an enormous ideological shift, with most citizens now grasping the need to protect our natural environment. Robert Stone’s poignant, contemplative film combines gorgeous footage with compelling oral histories to trace American environmentalism from conception to coming-out party: April 22, 1970, the first Earth Day. His subjects include biologist Paul Erlich, Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall and astronaut Rusty Schweickart, all of whom found ways to convey the urgency of the environmental mission. As in his previous T/F hit Guerilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst, Stone turns a single event into a deep study of evolving American consciousness. Earth Day reveals how, amidst explosive scientific progress and massive economic expansion, a society began to understand its interconnectedness with nature and asserting its power to preserve it. (JS)

Screenings: Friday, Feb. 27 / 7:00PM / Windsor; Saturday, Feb. 28 / 10:00AM / Macklanburg

In person: Robert Kenner

Sneak preview. We stand in the midst of a revolution in the United States. Never before have Americans cared so much about their food — not only what’s in it, but where it comes from and how it’s produced. Food Inc. sets out to lift the veil from the corporate consolidation that has radically changed the face of US farming in the last half-century, making its case with verve, wit and an affable accessibility. Whether it’s Michael Pollan holding forth on what monoculture means to US food consumption, all-star farmer Joel Salatin inviting us over for a Fourth-of-July feast, or Stonyfield Yogurt founder Gary Hirshberg explaining why Wal-Mart is doing some good, this is a story that will challenge your assumptions about food culture no matter what side of the fence you’re on. (DW)

Screenings: Saturday, Feb. 28 / 8:30PM / Windsor; Sunday, Mar. 1 / 10:00AM / Missouri Theatre

In person: directors Rick Minnich and Matt Sweetwood

Sneak preview. T/F alum Minnich returns with a deeply personal doc about his father, who after a car accident became “the new Richard.” By extension it also serves as a clever allegory about the United States of Amnesia, wherein wind-blown men can remake themselves in an instant. Minnich’s crackerjack detective story features a killer twist (and even a small subplot involving the savings and loan debacle), while investigating how his dad, post-accident, became an amnesiac and disinherited his family and started life again. Weaving archival footage with present-day interviews, stylish recreations, animation, and a grand orchestral soundtrack, this gripping film also features a nod to our fest: watch for the director sporting a T/F track jacket at a key moment near the end. (PS)

Screenings: Friday, Feb. 27 / 10:30PM / Little Ragtag; Saturday, Feb. 28 / 1:00PM / Windsor

In person: Kim Longinotto

Kim Longinotto has a preternatural ability to empathize with her subjects as the camera rolls. At a countryside retreat, she connects with young Japanese women as they are broken down and reinvented as superstars of professional wrestling. The fights may be choreographed, but the training is as intense as anything you’ll ever see on film. Tears and blood flow in equal parts as the women demonstrate an astounding capacity to endure emotional and physical pain. Through it all, the camera is an unblinking witness, making us complicit in the sort of exquisite suffering Lars von Trier wishes he could capture. Gaea Girls is an unheralded gem of verité cinema and deserves a place among the legends of the genre. (DW)

Screenings: Friday, Feb. 27 / 5:00PM / Big Ragtag

In person: director Justin Donais

Suburban teens around the country are obsessed with the MTV series Jackass, admiring its rebellion against polite, constricting society. But the Double G (“Double Gay”) gang of Glastonbury, Conn. becomes quickly aware that its own acts of “medium rebellion” — driving into trees, jumping from the second floor of a local mall down into a plastic tree etc. — have life-altering consequences. A finely rendered portrait of misspent youth, glastonburykids brings us up close to these excessive miscreants bent on auto destruction and other nihilistic, illegal antics. Watching these kids work through their confusion about their privileged upbringing and trying to break through the chains of conformity is amusing and universal — it’s called growing up American. But while they may be sloppy youth, Donais shoots, edits and scores the film with great precision, creating a perfect fusion of the gross and the sublime. Luckily, the Glastonbury kids will always have this film to help them remember their brief, glorious jackass-tic moments. Plays with A Different Color Blue (dir. Melanie Levy, 4 min.) — This jazzy portrait introduces us to poet and artist Charles Curtis Blackwell, who lost his eyesight at the age of 20. (BH)

Screenings: Thursday, Feb. 26 / 10:00PM / Big Ragtag; Friday, Feb. 27 / 10:00PM / Big Ragtag

In person: director Darius Marder

There’s no straight path to riches, particularly if you’re a Utah used-car salesman helping two World War II veterans find treasure they’ve buried… and now lost. The failing eyesight of one keeps him from unearthing his cache in Austria. The other is a pack rat who may or may not have a map to hidden samurai swords and jewels in the Philippines. But Loot isn’t just about loot — it’s also about the quest for deeper truths, and the excising of personal demons. It’s a lyrical tale of fathers and sons, the fallibility of memory and, ultimately, about our own mortality, and a story about storytelling, about coincidence and chance. If it is a disquieting film for us — watching as characters deal with their ghosts — that not-unpleasant haunting feeling lingers long after the film ends. In China’s Wild West (dir. Urzula Potikos, 10 min.), jade miners chip away at the austerely beautiful neverlands of China. (IK)

Screenings: Saturday, Feb. 28 / 3:00PM / Macklanburg; Sunday, Mar. 1 / 10:00AM / Big Ragtag

In person: I-chat with Janus Metz

Sneak preview. A plush, richly photographed and scored doc — in the high-quality Danish way — about the Thai marriage pipeline extending from Bangkok to a remote fishing village in Denmark. Here a modern-day Thai yenta (married to a Danish man herself) cuts through thick bureaucracy to import hundreds of Thai women who change the fortunes of the lonely. One hopeful man named Kjeld fancies a young Thai named Kae, and their good-natured attempts to communicate via dictionary are a sweet counterpoint to other harder stories. Metz benefits from extraordinary access to these men and women, and this yields a host of intimate, sometimes uncanny vignettes that could play on cable TV if it wasn’t done with such a nuanced approach. Plays with Tongzhi in Love (dir. Ruby Yang, 2008, 30 min.), an innovative short which tells the story of gay Chinese men who attend to family obligations while steering toward the life they secretly want to lead. In a homophobic society, they men fear making any kind of gesture or slip that would reveal their secrets. Using recreations, poetic cinematography, confessionals, and imaginative animation, Tongzhi manages to evocate an entire world. Scared (dir. John Biewen, 3 min.) is an audio short from the Third Coast International Audio Festival, in which a guy muses on the fears associated with a loved one’s body. (PS)

Screenings: Saturday, Feb. 28 / 10:30AM / Little Ragtag; Sunday, Mar. 1 / 12:30PM / Big Ragtag

In person: co-director Fredrik von Krusenstjema

Sneak preview. After attacks on doctors and ambulance drivers erupt in the Polish city of Lodz, directors Richard Solarz and Fredrik von Krusestjerna arrive to make sense of a complex and macabre series of events. They find an attempted murder, feuding funeral moguls and a system of state burial funds that make bodies worth more dead than alive. Necrobusiness shows us mortuaries that look like auto dealerships and unbelievable judges whose customary gold chains seem similar to the jewelry of a wealthy undertaker. Shocking confessions and unexpected humor punctuate the gradually unfolding intrigue of this compelling and stylish look at death and corruption, which also features moody, noirish shots of urban Lodz, a rogue’s gallery of shady characters and a puckish, playful undercurrent. (DF)

Screenings: Friday, Feb. 27 / 7:30PM / Big Ragtag; Saturday, Feb. 28 / 10:00AM / Big Ragtag

In person: directors Laura Gabbert & Justin Schein and subjects Colin Beavan and Michelle Conlin

What are you willing to give up to provide your ancestors a future? For city-dwelling Colin Beavan and his wife Michelle Conlin. The answer is nearly everything, as they go cold turkey from civilization, weaning themselves off the power grid, agribusiness and other modern conveniences leading to our downfall. Michelle, standing in for those reluctant to change our wasteful ways, humanizes the film in a big way, as she struggles with among other sacrifices the loss of a refrigerator by a not terribly effective Nigerian clay pot in a pot. Colin becomes an overnight media magnet, but this also attracts naysayers and skeptics, embodied most effectively in a longtime urban gardener who’s been fighting the good fight for much longer than Colin. With tight editing and a knack for being there at key junctures, Gabbert and Schein deliver a knotty story about one family standing in for humanity at the abyss. (PS)

Screenings: Saturday, Feb. 28 / 10:30AM / Missouri Theatre; Sunday, Mar. 1 / 3:30PM / Blue Note

In person: director Deborah Stratman

A freshly minted gem that plays like some lost experimental classic of the 1970s, O’er the Land is fashioned out of mysterious stuff. Like all great work it’s richly open-ended, but to one person it appears to be a Martian-eye view of an America built from a robust, and absurd masculinity, as we are taken on a mysterious 16mm tour of men and their toys, from border patrol to a shooting range, an RV lot and firemen in a rural town. Tucked in there as well is Lt. Colonel William Rankin’s fantastical first-person account of surviving a plane crash. Stratman’s rich soundtrack layers and juxtaposes diegetic sound — musket fire, birds chirping etc. — with a sci-fi soundscape of droning synths, enhanced helicopters and much more. Near the end are golden, gorgeous shots of men using contraptions which shoot out streams of napalm-esque liquid fire in the aftermath of some senseless firepower. What does it all mean? Why does this work so well? It’s hard to say for sure, but the important thing is that in Stratman’s masterful, intuitive hands, we ask this question throughout her non-narrative. Plays with Bitch Academy — Director Alina Rudnitskaya takes us to a Russian school with a unique perspective on empowerment, where a lone male instructor teaches women to use their powers of attraction for personal gain. The students long to be desired and go through rigorous and humiliating training to achieve their goals. The Third Coast International Audio Festival short Is That My Imagination? (dir. Meghan Vigeant, 3 min.) is the story of a mind on strike, with a cameo by Mario Savio of the Free Speech Movement. (PS)

Screenings: Saturday, Feb. 28 / 8:00PM / Big Ragtag; Sunday, Mar. 1 / 1:00PM / Little Ragtag

In person: directors Michael Palmieri and Donal Mosher

Sneak preview. As the saying goes, families are like fudge: mostly sweet with a few nuts. Donal Mosher, with co-director Michael Palmieri, turns the camera on his own family in upstate New York. With ghostlike access, they introduce us to the tragic and painfully familiar stories: Daneal, a single mother fighting for the custody of her child; Don, the lone father figure, a Vietnam veteran coping with wartime nightmares and his estranged relationship with sister Denise, an outsider who spends her days in graveyards searching for spirits. Throughout the film, we’re reminded that the problems this family faces — abusive fathers, runaway children, unrealistic dreamers — are cyclical events, bound to continue until someone (here the young and self-aware daughter Desi) can break the chain. Palmieri and Mosher’s textured, thoughtful film about America’s emotional diseases is haunting and exquisitely composed. (CB)

Screenings: Thursday, Feb. 26 / 10:30PM / Little Ragtag; Sunday, Mar. 1 / 6:30PM / Forrest

In person: Michael Orion Scott

Rupert, an international journalist and human rights activist, and Kristin, a psychology professor, are a handsome couple on top of the world. But their young son Rowan’s frequent tantrums — a symptom of his autism — turn simple activities into hellish trials. However, Rowan finds solace on horses, which leads the family on an improbable adventure to a remote section of Mongolia, the only place in the world that combines horseback riding and shamanic healing. Their search for a healer for their child may seem the stuff of a New Age fairy tale, but the couple demonstrate a hardheaded realism that makes them continually question the nature of their quest. A spiritual and physical journey, Over The Hills plays like a larger-than-life adventure movie, but its earthy twist makes it relevant for anyone struggling with the challenges of parenting. (PS)

Screenings: Saturday, Feb. 28 / 5:30PM / Macklanburg; Sunday, Mar. 1 / 10:30AM / Blue Note

In person: directors Jennifer Grausman and Mark Becker

The famously blunt Wilma Stephenson runs a culinary arts boot camp at a Philadelphia high school, whipping both students and their cooking skills into shape. Behind her tough-talking exterior is a teacher who cares passionately about getting the best out of her students and making sure they receive the opportunities, including scholarships to top programs, denied to so many in their disadvantaged neighborhood. The three students at the heart of this film already carry substantial responsibilities on their young shoulders. Erica looks after her blind sister, Tyree juggles football, cooking and the expectations of his single mom, and Mali-born Fatoumata cares for a controlling father. Progressing through the competition, the students discover their strengths and skills and begin dreaming of a better future. Engaging and emotionally charged, Pressure Cooker offers a glimpse at students on the brink of adulthood, battling it for success, with a hilarious and determined mentor cheering them on. You will too. (IK)

Screenings: Saturday, Feb. 28 / 3:30PM / Blue Note; Sunday, Mar. 1 / 12:30PM / Missouri Theatre

In person: Kimberly Reed

If Kim Reed had simply set out to document her coming-of-age in western Montana, departure for the big city and eventual homecoming at her high-school reunion, it would have made a fine film. Had she chosen to weave in the story of her adopted brother, whose checkered youth and a tragic injury left him with severe physical and emotional scars, well, that could have been all the richer. But Prodigal Sons isn’t content to tell a story like any other film. Revelations fly and the plots twist from intimate family portraiture to a speculative history of the love child of Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth. It’s a potent cocktail of gender and genetics and Reed faces the challenge of telling a deeply personal story with uncommon courage. (Plays with A Transgender Childhood, a Third Coast International Audio Festival short.) (DW)

Screenings: Saturday, Feb. 28 / 10:00AM / Forrest; Sunday, Mar. 1 / 3:30PM / Little Ragtag

In person: Eric Daniel Metzgar

Eric Daniel Metzgar (The Chances of the World Changing, Life. Support. Music) returns with a portrait of an idealistic, possibly foolhardy man-on-a-mission, the New York Times‘ Nicholas Kristof. Metzgar accompanies Kristof and a couple of fledgling assistants who have won the unenviable opportunity to go deep within the Congo where, in addition to horrible poverty, vicious warlords await. Underlying this tense, suspenseful tour of duty is Kristof’s urgent desire to connect the unfolding humanitarian crisis with an aloof Western world that equates Africa with intractable problems. Seeking an emblematic person to illustrate Congo’s pain for the West, Kristof hopes to combat psychic numbing and put Congo “on the map.” He finds her in the ailing Yohanita, and her tragedy forms an early centerpiece of the film. With such pungent scenes alongside dreamy imagery, a rich Altman-esque soundtrack, and intuitive editing, Reporter confirms Metzgar’s place as one of non-fiction’s master craftsman. Sponsored by the University of Missouri in Columbia. (PS)

Screenings: Friday, Feb. 27 / 7:00PM / Forrest; Saturday, Feb. 28 / 1:00PM / Missouri Theatre

In person: director Luciano Blotta

Sneak preview. Music seems to be the only way out of poverty in Jamaica. Rise Up introduces us to three diverse young people trying to make it in a deeply competitive industry. The teenage country girl Kemoy sings beautiful a capella R&B. Ice is a white, privileged singer with connections. And Turbulence is ghetto through and through. Interwoven in the three parallel storylines is commentary by music professionals — Sly & Robbie hold court, along with legendary spaceman/producer Lee “Scratch” Perry. Rise Up also offers a surprisingly intimate look with Kingston and the surrounding countryside. Director Blotta’s persistence pays off when the characters experience breakthroughs and setbacks. Rather than blandly surveying the broad musical scene, Blotta succeeds in capturing individual memorable moments that serve to illustrate the immense struggle to distinguish oneself on a music-mad island. (PS)

Screenings: Thursday, Feb. 26 / 8:00PM / Little Ragtag; Saturday, Feb. 28 / 10:30PM / Big Ragtag; Sunday, March 1 / 8:30PM / Big Ragtag

In person: director Kim Longinotto and editor Ollie Huddleston

Evildoers beware! Tough, feisty, wise and full of passionate conviction, a group of women — Thuli, Mildren, Sdudla, Eureka and Jackie — work for Operation Bobbi Bear in Durban, South Africa, dealing with children who have been raped and abused. They accompany police on midnight raids and sit with the victims as they use teddy bears to describe the nature of the abuse. They even clean up crime scenes when necessary. Compounding the degree of difficulty work are the cultural stigmas about talking about sex and the sieve-like processing of criminals through the judicial system. Longinotto’s compassionate eye yields a remarkable intimacy with the women as they face trauma and grief of their clients, and in their own lives. Framed against a broader portrait of a society in transition, Rough Aunties offers a personal story women draw strength from each other and performing, on a daily level, the small miracles that help to make the world a kinder, better place. (IK)

Screenings: Saturday, Feb. 28 / 3:30PM / Missouri Theatre; Sunday, Mar. 1 / 12:30PM / Windsor

In person: director

Among the many fruits of our digital filmmaking revolution is an explosion in regional documentary filmmaking. No filmmaker represents this better than SS Blue’s director, who has steeped his universally appealing in the specificities of his native Oklahoma. Now he turns his focus to Behind the Walls Rodeo, an annual cowpoke event featuring inmates — including women — as they wrestle calves and ride ferocious broncs. Untrained for this potentially fatal sport, but game for anything that offers temporary escape from their cells, these prisoners risk everything to entertain the general public. While following, Spellbound-style, the training-for-the-big-day action, the director offers opportunities to reflect on our society’s oft-vicious attitudes towards criminals. One man hopes he sees a bull gore one of the inmates; others roar after convict rises from the dirt, face filled with blood. The director’s camera gently records the inmates’ stories, humanizing them. Still, the world outside remains hostile. (JS)

Screenings: Friday, Feb. 27 / 9:30PM / Forrest

In person: director

A desperate young man prays to God that he’ll die or be sent to jail. One week later he’s incarcerated… for a murder he didn’t commit. And once at the mercy of the Mexican court system, a chance at a fair trial seems unlikely. But with the aid of a pair of Mexican-American lawyers turned filmmakers, this unjustly imprisoned man may get another chance at salvation. This is a work-in-progress screening. (DW)

Screenings: Saturday, Feb. 28 / 4:30PM / Little Ragtag; Sunday, Mar. 1 / 11:00AM / Forrest

In person: director

“My father was father long enough to make me,” says one subject in this haunting documentary. “My mother was mother long enough to give birth.” Following two boys cast adrift amidst unimaginable poverty in Brazil’s northeast, this film reveals, in quiet and deeply moving ways, the resourcefulness and creativity of children surviving a tough world. Just 14, Cocada witnessed his dad’s murder; his friend Nero, 13, is the oldest of his mom’s 10 children. Begging at truck stops, selling knickknacks and foraging for food, the two grow up abnormally quickly while maintaining some childlike innocence, wrestling in a pile of corn husks or asking for guidance from a kindly trucker. The directors, who also shot the film, maintain a formal purity — there is no voiceover or interviews. Still, they find ways to implicate Brazi’s leadership: we hear the empty promises of campaigning politicians through loudspeakers and the TV. The footage — villagers elbowing each other to get to the water truck, a dying cow beset by flies — reveals darker truths. (JS)

Screenings: Saturday, Feb. 28 / 5:30PM / Big Ragtag; Sunday, Mar. 1 / 1:00PM / Macklanburg

In person: director

After co-directing a touchstone documentary on a squad of American soldiers deployed in Falluja, this courageous filmmaker renders an even more heartbreaking work. This time, it’s a portrait of Ajmal, an Afghan man who before being kidnapped and killed by the Taliban spent his days as translator and guide for foreign journalists. With chillingly intimate access, we watch Ajmal work together with The Nation’s Christian Parenti, interviewing members of the Taliban and trading cross-cultural notes. Ajmal is a deeply sympathetic character, a young, intelligent and gifted man whose demise seems to have resulted from a perfect storm involving Afghan corruption, possible Pakistani collusion, and Western indifference. This sobering work is one of the most memorable documents yet from the increasingly amorphous never-ending war. Plays with Germans in the Woods (dir. Tim Rauch, 3 min.) an animated doc, in which a haunted vet lingers on the soldier he killed during WW II. (CB)

Screenings: Saturday, Feb. 28 / 5:30PM / Forrest; Sunday, Mar. 1 / 3:00PM / Big Ragtag

In person: director and producer

This debut feature begins as a seemingly idiosyncratic story about troop greeters — a group of senior citizens who gather daily at a small airport to thank American soldiers departing and returning from Iraq. But the film quickly turns into a moving, unsettling and compassionate story about aging, loneliness, war and mortality. When its three subjects aren’t at the airport, they wrestle with their own problems: failing health, depression, mounting debt. Joan, a grandmother of eight, has a deep connection to the soldiers she meets. The sanguine Jerry keeps his spirits up even as his personal problems mount. And the veteran Bill, who clearly has trouble taking care of himself, finds himself contemplating his own death. Seeking out the telling detail rather than offering sweeping generations, the film carefully builds stories of heartbreak and redemption, reminding us how our culture casts our elders, and too often our soldiers, aside. More important, it celebrates three unsung heroes who share their love with strangers who need and deserve it. (JS)

Screenings: Thursday, Feb. 26 / 5:00PM / Big Ragtag; Saturday, Feb. 28 / 3:30PM / Windsor

In person: director

Among the many fruits of our digital filmmaking revolution is an explosion in regional documentary filmmaking. No filmmaker represents this better than SS Yellow’s director, who has steeped his universally appealing in the specificities of his native Oklahoma. Now he turns his focus to Behind the Walls Rodeo, an annual cowpoke event featuring inmates — including women — as they wrestle calves and ride ferocious broncs. Untrained for this potentially fatal sport, but game for anything that offers temporary escape from their cells, these prisoners risk everything to entertain the general public. While following, Spellbound-style, the training-for-the-big-day action, the director offers opportunities to reflect on our society’s oft-vicious attitudes towards criminals. One man hopes he sees a bull gore one of the inmates; others roar after convict rises from the dirt, face filled with blood. The director’s camera gently records the inmates’ stories, humanizing them. Still, the world outside remains hostile. (JS)

In person: director Greg Barker

When George W. Bush opted to override the United Nations and invade Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello, the UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights, responded in stark language: “No one can predict the human costs of this war.” Transmuting Samantha Power’s book Chasing the Flame, Greg Barker reminds us how war robs us not just human lives, but of human potential. Barker uses powerful imagery and testimony to tells us the story of de Mello, the man who best represented the hope, promise and idealism of a new Iraq, and the devastating realities that swamped them. Having transformed impossible UN missions in Cambodia, East Timor and Kosovo into success stories, de Mello arrived in Iraq with the world’s most impressive peace-building resume and a reputation as articulate, charismatic, fearless “magician” who could work with anyone. But on August 19, 2003, the impossibility of UN’s mission in Iraq — a diplomatic black hole — became tragically clear. Sponsored by the University of Missouri in Columbia. (JS)

Screenings: Saturday, Feb. 28 / 8:00PM / Macklanburg; Sunday, Mar. 1 / 1:00PM / Blue Note

In person: Jamie Jay Johnson

Sneak preview. It makes all the sense in the world that Jamie Jay Johnson studied under Kim Longinotto. There’s something effortless yet incredibly powerful in his ability to put his subjects at ease and quickly move past their public masks to find truths both funny and shocking. That Johnson chooses, in his debut feature, to tell the stories of pre-teen contestants in Europe’s biggest pop music competition is, well, entirely appropriate. Like the young, would-be pop stars of the Junior Eurovision Song Contest, Jamie is all energy and enthusiasm behind the camera, propelling his story forward at a vertiginous speed — turning sequins and day-glo into blurs of pure energy. But, as always, it’s the kids who make the movie — and I dare you to remain unmoved by their heart-on-sleeve drive to be the biggest little pop stars in Europe. (DW)

Screenings: Thursday, Feb. 26 / 7:30PM / Big Ragtag; Friday, Feb. 27 / 10:00PM / Blue Note; Sunday, March 1 / 8:00PM / Blue Note

In person: director Brittany Huckabee

Sneak preview. A West Virginia college town with a mosque and a population of 30,000 might seem an obvious setting for a cultural skirmish, but when a clash occurs it is not a fight between two religions — it is a power struggle within one. As a colleague of Daniel Pearl in Pakistan, Asra Nomani witnessed Islamic extremism firsthand; she did not expect to find it in when she returned home to raise her son. Soon the Islamic Center of Morgantown is embroiled in a media frenzy, as Asra unwaveringly confronts what she sees as malignant intolerance. Through engaging interviews and expertly shot pivotal moments, Director Brittany Huckabee captures the controversy and rewardingly refuses to name either an aggressor or a victim. (DF)

Screenings: Thursday, Feb. 26 / 5:30PM / Little Ragtag; Sunday, Mar. 1 / 10:00AM / Windsor

In person: Nicholas Abrahams

Forget what John Lennon said about the Beatles — countless obsessed fans around the globe would argue that Depeche Mode is bigger than Jesus. From the US and Brazil to Russia and Iran, men and women celebrate the band that gave them a groove, dulled their depression and even helped unify East and West Germany. Their devotion is reflected in collages, tattoos, graphic novels, bead portraits, music-video reenactments, t-shirt collections, marching bands, church choirs and many, many truly rad hairstyles. Filmmakers Jeremy Deller and Nicholas Abrahams give them an opportunity to tell their stories and to thank the band. The result is a sympathetic and visually striking portrait of music’s transformative power. (DF)

Screenings: Saturday, Feb. 28 / 10:30PM / Forrest; Sunday, Mar. 1 / 3:30PM / Macklanburg

In person: directors and subjects Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno

Spoiler alert: the world’s still broken. But don’t blame the Yes Men, whose toolbox includes media hoaxes, corporate interventions and tricksterism of the most amusing anti-establishment kind. The Y-Men steal the podium to advise corporate execs how to squeeze every drop of productivity from their workers; apologize, on the BBC, on behalf of Dow Chemical for poisoning tens of thousands of residents of Bhopal, India; and create a not-completely-wishful thinking fake New York Times from the future that celebrates our progress in making peace, healing the environment and addressing social inequities. Directed by Yes Men Mike Bonano and Andy Bichlbaum, with Kurt Engfehr, this stylish, fast-paced doc — a follow-up to T-F’s 2003 closing night film — simultaneously serves as celebration of engaged citizenship, survey of corporate greed and a comedy of the most progressive kind. So these spiritual godchildren of Abbie Hoffman didn’t actually repair our damaged, profit-driven, unsustainable society in these 90 minutes? For once, we really need a sequel. (JS)

Screenings: Saturday, Feb. 28 / 12:30PM / Macklanburg; Sunday, Mar. 1 / 7:00PM / Missouri Theatre

In person: producer Yael Nahlieli

It’s hard to imagine a film that better fits the true/false dichotomy than this Israeli hybrid, in which writer-director Ari Folman weaves together investigative journalism, personal essay and contemporary Middle Eastern history with startling, often surrealistic animated imagery. Inspired by his own repressed memories of Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, which he participated in as a 19-year-old foot soldier, Folman spins a mind-bending, soulful and compelling tale of war, memory, trauma and lost innocence. The story follows Folman as he revisits the invasion, which culminates with a terrifying massacre in a Lebanese refugee camp. Waltz‘s voiceover is grounded in fact, comprised of real interviews with Folman’s buddies, as well as with politicians and historians, but the imagery is otherworldly: rabid dogs rampaging through Tel Aviv; a bosomy green sea goddess carrying a seasick soldier across troubled waters. Vivid, provocative and innovative, this example of new-form war journalism — an Oscar nominee and most honored film of 2008 — pushes the outer limits of documentary filmmaking to unforgettable effect. (JS)

Screenings: Friday, Feb. 27 / 7:30PM / Missouri Theatre; Saturday, Feb. 28 / 12:30PM / Big Ragtag

In person: director Justin Strawhand

Imagine discovering that your long-dead mother was a prostitute or your ex-dentist a Nazi. Justin Strawhand’s fresh and insightful adaptation of the Edwin Black book of the same name takes us back to the early 1900s, when scientist Charles Davenport was developing his theories on selective breeding, which set the groundwork for the American eugenics movement. Using creepy elements straight out of classic science fiction, Strawhand boldly illustrates the eerie links between Davenport’s famous followers — including the Carnegies and Rockefellers — and Adolf Hitler. War Against the Weak is both a hugely unsettling history lesson, and a morbidly fascinating one. (CB)

Screenings: Saturday, Feb. 28 / 9:30PM / Little Ragtag; Sunday, Mar. 1 / 1:30PM / Forrest

In person: director Ondi Timoner

At the dawn of the dotcom age, Josh Harris cashed in on his early knowledge in the Web. He then resurfaced as a well-heeled artist with a flair for social engineering experiments. His most intriguing one, “Quiet: We Live in Public,” at the time seemed a proto-apocalyptic lead-up to Y2K, an Orwellian commune in which 100 human specimens lived in a New York City basement under 24-7 surveillance. Timoner, whose earlier film Dig explored other difficult artists, was in that basement herself, giving this footage more footing. Later, Harris and his girlfriend streamed their private lives online. This fascinating material is spiked with deep resonance during an era where social networking sites, omnipresent cameras and fast connections have left many swimming in privacy-free zones. Featuring plenty of loud rock ‘n’ roll, the splashy We Live in Public carries urgent warnings about the near future, as reflected in a little-known story from our recent past. Note: This film contains adult content and is not recommended for children. (PS)

Screenings: Friday, Feb. 27 / 7:30PM / Blue Note; Saturday, Feb. 28 / 9:30PM / Missouri Theatre

In person: directors Gonzalo Escobar Mora (Accidentally Sprayed) and Pawel Ferdek (Glass Trap)

This sensational world tour hangs with gangsters in Poland, shoppers in a vast Chinese mall, blind people in Brazil and coca farmers in Colombia. Guy Ritchie meets National Geographic in Glass Trap (dir. Pawel Perdek, 14 min.), a balls-to-the-wall look at flashy gangsters with a thing for fighting goldfish. The lyrical Super-8 journey Dreznika (dir. Anna Azevedo, 14 min.) reveals the dreams and memories of several blind people. In the eerie Accidentally Sprayed (27 min.), a young Colombian filmmaker explores the fumigation of his country’s coca crops by fusing classic muckraking with a hip and stylish storytelling technique. Sam Green (Weather Underground) and Carrie Lozano take us to The World’s Largest Shopping Mall (12 min.), which has everything going for it but customers. Plays with Third Coast International Audio Festival short Forest to Desert (dir. Sarah Boothroyd, 3 min.), an audio doodle about this phrase: “Humankind is preceded by forest, and followed by desert.”

Screenings: Friday, Feb. 27 / 5:30PM / Little Ragtag; Saturday, Feb. 28 / 3:00PM / Big Ragtag; Sunday, March 1 / 5:30PM / Big Ragtag

In person: Megan Mylan, director of Smile Pinki

Shadowy figures from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences have ordained these four films as the best shorts of the year. Shortly before the Khmer Rouge executed 17,000 prisoners, they asked a teenager named Nhem En to photograph them. Some 30 years later, he and three survivors tell their story in The Conscience of Nhem Em (dir. Steven Okazaki, 34 min.). A visiting plastic surgeon helps a young social outcast with a cleft lip in Smile Pinki (dir. Megan Mylan, 39 min.). Only a few men were with Martin Luther King Jr., in the hours leading up to his tragic death, and we meet one of them in the powerful The Witness: From the Balcony of Room 306 (dir. Margaret Hyde & Adam Pertofsky, 34 min.) featuring recently uncovered footage. In The Final Inch (dir. Irene Brodsky Taylor, 32 min.) we journey to the poorest parts of India, where activists are waging final battle to eradicate polio in the world.

Screenings: Thursday, Feb. 26 / 5:30PM / Windsor; Saturday, Feb. 28 / 1:00PM / Little Ragtag

In person: directors Tony Massil (Forty Men for the Yukon), Charlene Music (Roz and Joshua), Kelcey Edwards (Ghost in the Material) and Lindsey Dryden (Close Your Eyes and Look at Me)

These intimate portraits bringing a diverse group of characters to life. Roz and Joshua (3 min.) uses grainy black-and-white imagery as a testament to the grit and perseverance of a woman who lives in her car, trying to achieve her biggest goal: becoming a mother again to her son. Forty Men for the Yukon (20 min.) introduces to the northern “outback” and two hardscrabble men, one who runs a gold mine, the other a bar. Bill McFadyen, a 73-year-old weightlifter, stars in Ma Bar (dir. Finlay Pretsell, 11 min.), an evenly paced and dreamlike film that follows McFadyen as he trains and competes to become Scotland’s world champion weightlifter. Close Your Eyes and Look at Me (6 min.) follows an Edinburgh woman as she shares her thoughts on wearing a hijab, dislodging our preconceptions about the Islamist approach to humility and gender. In Ghost in the Material, William Noguera, a death row inmate at San Quentin, creates art that maintains his connection to the world outside. And the stereotype-shattering Skin (dir. Rhys Graham, 27 min.) explores the art of tattoo by focusing on 62-year-old Geoff, who covers his body with a “suit of flowers” while seeking to preserve his skin for eternity.

Screenings: Saturday, Feb. 28 / 12:30PM / Forrest; Sunday, Mar. 1 / 6:00PM / Little Ragtag

In person: directors Peter Jordan (The First Kid to Learn English from Mexico) and Jamie Meltzer (La Caminata)

These five films capture stories of survival and self-preservation. La Caminata (15 min.) watches as the dangerous journey from Mexico to the U.S. is reenacted for tourists in a border town.Steel Homes (10 min.), by T/F favorite Eva Weber, includes stark and poetic cinematography of storage lockers, which provide a holding ground for memories of long-gone loved ones and for still-living dreams. The colorful animation of Slaves (dir. Hanna Heilbron, 15 min.) brings alive the tale of two captured Sudanese youth in an engrossing story of survival. In Orange Bombs, you’ll fall in love with Habib and Zeinab, who spend their time defusing hundreds of cluster bombs left in their orange grove by the Israelis. Despite the danger, they maintain a happy life together. Finally, in The First Kid to Learn English from Mexico (20 min.), lush camera and music create an surreal portrait of 9-year-old Pedro Lopez, who wishes he never left Mexico. Though something of a problem child, Pedro makes for an honest, charming subject.

Screenings: Friday, Feb. 27 / 8:00PM / Little Ragtag; Saturday, Feb. 28 / 7:00PM / Little Ragtag