Lovia Gyarkye

At the heart of Friendsgiving, like many movies of its kind, is a story about the importance of family (both blood and chosen). But the film also captures, with a deft mix of earnestness and humor, the messiness of grief.

Rawal covers a substantial amount of ground and deftly balances the dense material without losing sight of the mission driving the bigger story: Healing from generational trauma sometimes starts with just one person.

Perhaps the most powerful aspect of The Legend of the Underground is that it doesn’t mistake hope for over-sentimentalizing.

On the surface, Drunken Birds is about Willy’s quest for love and his new life on the farm, but once he crosses paths with Julie and Léa, the film morphs into a fraught tale of white womanhood and its perceived innocence.

It’s easy to capture the frenzy of a new fling or the seductive meeting of two bodies; what’s more difficult, and what A Tale of Love and Desire does quite well, is study the inner tensions that accompany early sexual experiences — when the heart, mind and body refuse to be in sync — without becoming overly cerebral.

More Than Robots’ honeyed narrative is troubled by a tension between Jacobs’ interest in her subjects’ individual experiences and the doc’s broader obligations to advertising FIRST.

It’s a concert film wrapped in biography and an appreciation for a sacred and beguiling genre. The power of gospel music comes alive here, and the doc’s subjects, the practitioners of this fervent form, keep it engaging.

There’s a lot of heart in Rare Objects, a film that tries to render with compassion the jagged aftermath of trauma.

A chilling story told in a disjointed manner.

The documentary operates at a minor and meditative key, but its urgent message still rings loudly.

With its focus on the news gathering process, Waves affirms the importance of independent and ethical reporting.