NATCHEZ captures an unsettling clash between history and memory in a small Mississippi town; a layered mosaic of people contending with the weight of the past in a place where it is always present. Equal parts amusing and disturbing, we journey through an antebellum tourist destination at a crossroads as it grapples with a deeply troubled history that is so thoroughly ingrained in its present, we’re left to wonder if it’s actually past at all.

TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL 2025

WINNER: BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
SPECIAL JURY MENTION: CINEMATOGRAPHY IN A DOCUMENTARY FEATURE: NOAH COLLIER
SPECIAL JURY MENTION: EDITING IN A DOCUMENTARY FEATURE: PABLO PROENZA 

THE NATIONAL BOARD OF REVIEW

TOP 5 DOCUMENTARY OF THE YEAR

Please join Clark University's Department of Visual and Performing Arts as it welcomes director, screenwriter, editor, actor, and novelist John Sayles in person to celebrate the 30th anniversary of his Oscar-nominated film, Lone Star!    

This special event is sponsored by Clark's Screen Studies undergraduate program — it's FREE, and open to the public!  

Lone Star premiered in March of 1996 at South by Southwest (SXSW). Sayles's original screenplay for Lone Star was nominated for an Academy Award, BAFTA award, and Golden Globe Award.

From Criterion.com:

A keen observer of America’s social fabric, writer-director John Sayles uncovers the haunted past buried beneath a small Texas border town in this sprawling neo-western mystery. When a skeleton is discovered in the desert, lawman Sam Deeds (Chris Cooper), son of a legendary local sheriff, begins an investigation that will have profound implications both for him personally and for all of Rio County, a place still reckoning with its history of racial violence. Sayles’s masterful film—novelistic in its intricacy and featuring a brilliant ensemble cast, including Joe Morton, Elizabeth Peña, and Kris Kristofferson—quietly subverts national mythmaking and lays bare the fault lines of life at the border.

A father (Sergi López) and his son arrive at a rave deep in the mountains of southern Morocco. They are searching for Mar -- daughter and sister -- who vanished months ago at one of these endless, sleepless parties. Surrounded by electronic music and a raw, unfamiliar sense of freedom, they hand out her photo again and again. Hope is fading, but they push through and follow a group of ravers heading to one last party in the desert. As they venture deeper into the burning wilderness, the journey forces them to confront their own limits.

"Come See Me in the Good Light" is a poignant and unexpectedly funny love story about poets Andrea Gibson and Megan Falley facing an incurable cancer diagnosis with joy, wit and an unshakable partnership. Through laughter and unwavering love, they transform pain into purpose, and mortality into a moving celebration of resilience.

"the filmmaker's warmth and humor, even in times of despair, gives the story a radiance that makes mundane moments feel precious" - NPR

1 Hr 44 Min

COEXISTENCE, MY ASS! follows Israeli activist-comedian Noam Shuster Eliassi as she creates a comedy show by the same name. Shot over five tumultuous years, the film traces Noam’s personal, professional, and political journey in tandem with the region’s steady deterioration.

Raised in a bilingual Israeli-Palestinian village — the only intentionally integrated community in the country — Noam grows disillusioned with traditional peace activism. She pivots to stand-up and quickly attracts attention across the Middle East. But as her star rises, everything around her falls apart. With biting satire, Noam pushes her audiences to face difficult truths that aren't always funny but do remind us that another reality is possible.

“Eliassi and “Coexistence, My Ass!” do the impossible and deliver radical ideas through humor. Rarely has comedy felt this serious and urgent.” - Variety

1 Hr 35 Min

Best DOCUMENTARY shorts from all over the world!

Best LIVE ACTION snorts from all over the world!

Best ANIMATED shorts from all over the world!

“Simón Mesa Soto Crafts a Hilariously Absurdist Fable About Trying to Lead an Artistic Life” - Variety

Middle-aged and erratic, Oscar is a failed writer who has given up on life. Unemployed and living with family, he wanders the streets of Medellín in a drunken stupor, lamenting the state of literature in his home country, where he has succumbed to the cliché of the tortured artist. However, the opportunity to mentor a young student offers a chance at redemption, if he doesn't screw it up first. In a performance marked by darkly comic pathos, first-time actor Ubeimar Rios stars in Simón Mesa Soto's Un Certain Regard Jury Prize-winner A Poet, a raw and riotous farce about how good deeds are often met with the universe's idea of cruel and unusually poetic punishment.

Mr Nobody Against Putin is a 2025 documentary film directed by David Borenstein and co-directed by Pavel Talankin. It follows Talankin in his job at a school at Karabash, a poor mining town near the Ural Mountains. While recording his students, Talankin also documents the Putin administration movements to control public perception during the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian war.

The film had its world premiere at the World Cinema Documentary section of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival on 25 January, where it won the Special Jury Award. It was selected as the Danish entry for Best International Feature Film at the 98th Academy Awards, but it was not shortlisted for a nomination.[3] However, it was nominated in the Best Documentary Feature Film category.

“Shot in black-and-white over seven years, Brittany Shyne’s film is poetic and political in its portrayal of families fighting to maintain a vanishing way of life” – The Guardian

“A beautiful, haunting documentary” – The Film Stage

A look into the lives of Black generational farmers, unveiling the challenges of maintaining legacy and the value of land ownership.

2 Hr 3 Min

“Jodie Foster’s moving French masterpiece” - Salon

A 2025 black comedy mystery thriller film directed and co-written by Rebecca Zlotowski, starring Jodie Foster, alongside Daniel Auteuil, Virginie Efira, Mathieu Amalric, Vincent Lacoste, and Luana Bajrami.

When renowned psychiatrist Lilian Steiner learns of the death of one of her patients she is deeply troubled. Convinced that it was murder, she decides to investigate....

R (Language|Graphic Nudity|Brief Violence|Some Sexual Content)

1 Hr 45 Min

“The actors on screen react in real-time with the recordings of that harrowing day, and the effect is at once painfully direct, and profound.” - NPR

Volunteers at the Palestine Red Crescent Society stay on the phone with a 6-year-old girl who gets trapped in a car in war-torn Gaza.

1 Hr 30 Min

Directed with pristine precision by Park Chan-wook, No Other Choice is a wickedly clever takedown of the corporate rat race that finds a perfect avatar in Lee Byung-Hun's skillfully hapless performance.

When a man is abruptly laid off by the paper company where he has worked tirelessly for many years, he grows increasingly desperate in his hunt.

R (Violence|Some Sexual Content|Language)

2 Hr 19 Min