Schedule

The 5th HIDFF (FEB 2022)

5th Season Schedule


How to Hack Birth Control
Pilot of a half hour comedy series about how to navigate and take charge in today’s contraception universe. Told through the sharp wit and perky charm of the narrator Ruth (Xanthe Paige), Birth Control takes a run at ‘not supposed to talk about,’ scenarios and answers all of the questions women truly want to know but are taught to be too afraid to ask.
Directed by Sassy Mohen
Written by Sassy Mohen
Cast: Xanthe Paige, Jackie Jacobson (Malibu Rescue), Austin Powell (Shameless), Aisha Renee Holden, Megan Rach (BF For Hire), Lauren Elizabeth Harris (Murder Loves Company), Danny Royce (93 Miles)

Medusa
Romane has taken care of Clémence, who has been disabled since a car accident in their teens. When Romane brings home a new boyfriend, an unbearable tension begins to grow between the two sisters.
Directed by Sophie Levy
Written by Sophie Levy
Cast: Arnaud Valois (120 battements par minute, Garçon chiffon, 16 printemps), Roxane Mesquida (À ma soeur, Sex is comedy, Sheitan, Rubber, Kaboom, Wrong cops, Garçon chiffon), Anamaria Vartolomei (L'échange des princesses, La bonne épouse)

Our Crown
What's in a Braid? A physicality that is both soft and strong, interwoven to withstand, embodied by a soul that runs deep and vast, with gravitas, grace, and greatness. This is a love letter to black women, celebrating the braid, highlighting it as the purest form of self-love and self-expression.
Directed by Kristyna Archer
Written by Kristyna Archer and Olu The Butterfly
Cast: Atlantis Love, Vanessa Brooks, Zuri Starks, April Jones, Olivia Jones, Ashley Paulina, Marchel Smith, Sierra Sullivan, Lauren Hanna, Jayla Harris, Alexis Skinner

On the Edge
The story of two women, the best saber-fencers in Russia. With one at the peak of her career and the other at the ambitious start of her journey, they collide both in the sport and in real life.
Directed by Eduard Bordukov
Written by Eduard Bordukov
Cast: Svetlana Khodchenkova (The Wolverine, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Metro 2013, Viking, Sluzhebnyy roman, Dovlatov, Domashniy arest), Stasya Miloslavskaya (The Pitch, Streltsov, Byk), Sergey Puskepalis, Aleksey Barabash, Kirill Degtyar, Sofya Ernst, Evgeniy Sytyy

King's Cane
Two men working a dangerous construction job in Benin discover an old recade and are transported back to the 19th century during a war for the succession of the throne.
Directed by Reilinght Alida Tchobo
Written by Reilinght Alida Tchobo
Cast: Reilinght Alida Tchobo, Wilette Max Kanlisou, Mariane Hinnilo, Aldot Issifou Bossou, Rogatien Ayato, Kenneth Boko, Bienvenu Adjevi

Princess Perfect
On the night of the royal ball, a micromanaging Fairy Godmother uses her magic to shape her daughter into her image of a “perfect princess”.
Directed by Amy Chang
Written by Amy Chang
Cast: Erika Moret, Miriam Millikin

PÉCHO
A bilingual French-English music video inspired by classic French disco and world cinema from Hong Kong to Manila to New York— a non-linear narrative drives the film's plot as it paints the artists within an imaginative, hallucinatory vignette of love and betrayal.
Directed by Luis Villanueva
Written by Luis Villanueva
Cast: Rocio Tambunting, Luke Dobrovic, Luis Villanueva, Francesca Pangilinan

Good Vibes
Good Vibes is a song about breaking free from pressure and living a life for real. In the music video, a spaceman escapes from his crushing spaceship and have himself become a life-gamer which happens in a game world. When the collide happens in the space and shooting star appears in the game world, time and space has mixed and his life becomes real in the game world.
Directed by Xiang "Shawn" Cao
Written by Dede Harlan
Cast: Dede Harlan

Outside The Consulting Room
Li Qi's father was a doctor who died fighting the Covid-19. After the epidemic, Li Qi takes her sick mother to the hospital where her father had worked and accidentally gets a box of his father's relics. She has a conversation with the person sitting next to her outside the consulting room.
Directed by Fangming Liu
Written by Fangming Liu
Cast: Jingting Li, Wanlushan Zhao

Shattered
A strange old woman is collecting abandoned empty bottles. But now, she wants to sell them all.
Directed by Changhee Han
Written by Changhee Han and Inho Jeong
Cast: Geunja Lee

Family Time
A career woman with a family wonders what she must give up to have it all.
Directed by Zoe Stewart
Written by Zoe Stewart and Louisa Brown
Cast: Bonnie Mbuli (Invictus, Catch A Fire, Drum), Sobantu Nqayi, Jezriel Skei (Four Corners)

The PRATT in the HAT
Beneath the brims of hundreds of colorful hats is a woman who shares her wisdom, humor, and personal experiences about being black in America, then and now. Frances Pratt’s hats make a bold statement as does her southern charm and pithy expressions which she garnered through a lifetime of service to her community fighting for racial equality, voting rights and education.
Directed by Susan Hillary
Written by Susan Hillary
Cast: Frances Pratt

Cleaner
Angela is a domestic cleaner who keeps herself to herself. Mairead is a houseproud mother who, more often than not, finds herself alone at home with the children. When a mundane household accident forces Angela to add emergency childminding to her list of duties, a friendship begins between employer and employee. As the relationship blooms, they begin to discover that there may be more that bonds them together than just loneliness. But is this just another work-based transaction, or does it mean something else?
Directed by Edwin Mullane
Written by Lesley Conroy
Cast: Lesley Conroy (My Connection is Unstable), Carolyn Bracken (Where Still Waters Lie)

Spin
When the curtain descends on their final performance of Romeo and Juliet in drama club, high school seniors Abigail and Sky bid a fair adieu to the stage they loved while letting their most deepest desires for one another surface at the cast party.
Directed by Lisa Marie Tedesco
Written by Lisa Marie Tedesco
Cast: Courtney St. Gelais, Sierra Berkeley Fisher, JahDey Oakley Wright

Mountain
A young girl comes to a mysterious village, she lives a quiet life as a priestess. Until a special ceremony, she is gradually pushed into the abyss.
Directed by Yuwei Du
Written by Yuwei Du
Cast: Peiwen Ling, Huaguo Wang, Rongxuan Han, Chenyang Zhao, Weide Ying

Gen Alpha
A collaborative documentary project combining interviews, movement, music, and snapshots of the lives of three couples raising children of GENERATION ALPHA. They explore their fears, thoughts on the country, cultural change, and the world they want to leave their children while examining how their own beliefs and hopes have changed through the turbulence of 2020 and 2021.
Directed by Morgan Marcell
Written by Morgan Marcell and Tommar Wilson
Cast: Michael Balderrama, Liz Kimball, Mateo Balderrama, Stephanie Klemons, Colleen Quinn, Ramsey Quinn-Klemons, Macklen Quinn-Klemons, Donald Webber, Jr., Rebecca Covington Webber, Donald Webber III

I'm Not Telling You Fairy Tales
Umutcan Kılıç, who has Sma Type 2, lives in Antalya. The child, who was told by doctors that he could not even live to the age of five when he was diagnosed, is now eight years old. The biggest obstacle of Umutcan, who clings to life with the great sacrifice of his mother and the support of his sister, is the treatment process applied in Turkey.
Directed by Batuhan Kalaycı
Written by Batuhan Kalaycı
Cast: Rukiye Cop, Umutcan Kılıç, Hilal Kılıç

Living Years
Gale Williams had a happy, normal childhood in Santa Monica California. Then, in 1956, on the eve of his 18th birthday he crashed his car in a remote area of California and became a quadriplegic. In those days people with such severe injuries were only expected to live 10-15 years. To survive, mentally and physically, Gale set his mind to tackling small goals, focusing only on what he was able to do, and through a supportive family and church community, he rebuilt his life.
Directed by Brenda Gillis
Cast: Gale Williams

Our Story - The Indigenous Led Fight to Protect Greater Chaco
Over 90% of the available lands in the Greater Chaco have already been leased for oil and gas extraction. Over the course of three years, Navajo and Pueblo leadership have been intimately collaborating to tell their stories in this film as they struggle to protect what little remains of this sacred landscape, including the World Heritage Site Chaco National Historical Park in the SW United States.
Directed by Michael Ramsey, Daniel Tso (Navajo Nation)
Written by Michael Ramsey, Sonia Grant, Daniel Tso (Navajo Nation), Julia Bernal (Sandia Pueblo)
Cast: Julia Bernal (Sandia Pueblo), Kendra Pinto (Navajo Nation), Secretary Deb Haaland (Laguna Pueblo), Janene Yazzie (Navajo Nation), Hazel James (Navajo Nation), Mario Atencio (Navajo Nation), Samuel Sage (Navajo Nation), Governor of Acoma Brian Vallo, Robert Tohe (Navajo Nation), Louise Benally (Navajo Nation), Somah Haaland (Laguna Pueblo), Daniel Tso (Navajo Nation)

Lulu and the Girls of Americus, Georgia 1963
A documentary telling the stories of how young people in the small rural town of Americus, Georgia got involved in a civil rights demonstration against a local theater. Once arrested thirty-two girls were isolated and imprisoned in a deserted civil war era prison for forty-five days.
Directed by Richard J. McCollough and Travis W. Lewis
Written by Richard J. McCollough
Cast: Tameca L Edwards, Shaylon Maye, Angelica Wilson, Tamra Crawford, Chenoa Maye, Sharee J Burroughs

The Exchange. In White America. Kaukauna & King 50 Years Later
The high school student exchange between a mostly Black high school and an all-white high school in 1966.
Directed by Joanne l Williams
Written by Joanne l Williams, Gary Reistad, Kathleen Tank
Cast: Phyllis Lawhorn Wilson, Joe McCarty, Allen Kemp, Linda Plutchak, Bill Derricks

Seven Square Miles
When a small New Jersey city realizes it cannot solve the epidemic of gun violence by arresting their way out of the problem - they try another strategy. With funding from the Attorney General's office, the city pilots a program to support those who are at risk for reentering the criminal justice system.
Directed by LJ Frizell
Cast: Abdul Muhammad, Alexis Durlacher, Heather Camp, Sandy Gibson, Paul Baldwin

Grandma's Roses
A raw, intimate documentary exploring the labor & love women invest in their families and communities. As the director processes the life of his own grandmother, he travels across the country to hear the stories of dynamic, wise, and courageous women who've lived boldly in the face of sexism and racism.
Directed by Jordan Thierry
Cast: Dr. Connie Wun, Rita Chambliss, Emma Garcia Ortega, Jeraldine Watts, Rosa Linda Argueta, Rena Jordan, Julie Brown Houston, Louise Wilder, Ollie Thierry, Byron Thierry, Trudy Thierry, Aaron Brown, Rogetta Glover, Alisha Hines, Jordan Thierry

Previous season schedule