Gotham Alumni On Screen: August 2024
by The Gotham Staff on August 1, 2024 in Alumni on Screen
Welcome to Alumni on Screen, August 2024 edition! To champion and signal-boost our Gotham-supported projects, at the top of each month we’ll have a rundown of alumni making their way into the world on screens both big and small.
Rooftop Films | Sunday, August 4
Panel with star/executive producer Jenny Slate; writer/director/executive producer Gillian Robespierre; writer/producer Elisabeth Holm; Amy Goodman, Democracy Now! host & executive producer; and Caren Spruch, National Director, Arts & Entertainment Engagement, Planned Parenthood Federation of America
For aspiring comedian Donna Stern, everyday life as a female twenty-something provides ample material for her incredibly relatable brand of humor. On stage, Donna is unapologetically herself, joking about topics as intimate as her sex life and as crude as her day-old underwear. But when Donna gets dumped, loses her job, and finds herself pregnant just in time for Valentine’s Day, she has to navigate the murky waters of independent adulthood for the first time. As she grapples with an uncertain financial future, an unwanted pregnancy, and a surprising new suitor, Donna begins to discover that the most terrifying thing about adulthood isn’t facing it all on her own. It’s allowing herself to accept the support and love of others. And be truly vulnerable.
Written and Directed by Gillian Robespierre.
Gotham Alum: Obvious Child is an alum of the 2011 Project Market – Emerging Narrative. The film premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival and went on to become one of the most acclaimed films of the year, including receiving a Gotham Award nomination for Breakthrough Performance (Jenny Slate).
Rooftop Films | Wednesday, August 14
Followed by a Q&A
Three Promises is the story of a mother and her camera, of a son and his suppressed memories, and of an entire country. At the start of the 2000s, while the Israeli army is retaliating against the second intifada in the West Bank, Suha films her daily family life, punctuated by frequent trips underground and overwhelmed by the anguish of her two young children. At every moment of intense danger, she promises God that she will leave if they survive. In 2017, her son, the director of this film, discovers this archive and reconnects with this suppressed past, wondering with his mother what drove her to record a daily life of suffering, a stolen childhood, and why she delayed fleeing, paralyzed by the hope for change and burdened by the impossible choice between physical safety and emotional upheaval. While on the surface there emerges the heartrending portrait of everyday life in times of war, it is the staggering beauty of a mother’s love that is revealed between the lines. Blending the voice of the present with impressive family footage, Yousef completes the story begun by Suha, thus averting the act of forgetting, both personal and collective.
Directed by Yousef Srouji.
Gotham Alum: Three Promises is an alum of the 2021 Project Market – Spotlight on Docs. The film made its U.S. premiere at the 2023 Camden International Film Festival and went on to play at True/False and Sheffield Doc Fest.
Quad Cinema | Thursday, August 22 and Saturday, August 24
In Miami’s Little Haiti, Xavier (Atibon Nazaire) makes a living as a demolition worker while his wife Esperance (Sheila Anozier) holds down two jobs to sustain their cozy household. Their routine is tested when their son Junior (Chris Renois) returns home after dropping out of college. Xavier and Esperance struggle to relate with Junior, who is no longer interested in speaking Creole with them and harbors ambitions of an artistic career path they do not understand. Xavier aspires to buy a more spacious house for his family, but still wakes up every morning, goes to work, and dismantles his neighborhood brick by brick. Yet even as construction vehicles rumble down the block, Little Haiti remains a vibrant community with traditions and rhythms distinctly its own. Monica Sorelle’s tender feature debut is a multigenerational drama that deftly explores the relationships between immigrants and their children, the looming threat of gentrification, and the pursuit of the American dream. A Music Box Films release.
Directed by Monica Sorelle.
Gotham Alum: Mountains is an alum of the 2021 Project Market – US Features and the 2022 Project Market – US Features (Post). It premiered at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival.
IFC Center | Opens Friday, August 30
The most recognizable woman in technology lives in our collective imagination. Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing taught millions globally, but the software’s Haitian-born cover model vanished decades ago. Two DIY detectives search for the model while posing questions about identity and artificial intelligence.
Directed by Jazmin Jones.
Gotham Alum: Seeking Mavis Beacon is an alum of the 2021 Project Market – Spotlight on Documentaries. The film premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival and went on to screen at such festivals as True/False, San Francisco International, and Hot Docs.
Films Directed by Juan Pablo González
The Criterion Channel | Now Streaming
The rhythms, rituals, and richness of life in rural Mexico come into revelatory focus in the meditative, exquisitely observed films of Juan Pablo González. Turning his ever-patient camera on the people and landscapes of his hometown in the state of Jalisco, González works across documentary and narrative—often in collaboration with his subjects—to tell intimate stories of family, grief, and resilience that touch on wider issues of globalization, politics, and the tension between tradition and modernity. From an evocative immersion into a village haunted by suicide (CABALLERANGO) to a poignant portrait of a woman struggling to keep her tequila factory afloat (DOS ESTACIONES), González’s films counter prevailing stereotypes to show a rarely seen slice of Mexico in all its complexity.
Directed by Juan Pablo González.
Gotham Alum: Juan Pablo González was a fellow of the 2022-2023 Documentary Development Initiative. In 2015 González was named one of the “25 New Faces of Independent Film” by Filmmaker Magazine.
Alamo Drafthouse | Saturday, August 3 and Tuesday, August 6
At a remote estate in upstate New York, newlyweds Leah (Ella Rae Peck) and Shane (Rigo Garay) celebrate their honeymoon, but a pall hangs over their union. She works for the publisher who will be releasing his debut novel, a lightly autobiographical examination of family trauma, alcoholism, and the immigrant experience. Barely suppressed tensions over family trauma would be enough kindling for a blowup, but Leah and Shane’s marriage is truly tested by the appearance of two weirdos with entrepreneurial zeal and a half-baked blackmail plot: John (John Speredakos) and Rose (Lorraine Farris). They’re looking for investors for John’s latest invention, a culinary breakthrough called the Crumb Catcher — and they won’t take no for an answer. A gonzo home invasion thriller from Larry Fessenden’s Glass Eye Pix that pummels the American Dream into just desserts, Crumb Catcher is a striking directorial debut from Chris Skotchdopole.
Written and Directed by Chris Skotchdopole.
Gotham Alum: Crumb Catcher is an alum of the 2022 Project Market – U.S. Features in Post.
Alamo Drafthouse, BAM, Angelika | Opens August 1
In 2008, during the last month of summer before high school begins, an impressionable 13-year-old Taiwanese American boy learns what his family can’t teach him: how to skate, how to flirt, and how to love your mom.
Written and Directed by Sean Wang.
Gotham Alum: Dìdi is an alum of the 2022 Project Market – U.S. Features in Development.
If your project is an alumnus of The Gotham programs and is being released this month, and you do not see it listed here, please contact us at [email protected]