Gotham Alumni On Screen: December 2023
by The Gotham Staff on November 30, 2023 in Alumni on Screen
Welcome to Alumni on Screen, December 2023 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.
DECEMBER 1
Archangel
Metrograph
Guy Maddin, the preeminent pastiche artist/parodist of film history, takes on the war melodrama in his second feature, a story of love and death in the titular town, a hamlet in arctic Russia that finds itself overrun by Bolsheviks, White Russians, and German troops during the final days of World War I. An eerie and deadpan hilarious work which, with a shoestring budget and rapturous black-and-white photography, approximates the ultra-specific stylistic quirks of the “part-talkies” that appeared in the earliest days of sound-on-film cinema.
Directed by Guy Maddin and Produced by Greg Klymkiw.
Gotham Alum: Archangel is an alumnus of the 1990 Project Lab.
DECEMBER 1
Bad Press
DCTV Firehouse Cinema
Imagine you lived in a world where your only reliable news source became government propaganda overnight. That’s exactly what happened to the citizens of the Muscogee Nation, the fourth largest Native American tribe, in 2018. Out of 574 federally-recognized tribes, the Muscogee Nation was one of only five to establish a free and independent press – until the tribe’s legislative branch abruptly repealed the landmark Free Press Act in advance of an election. The tribe’s hard-hitting news outlet, Mvskoke Media, would now be subject to direct editorial oversight by the tribal government.
One defiant journalist refuses to accept this flagrant act of oppression. As brave as she is blunt, veracious muckraker Angel Ellis charges headfirst into battle against the corrupt faction of the Muscogee National Council. Angel and her allies rally for press freedoms by inciting a voter-supported constitutional amendment, just in time for the start of a new election cycle.
An enthralling, edge-of-your-seat nail biter that unfurls with the energy and suspense of a political thriller, Bad Press is a timely and unprecedented story about the battle for freedom of the press and against state-censored media.
Directed by Joe Peeler and Rebecca Landsberry-Baker. Produced by Conrad Beilharz, Garrett Baker and Tyler Graim.
Gotham Alum: Bad Press is an alumnus of the 2022 Documentary Lab.
DECEMBER 1
Joonam
DCTV Firehouse Cinema
Filmmaker Sierra Urich grew up in rural Vermont, a place and an upbringing far removed from Iran, the homeland of her mother, Mitra, and grandmother, Behjat. Only knowing Iran through family stories, food, and holidays, and with the prospect of travel to the country a seemingly impossible dream, she embarks on a personal quest to make sense of her fractured Iranian identity. Navigating barriers of language and culture (not to mention the complications of geopolitical conflict and displacement), Sierra turns to Mitra and Behjat to construct a moving, sometimes painful, often disarmingly funny portrait of three generations of women and their complex relationships to an Iran of the past. Named for a Farsi term of endearment, Joonam is a personal film that echoes common experiences of the Iranian diasporic community, and will speak to anyone affected by the dislocation of the immigration experience.
Directed by Sierra Urich and produced by Keith Wilson.
Gotham Alum: Joonam is an alumnus of the 2020 Project Market and a New True Stories Grantee.
DECEMBER 1
A Revolution on Canvas
Cinema Village
When the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art exhibits paintings by the acclaimed artist Nicky Nodjoumi shortly after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, religious hardliners ambush the work sparking a family journey filled with art, survival, estrangement and love. This hybrid political thriller and verité portrait dives into the mystery surrounding the “treasonous” paintings by the seminal painter who is not only one of the most celebrated Iranian modern artists, but also Sara’s father.
Directed and Produced by Sara Nodjoumi and Till Schauder.
Gotham Alum: A Revolution on Canvas is an alumnus of the 2020 Project Market and Fiscally Sponsored by The Gotham.
DECEMBER 3
A Town Called Victoria
Maysles Documentary Center
A Texas town is thrown into the national spotlight when the local mosque erupts in flames. After decades of harmony, the small Muslim community of Victoria watches their cherished place of worship reduced to ash. With the fire ruled an arson and a local man arrested as the suspect, this small South Texas town must confront its own troubled history and its consequences in the present. From the trial of the suspect to the rebuilding of the mosque, A TOWN CALLED VICTORIA presents a nuanced portrait of a community confronting hate in its own midst, and grappling with deep-seated racial, religious, political, and economic rifts to find a collective way forward.
Directed by Li Lu and produced by Anthony Padone and Li Lu.
Gotham Alum: A Town Called Victoria is an alumnus of the 2019 Television Series Lab and 2019 Project Market.
DECEMBER 3
Mayor
Museum of the Moving Image
One of the most insightful and entertaining documentaries of recent years, Mayor is a genuine political saga following Musa Hadid, the Christian mayor of Ramallah, Palestine. During his second term, Hadid’s immediate goals are repaving the sidewalks, attracting more tourism, and planning the city’s Christmas celebrations. Yet his ultimate mission is to end the occupation of Palestine. Director David Osit served as his own cinematographer for a film that’s rich with clever observation and a surprising amount of humor, offering a portrait of dignity amidst the madness and absurdity of the endless invasions that disturb a city seeking peace. Winner of a 2022 Peabody Award as well as the Grand Jury Prize at 2020 Full Frame Film Festival.
Directed and produced by David Osit.
Gotham Alum: Mayor is an alumnus of the 2019 Project Market.
DECEMBER 11
How to Have an American Baby
POV
There is a city in Southern California that is teeming with pregnant women from China. How to Have an American Baby is a kaleidoscopic voyage, told through multiple perspectives, into the booming shadow economy catering to Chinese birth tourists who travel to the U.S. on birthing vacations in order to obtain U.S. citizenship for their babies.
Directed by Leslie Tai and produced by Leslie Tai, Riel Roch-Decter, Jillian Schultz.
Gotham Alum: How to Have an American Baby is an alumnus of the 2017 Project Market.
DECEMBER 11
Metropolitan
Film Forum
“Then Tom (Clements), a quiet, middle class student with a distaste for privileged wealth, is unexpectedly adopted by a group of debs and escorts calling themselves the Sally Fowler Rat Pack, his pride and prejudice are rapidly eroded, not only by the glam sophistication of the soirées he attends in hired tux, but by the articulate, contentious conversations in which he takes part. Audrey (Farina), especially, seems a soul-mate, but Tom still nurses secret feelings for old flame Serena (Thompson), a socialite with too many strings to her beaux. Will he ditch the deb scene, find true love, or merely make it through the season unscathed?” – Geoff Andrew, Time Out (London).
Directed by Whit Stillman and produced by Jose Luis García and Whit Stillman.
Gotham Alum: Metropolitan is an alumnus of the 1989 Project Market.
DECEMBER 14
All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt
Roxy Cinema
One of the most visually striking, profoundly moving American moviemaking debuts in years, Raven Jackson’s All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt is an arresting immersion into a young woman’s inner world, filmed and edited with an extraordinary tactility and attention to the tiniest detail. This impressionistic journey skips ahead and back through decades to tell the story of Mack, whose upbringing in rural Mississippi is touched by grace, dotted with heartbreak, and always carried aloft by the surrounding natural beauty. As she ages, she loses loved ones and gains others, while making decisions that change the course of her life, and that of her beloved sister. Relying on sounds and images to tell her story, and employing minimal dialogue, Jackson has created something breathtakingly quiet and ultimately transporting—a spiritual tribute to the moments, feelings, and connections that make a life. An A24 release.
Directed by Raven Jackson and produced by Maria Altamirano, Mark Ceryak, Barry Jenkins, and Adele Romanski.
Gotham Alums: All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt is an alumnus of the 2019 Project Market.
DECEMBER 15
Poison
Museum of the Moving Image
The second feature directed by Todd Haynes—the Oscar-nominated filmmaker of Far from Heaven and Carol—this groundbreaking American Indie was the most fervently debated film of the early 1990s and a trailblazing landmark of queer cinema. Inspired by the writings of Jean Genet, Poison deftly interweaves trio of transgressive tales-“Hero,” “Horror” and “Homo”-that build toward a devastating climax. A work of immense visual invention, Haynes’ spectacular follow-up to his legendary Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story is audacious, disturbing and thrillingly cinematic.
Directed by Todd Haynes and produced by Christine Vachon.
Gotham Alum: Poison is an alumnus of the 1989 & 1990 Project Market.
DECEMBER 17
Synthetic Pleasures
DCTV Firehouse Cinema
Conceived as an electronic road movie, this documentary investigates cutting edge technologies and their influence on our culture as we approach the 21st century. It takes off from the idea that mankind’s effort to tap the power of Nature has been so successful that a new world is suddenly emerging,an artificial reality. Virtual Reality, digital and biotechnology, plastic surgery and mood-altering drugs promise seemingly unlimited powers to our bodies, and our selves. This film presents the implications of having access to such power as we all scramble to inhabit our latest science fictions.
Directed by Iara Lee and produced by George Gund.
Gotham Alums: Synthetic Pleasures is an alumnus of the 1994 Project Market.
You can find our month-by-month Alumni on Screen blog posts here.
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]