Gotham Alumni on Screen: July 2025
by The Gotham Staff on July 1, 2025 in Alumni on Screen
Welcome to Alumni on Screen! To champion and signal-boost our Gotham-supported projects, at the top of each month we feature alumni making their way into the world on screens both big and small.
Roxy Cinema | July 1, 5 & 6
The film stars Amrit Kaur (The Sex Lives of College Girls) as Azra, a queer South Asian grad student who is at odds with her conservative mother (Nimra Bucha, Polite Society). Following a family tragedy in Pakistan, Azra is launched into a Bollywood-inspired journey through memories real and imagined, from her mother’s youth in 1969 Karachi to her own coming of age in rural Canada.
Directed by Fawzia Mirza. The Queen of My Dreams is an alum of the 2021 Project Market – Int’l Features.
The Queen of My Dreams premiered at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival and went on to play South by Southwest, BFI London, Cleveland, Seattle, and BlackStar, among many others.
Maysles Documentary Center | July 8, 9 & 11
Post-screening discussions with the directors and urban scholars
Over a decade, within the borders of a single Brooklyn community district, a microcosm of American democracy emerges. Residents of Sunset Park face a tangled web of rising rents, a legacy of environmental racism and the loss of the industrial jobs that once sustained their community. When a global developer purchases Industry City – a massive industrial complex on the waterfront – and begins to transform it into an “innovation district,” a battle erupts over the future of the neighborhood and of New York City itself.
Emergent City is an observational civic epic. It sheds light on power and process, illuminating systems and giving viewers a front row seat to the public and private spaces where the city is shaped. With extraordinary access, it tracks an ensemble of participants including the local council member, Industry City’s developers and community members with divergent stakes. The film explores the profound intersections of gentrification, climate crisis and real estate development, and asks how change might emerge from dialogue and collective action in a world where too many outcomes are constrained by money, politics and business as usual.
Directed by Jay Arthur Sterrenberg & Kelly Anderson. Emergent City is an alum of the 2022 Project Market – Spotlight on Docs.
Emergent City premiered at the 2024 Tribeca Festival before playing at DC/DOX and Big Sky, among others.
IFC Theater | Monday, July 14 at 7:00 PM
On-stage conversation with dir. Amber Fares & editor Rabab Haj Yahya
Disillusioned with politics, charismatic and engaging Noam Shuster Eliassi pivots to the world of stand-up comedy as a means of communicating her “radical” message that Palestinian and Israelis deserve the same equal human rights. Amber Fares’ fascinating film, alternating between hilarity and bone-shaking gravity, intersperses clips from Noam’s very funny stage performances with observational scenes of Noam interacting with her parents and her Palestinian best friend. Additionally, Noam contends with the media at large and her social media following, who are often frustratingly extreme in their attempts to pigeonhole her. Noam attracts the attention of Harvard, who funds the development of a performance project that she sassily calls, “Co-Existence, My Ass!” – a title that started as a lark, but grows to feel like a bitter pill. Through it all, Noam tries to hang on to her sanity and keep the thread of her life’s work alive.
Directed by Amber Fares. Coexistence, My Ass! is an alum of the 2021 Project Market – Spotlight on Docs.
Coexistence, My Ass! premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. It has gone on to play such festivals as CPH DOX, Full Frame, Visions du Réel, and Hot Docs, among many others.
Film Forum | Opens Friday, July 18
Q&A with filmmaker Reid Davenport
Disabled filmmaker Reid Davenport (I Didn’t See You There) trenchantly probes the legacy of Elizabeth Bouvia — a disabled California woman who, at the age of 26, sought “the right to die.” Her 1983 case provoked a national debate about the value of disabled lives, and Davenport sees echoes in chilling contemporary cases of disabled people dying prematurely — at their own hands and from a broken health care system. Through moving interviews and rich archival material, Life After looks critically at where progressive values of bodily autonomy collide with the devaluing and fear of disabled lives.
Directed by Reid Davenport. Life After is an alum of the 2022 Project Market – Spotlight on Docs.
Life After won the U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. It has gone on to play such festivals as Cleveland International, Hot Docs, and Sydney, among others.
Anthology Film Archives | July 24
Farewell Amor follows Walter, an Angolan immigrant in New York, as he reunites with his wife and daughter after 17 years apart. Though now virtual strangers, the three must navigate the tensions of living together in a small apartment. As they struggle to reconnect, a shared love of dance emerges as a powerful tool for healing, helping bridge the emotional distance shaped by years of separation, personal change, and cultural dislocation.
Directed by Ekwa Msangi. Farewell Amor is an alum of the 2018 Project Market – U.S. Features.
Farewell Amor premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival and went on to play BlackStar, BFI London, Hamptons, and Mill Valley, among many others.
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]