Directing
Isidore Bethel
Born January 1, 1989 (age 37)
Isidore Bethel is an editor, director, and producer whom Filmmaker named one of the "25 New Faces of Independent Film" in 2020. His work uses filmmaking to make sense of overwhelming experiences and touches on recurrent themes of displacement, grief, therapy, aging, trauma, and sexuality. His first feature film as director, Liam, premiered at the Boston LGBT Film Festival in 2018 and received the …
Known For
Hummingbirds · 2023Hummingbirds
★ 4.32023
MovieDocumentary
Best friends Silvia and Beba record their lives as they dance, make music, and face an uncertain immigration process in Texas near the Mexican border.
What Comes from Sitting in Silence? · 2026What Comes from Sitting in Silence?
2026
MovieDocumentary
From a cramped Mumbai storefront, Khatoon leads Mumbai's first women-led Islamic court. Amidst heated arguments and raw testimony, these female judges settle cases of domestic conflict, reclaiming religious law from male dominance to offer a new path toward grassroots justice.
Acts of Love · 2021Acts of Love
★ 4.42021
MovieDocumentaryRomance
When his older boyfriend loses interest in him, the filmmaker relocates to Chicago and uses dating apps to cast new lovers in an amorphous project that his mother hates.
Home Court · 2024Home Court
★ 9.02024
MovieDocumentary
Filmed over three years, the film follows Ashley Chea, a Cambodian-American basketball phenom. Exploring the highs and lows of her immigrant family, surmounting racial and class differences, as well as personal trials that include a devastating knee injury. Despite the intensity of basketball recruiting, Ashley’s humor shines through and her natural talent inspires the support of those around her.
Horse Wrangler · 2018Horse Wrangler
★ 6.02018
MovieDocumentary
Nando, a young horse wrangler in a rural Mexican village, has taken his own life following a disagreement with his father. Caballerango shows the boy’s family members and townspeople as they reckon with the new realities borne out of this inexplicable tragedy. Each account of Nando’s story reveals a different aspect of this rural town, which is deeply affected by modernization. The confrontation between the centuries-old ways of life and the modern-day world seems to be creating serious identity crises among the younger generation. The story is told in a patient, observational style with methodical shots of the landscape, ranches, and of the two white horses, whom Nando and his father tended to. Those horses, the last to see Nando alive, connect us to an ethereal sensation of almost otherworldly mystical beings.
The Taste of Mango · 2024The Taste of Mango
2024
MovieDocumentary
In this hypnotically cinematic love letter flowing through time and generations, director Chloe Abrahams probes raw questions her mother and grandmother have long brushed aside, tenderly untangling painful knots in her family’s unspoken past.
Hollow Tree · 2022Hollow Tree
2022
MovieDocumentary
Hollow Tree follows three teenagers coming of age in their sinking homeland of Louisiana. For the first time, they notice the Mississippi River’s engineering, stumps of cypress trees, and billowing smokestacks. Their different perspectives — as Indigenous, white, and Angolan young women — shape their story of the climate crisis.
What We Leave Behind · 2022What We Leave Behind
★ 6.32022
MovieDocumentary
At the age of 89, Julián Moreno takes one last bus ride to El Paso, Texas, to visit his daughters and their children – a lengthy trip he has made without fail every month for decades. After returning to rural Mexico, he quietly starts building a house in the empty lot next to his home. In the absence of his physical visits, can this new house bridge the distance between his loved ones?
Filmography
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