Roots That Reach Toward The Sky

Filmmaker Tadashi explores his father Robert A. Nakamura's life as an influential Asian American artist and activist, while grappling with Robert's Parkinson's diagnosis, navigating themes of art, grief, and their father-son relationship.

In 1975, soon after the end of the Vietnam War, Hoa Thi Le and Hue Nguyen Che fled the country on a small boat. After nine days at sea, they docked in the Philippines, where they were utilized as background extras for “Apocalypse Now.”

What seems to be a burgeoning romance between two Indigenous people takes an unexpected turn in this bold and thrilling blend of the satirical and the sinister by writer-director ishkwaazhe Shane McSauby.

Tomás, a gay teenager from a small beach town in Chile, lives daydreaming at the beat of pop-music. During a summer day he sees his crush again, Benjamín, and encouraged by his music he jumps forward to the adventure of burgeoning first love, facing his fears and risking leaving the safe refuge of his musical and colorful world.

About the relationship between a queer Vietnamese-American teen and their Vietnamese refugee mother.

After a hurricane ravages his hometown, a grieving man breaks into an off-limits cemetery to rescue the lost remains of his brother in order to give him a proper burial.

In the rural south, a Black boy tries to fly.

In a dark bedroom, when Hollis uses breath work to soothe herself, she suddenly is transported to a desert where she encounters her wounded inner child. Over the course of a sunset, they reconcile their lost relationship.

A non-binary Chinese-American drag queen returns to their home town to confront their estranged father about the childhood memories that continues to haunt them.

RETRIEVAL is a lyrical short film that explores the process of a soul retrieval in the aftermath of sexual assault - the spiritual undertaking of bringing back a part of your soul that has been traumatically separated. Holding the line between magic, fantasy, and grounded reality, the film asks the question: what sight of miraculous intervention do we need to conduct to seam together such a violent rupture?

After surviving sexual assault, a queer Chinese-American woman struggles to tell her immigrant mother why she left school. As she disassociates, she develops the ability to teleport and must learn how to control her powers.

As rising sealevels threaten locations touched by the Pacific Ocean in Hawaiʻi, the Philippines, China, and North America, four women give offerings of music, poetry and heartfelt testimonial to preserve the volcano, ocean, air and land for future generations.

In the desert of the Payahuunadü valley (the name means “land of flowing water”) of California, a father performs butoh for the first time in front of his former prodigy rock climber child. They speak to each other through their bodies to find a way to heal their relationship and the land.

In a post-apocalyptic future, a migrant latinx man is on life support from the last plant on Earth. With only memories of his mother to guide him, he must find a way to preserve life on Earth.

When a young artist visits the studio of a charismatic artist to get her first tattoo, she is forced to confront a shared cultural secret that awakens the burgeoning force inside of her.

An African-American girl, obsessed with her hair, seeks guidance in a small fish when her mother forces her to go underwater.