The Juniper Tree

Two women are torn between the past, with its traditions and apparent security, and the future full of uncertainty.

As a woman anxiously awaits her overdue period, she performs African-based rituals of purification. She cleans house and body, and calls on the spirits (Orishas in the Yoruba tradition), receiving much needed inspiration and assurance in a dream. The film combines beautifully intimate still and moving images of the woman’s body and home space, along with playful stop-motion sequences. —Jacqueline Stewart, UCLA Film and Television Archive

Two musicians and a roadie take money that is owed to them from a job. One flees to Mexico, and everyone has questions.

The relationship between an embittered farm woman and her orphaned niece reaches a breaking point in this dark, psychological pastoral.

A stop-motion menagerie of birds illuminate a nun’s spiritual ecstasy and terror in this experimental animated work set to the music of Christian mystic Hildegard von Bingen.

Nietzchka Keene evokes a woman’s fractured inner world in this enigmatic portrait composed in water, mirrors, and blood.

A passionate artist creates in order to release her strong pent up emotions. Themes of justice and retribution especially influence her. One night she sees a dying man in a car and decides to search for answers.

A shocking tragedy sends Mara down a path of sin, redemption, grace, and evil. Barefoot to Jerusalem is the story of a woman struggling to face her deepest desires, her darkest fears, and ultimately, the devil.