Battles on the Astral Plane

A chronicle of a day in the life of a Palestinian cab driver in Los Angeles, DRIVING TO ZIGZIGLAND, portrays the social struggle of the Arab immigrant in post-9/11 America. A film audition typecasts Bashar to play an Al Qaeda terrorist role. The utilities are due and Bashar has twenty-four hours to make the money. For the remaining hours left until tomorrow, an unceasing flow of passengers ride in Bashar's taxi and give the Arab cabbie the run around on issues that deal with suicide bombers, George Bush, Cat Stevens, the war in Iraq, music, and world geography. Bashar's quest to make the money is won until he realizes he has to choose between the Department of Homeland Security and his family.

In the 1820s, a taciturn loner and skilled cook travels west to Oregon Territory, where he meets a Chinese immigrant also seeking his fortune. Soon the two team up on a dangerous scheme to steal milk from the wealthy landowner’s prized Jersey cow—the first, and only, in the territory.

Mildred Pierce depicts an overprotective, self-sacrificing mother during the Great Depression who finds herself separated from her husband, opening a restaurant of her own and falling in love with a man, all the while trying to earn her spoiled, narcissistic daughter's love and respect.

A near-penniless drifter's journey to Alaska in search of work is interrupted when she loses her dog while attempting to shoplift food for it.

A group of settlers traveling through the Oregon High Desert in 1845 find themselves stranded in harsh conditions.

Soon to be a father, Mark feels the pressure of domestic responsibility closing in, so he is more than happy to accept when his old friend Kurt proposes a camping trip in the Oregon wilderness. During their time together, the men come to grips with the changes in their lives and the effect on their relationship.

The story about three radical environmentalists coming together to execute the most intense protest of their lives: the explosion of a hydroelectric dam.

In the days leading up to a possibly career-changing exhibition, a sculptor navigates her relationships with family, friends, and colleagues.

A wordless portrait of sculptor Jessica Jackson Hutchins shows us the artist in the process of transforming clay into uncanny forms.

Tom Chen, an affluent Chinese American, decides to celebrate the anniversary of his divorce with a dinner party. When his intended guests cancel, he impulsively invites the two Mexican day laborers, Javier and Diego, who are working in his yard, to join him instead. But as the three men are settling into the evening, finding connections and differences in their respective American stories, two of Tom’s original guests show up after all, and the resulting clash of cultures and beliefs takes the evening to new heights—and depths—of desire, hedonism, and conflict.

A married mother of two, unexpectedly pregnant with her third child, answers the phone to hear a voice from her distant past, reconnecting with the central, though neglected, emotional anchor in her life. In the span of an 80-minute conversation, the two test the strength of a deep yet betrayed, love.