Monthly Film Festival

NewFilmmakers Los Angeles (NFMLA) DocuSlate program returns with a line-up featuring a strong focus on humanity in the face of adversity: perseverance, fighting for a cause, offering support in times of need, and building a better world in ways great and small for oneself and those around us.

Join us for a day of seven documentary programs that span the globe.

The day begins with shorts program Giving Care, a collection of stories about caregiving and working to improve the lives of others. We meet a pastor offering housing to immigrants recently released from detention, three siblings creating structure and support for one another during the absence of their mother, an unconventional couple trying to do right by one another, a death doula offering meaningful end of life care, and two-time Oscar qualifying short documentary, “Period. End of Sentence.”, is about a group of local women who is employed to produce and sell pads, offering them newfound independence and helping to de-stigmatize menstruation for all.

Next, feature documentary The Reluctant Radical follows climate change activist Ken Ward, an intriguing personality whose personal journey from leadership in environmental organizations to advocating for civil disobedience invites an audience to examine its own relationship with the knowledge of looming environmental disaster.

The third program, Fighting Hate, pairs Oscar-Qualifying short documentary Beneath the Ink, about redemption through the covering of hateful body art, with feature documentary Man on Fire, which tells the story of a preacher who self-immolated in a small Texas town in 2014 to protest its racism.

Next, Dare to Struggle, Dare to Win offers a look at a moment in the history of rampant police violence and racism in 60’s Detroit, and the radical attorney who took on the Detroit Police Department.

Easing into the evening, Shorts Program Loving Life takes us into a series of personal portraits: the passing of the torch to the next generation in a long-running family-owned small business, a man seeking to take his town’s lively bus culture to the next level, a glimpse through the eyes of a pair of puppeteers at opposite ends of their careers who desire to use their vanishing art form as a voice for their people, a young man finding his passion for music in the midst of the slum he grew up in, and a charming coming out story that spans continents and generations.

Next, RISE: The Story of Augustines offers a different kind of music documentary, with the lens squarely focused on the transformative individual struggles of two musicians and the determination that turned personal pain into music that connects with people all over the world.

Finally, the day concludes with Joe Frank – Somewhere Out There, a look into the life, work and wide-ranging cultural impact of beloved and enigmatic audio artist and public radio figure Joe Frank.