By: Al B.
ALAM
Film Movement
Available on DVD now
Despite being part of a young generation of Palestinian Arabs whose families chose to stay and challenge the Israeli state after Al-Nakba, 17-year-old Tamer and his friends are just like any other group of teenage boys. They clumsily search for drugs, flirt with girls, play video games, and slack off at school. However, when a beautiful new student named Maysaa’ joins their class Tamer immediately falls for her and, by association, is drawn into her political activism. Together they join fellow classmate, Safwat, in an operation to covertly raise the Palestinian flag and peacefully disrupt the local celebrations planned for Israel’s Independence Day – otherwise known to Palestinians as a day of mourning and memorialization for their displacement 70 years prior. Unsure of his own political convictions, Tamer must quickly determine what matters to him and what price he is willing to pay for freedom.
JUNE ZERO
Film Movement
Available on Blu-ray/DVD/Digital now
Miss Novak joins the staff of an elite international boarding school to teach a new class on “conscious eating.” Athough early lectures focus on mindful consumption, Miss Novak’s discussions soon bedome increasingly disordered and extreme. A suspicious hesdmistress, concerned parents and the failing health of her impressionable students lead eveyone to question her motivations. As a few devoted pupils fall deeper under her cult-like tutelage, they are given a new, even more sinister goal to aspire to joining the omnious “Club Zero”.
JUNE ZERO
Cohen Media Group
Available in Theaters June 18
The 1961 trial of Adolf Eichmann, architect of the mass murder of the Jews during World War II, is revisited in a gripping and surprising new vision from American filmmaker Jake Paltrow. This Hebrew-language drama—based on true accounts—tells its story from the intertwined perspectives of three largely unrelated figures: Eichmann’s Jewish Moroccan prison guard; an Israeli police investigator for the prosecution and a Holocaust survivor; and a 13-year-old Jewish Libyan immigrant.
CEMETERY MAN
Ceverinfilms.com
Available now through Severinfilms.com
Rupert Everett stars as cemetery watchman Francesco Dellamorte, tasked with despatching the recently deceased when they rise from their graves. But when he falls in love with a beautidul young widow, will his resurrected lust for life become greater than his bond with death?
DONT LOOK AT ME THAT WAY
IndiePix Films
Available on DVD/Digital June 11
Hedi and single mother, Iva, live in the same building. After Hedi meets Sophia, Iva’s daughter, the two women become acquainted and eventually begin an intimate affair. And though their relationship is passionate, Hedi is also attracted to men, and Iva, desperately in love, becomes deeply jealous. It seems, however, that only one world exists for Hedi: her own. One day, Iva’s father makes plans to look after his granddaughter so the two women can spend time together, but when he doesn’t arrive, Hedi goes searching and the story takes a surprising twist.
THE FRAGILE KING
IngiePix
Available on DVD/Digital now
After the tragic death of his mother in a car accident, 15-year-old Michael King (Alex de la Rey) is sent to live with his grandfather Gerald (Andrew Buckland), whom he hardly knows. The emotional gulf between the traumatized boy and cantankerous old man is immense, but during a road trip across South Africa’s Northern Cape to reunite Michael with his estranged father, a relationship of understanding and trust slowly emerges. After going their separate ways, the two reunite a year later, and through one final unexpected journey, the King men finally come to realize a true sense of love and belonging in each other.
WALLED OFF
Watermelon Pictures
Available on VOD/Digital now
A secret museum in an art hotel located near the Israeli West Bank barrier sparks intrigue when it’s revealed to be a creation of controversial artist Banksy. In a monumental collaboration with American-Palestinian model and musician Anwar Hadid, Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters, and the grandson of former South African President Nelson Mandela, Kweku Mandela, WALLED OFF journeys through the hotel with “the worst view in the world”, as well as the Occupied Palestinian territories, and a lesser-known yet relevant past to highlight the importance of creative resistance as a form of protest.
WE GO ON
LightYear
Available on Blu-ray/DVDDigital now
Paralyzed by his fear of dying, Miles Grissom (Clark Freeman) offers a cash reward to the first person who can show him a ghost, an angel, a demon, or anything to prove the existence of an afterlife. He narrows responses down to three candidates – a scientist, a medium, and a worldly entrepreneur. And along with his fiercely protective mother (Annette O’Toole), he embarks on an adventure that will spiral into an unthinkable nightmare.
STING – @STING
@WellGoUSA
Available on Digital now and Blu-ray/DVD July 30
After raising an unnervingly talented spider in secret, 12-year-old Charlotte (Alyla Browne) must face the facts about her pet—and fight for her family’s survival—when the once-charming creature rapidly transforms into a giant, flesh-eating monster.
EDGE OF EVERYTHING
Lightyear
Available on DVD/Digital June 11
Straddling the line between childhood and adulthood, 14 isn’t an easy age for anyone, least of all Abby, who’s forced to find her way in the world after her mother’s death. On the cusp of turning 15 and at a delicate moment in life, she’s forced to move in with her father and his younger girlfriend. Feeling alone in the world, the angry and determined teen strikes up a possibly dangerous friendship with the carefree and rebellious Caroline while exploring new personas, drugs and sexual experiences on the path to finding her place in life.