By: Al B.
LAST SUMMER OF NATHAN LEE
Margin Films
Available In Theaters and Digital now
Nathan Lee (Harrison Xu), an API teenager, finds out that he has brain cancer right before he turns 18 and vows to live the remains of his life with passion… and refuses to die a virgin. Knowing that his gay best friend, Dash (Matthew Mitchell Espinosa), wants to become a filmmaker, Nathan offers himself as a documentary subject to Dash, who is also in love with Nathan.
HANDS THAT BIND
Dark Sky Films
Available on In Theaters & VOD Now
Hands that Bind is a slow burn prairie gothic drama set in the 1980s in small town Alberta. Andy, a hired farmhand, is dreaming of a better way of life. Andy devotes himself to working another man’s land, trying to establish new roots with his wife Susan and their children, with the hope that this land might one day be his.
AN EYE FOR AN EYE
Well Go USA Entertainment
Available on Digital, Blu-ray/DVD now
#Eyeforaneyetheblindswordsman @WellGoUSA
After stumbling into the aftermath of a brutal attack that resulted in an innocent man’s murder, a highly trained and exceptionally deadly swordsman temporarily sets aside life as a bounty hunter to investigate. As the truth behind the tragedy comes to light, the former killer-for-hire decides to hunt down his prey for an entirely different reason: rage.
ESTUARIES
Ariztical Entertainment
Available on VOD & Digital now
ESTUARIES is set in 2017, months after a car crashed through the front window of a Los Angeles art space, killing Bdalak, a rising nonbinary performance artist. Bdalak’s partner Eli (Lior Shamriz), a queer Mizrahi musician with a past as an activist in Israel, planned to marry them for a green card and now spends his time adrift, communing with others over his grief and struggling with his visa. He soon meets Myrna, an artist making work about immigration, whom he feels can help solve his situation.
THE JOB OF SONGS
Gravitas Ventures
Available on Digital Platforms now
Tourists flock to the west coast of Ireland to take in the breathtaking Cliffs of Moher, but the real treasure lies in the soulful, acoustic sounds wafting out of pubs and living rooms of Doolin, County Clare. The denizens of this unspoiled coastal village of tight-knit neighbors and unlocked doors revel in the passion and history of their traditional folk songs, using music as a thread through generations to create community, connection, and joy.
THE EQUALIZER 3
Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Available on Digital & DVD Now
Since giving up his life as a government assassin, Robert McCall (Denzel Washington) has struggled to reconcile the horrific things he’s done in the past and finds a strange solace in serving justice on behalf of the oppressed. Finding himself surprisingly at home in Southern Italy, he discovers his new friends are under the control of local crime bosses. As events turn deadly, McCall knows what he has to do: become his friends’ protector by taking on the mafia.
SHARE?
XYZ Films
Available in Select Theaters and Digital/VOD now
Grappling with a flickering, faulty memory of his life before, the film’s nameless protagonist (Melvin Gregg) discovers that his unseen audience seems to reward most highly his moments of humiliation and pain. Building off this realization, he crafts a self-destructive comedic persona that allows him to not just survive, but thrive in his new world.
THERE GOES THE NEIGHBORHOOD
IndiePix Films
Available on DVD/Digital now
Gentrification is not a new phenomenon. In fact, New Yorkers have been talking about gentrification ever since the term was first coined in the 1960s. But over the decades, as more and more wealthy real estate developers and giant corporations have sought to reconstruct urban landscapes for economic gain, what was once a process of gradual change has turned into a nightmare of radical transformation and displacement. New York City is currently undergoing a period of “hyper-gentrification” unlike anywhere else in the world, and THERE GOES THE NEIGHBORHOOD, presents a portrait of the communities and activists who are courageously fighting back against the powers of greed and corruption in order to preserve the diversity and culture of their city.
RETURN TO DUST
Film Movement
Available on DVD/Digital now
In rural Gaotai county, tow lonely, middle-aged outcasts are pushed into an arranged marriage by their families. Ma is a humble farmer with little to offer his timid and sickly wife, Cao, except for a small abandoned house on a barren patch of land. From just a few seeds, their newly planted crops take root and flourish; and similarly, an unexpected bond between the two starts to blossom. As seasons pass their dedication to each other grows stronger, but change and adversity soon threaten the idyllic existence they share.
FIRELINE
Gravitas Ventures
Avaialble on Digital Platforms now
FIRELINE takes audiences into the firescape, to feel for the first time what those fighting these blazes face, especially as climate change makes megafires larger and more frequent. It’s an intimate portrait of a system stretched to its breaking point, revealing the friendship, heartbreak, and exhilaration experienced by those who go to war against this elemental force.