US Indies
Fresh styles and new schools of cinematic expression have the power to wake us from any cliched drama-stupor as they defiantly re-define tomorrow’s mainstream. In all their diversity Andrea Arnold, Sean Baker, Julie Bertuccelli, Lizzie Borden, Charles Burnett, Terence Davies, Cheryl Dunye, Rolf de Heer, Ira Sachs, Patrick Wang, and many, many others share the work of waking us up.
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The Exiles
Directed by Kent Mackenzie • Documentary • With Yvonne Williams, Homer Nish, Tom Reynolds
• 1961 • 72 minutesThe Exiles chronicles a night in the life of young Native Americans who fled reservation life to roam the Bunker Hill district of Los Angeles. Outside filmmaker Kent Mackenzie crafted ...
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Bless Their Little Hearts
Directed by Billy Woodberry • Drama • With Nate Hardman, Kaycee Moore • 1983 • 80 minutes
Searching for steady work, Charlie (Nate Hardman) views his chronic unemployment as a kind of spiritual trial. But selling a few catfish can’t sustain a family of five while his wife, Andais (Kaycee Moore)...
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The Connection
Directed by Shirley Clarke • Drama • With William Redfield, Warren Finnerty, Roscoe Lee Browne • 1961 • 110 minutes
Created by director Shirley Clarke at a time when female filmmakers were in short supply, The Connection shatters stereotypes to become one of the most vital American independent ...
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Born in Flames
Directed by Lizzie Borden • Drama • With Honey, Adele Bertaei, Jeanne Satterfield, Flo Kennedy, Ron Vawter, Eric Bogosian • 1983 • 80 minutes
The movie that rocked the foundations of the early indie film world, this provocative, thrilling classic is a fantasy of female rebellion set in America t...
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David Holzman's Diary
Directed by Jim McBride • Drama • With Eileen Dietz, Kit Carson • 1967 • 73 minutes
David Holzman's Diary is one of the most influential films of the 1960s, an "ingenious puzzle movie" (Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader) that charts the self-destruction of a media-saturated youth. As news from the Viet...
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The Midnight Swim
Directed by Sarah Adina Smith • Drama • With Lindsay Burdge, Jennifer Lafleur, Aleksa Palladino • 2014 • 84 minutes
Spirit Lake is unusually deep. No diver has ever managed to find the bottom, though many have tried. When Dr. Amelia Brooks disappears during a deep-water dive, her three daughters...
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The Immaculate Conception of Little Dizzle
Directed by David Russo • Drama • With Marshall Allman, Jeanette Maus • 2009 • 97 minutes
After losing his cubicle job as a data manager in Seattle, spiritually confused Dory feels like his life is going down the drain. He plummets from white collar to brown collar when he is forced to take a jo...
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Keep the Lights On
Directed by Ira Sachs • Drama • With Thure Lindhardt, Zachary Booth; Julianne Nicholson • 2012 • 106 minutes
Keep the Lights On chronicles an emotionally and sexually charged journey of two men in New York City through love, friendship, and addiction. Documentary filmmaker Erik (Thure Lindhardt)...
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Funny Ha Ha
Directed by Andrew Buljalski • Drama • With Kate Dollenmayer, Christian Rudder, Mark Herlehy • 2002 • 83 minutes
Marnie is 23, and drifts through "Funny Ha Ha," Andrew Bujalski's critically acclaimed debut feature, in search of romance and employment. The film's conversations sound improvised an...
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Dance Party USA
Directed by Aaron Katz • Drama • With Cole Pensinger, Anna Kavan, Brendan McFadden • 2006 • 66 minutes
Apathetic seventeen-year-old Gus hangs around doing nothing with his buddy Bill most of the time. Gus likes to tell half-true stories about all the girls he’s slept with and all the drugs he’s ...
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Ham on Rye
Directed by Tyler Taormina • Drama • With Haley Bodell, Audrey Boos, Danny Tamberelli • 2020 • 85 minutes
Ham on Rye, a coming-of-age comedy centered on the nervous excitement of youth and the strange horror of entering adulthood uses an expansive ensemble of over one hundred performers, includi...
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You Go to My Head
Directed by Dimitri de Clercq • Drama • With Delfine Bafort, Svetozar Cvetkovic, Arend Pinoy, Omar Sarnane, Laurence Tremolet • 2018 • 120 minutes
This award-winning, critically lauded thriller begins in a desolate stretch of the Sahara, where a mysterious car accident leaves a young woman lost ...
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Starlet
Directed by Sean Baker • Drama • With Dree Hemingway, Besedka Johnson • 2012 • 103 minutes
Starlet explores the unlikely friendship between 21 year-old aspiring actress Jane (Dree Hemingway) and elderly widow Sadie (Besedka Johnson) after their worlds collide in California’s San Fernando Valley....
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Ape
Directed by Joel Potrykus • Drama • With Joshua Burge, Gary Bosek, Daniel Falicki • 2013 • 86 minutes
Trevor Newandyke is a struggling comedian and a pyromaniac. Not only does he bomb on stage, but he bombs in everyday life. He's fed up with threats from the cable company, Slurpee price hikes an...
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Gabi on the Roof in July
Directed by Lawrence Michael Levine • Drama • With Sophia Takal, Lawrence Michael Levine, Brooke Bloom, Louis Cancelmi, Kate Lyn Sheil, Amy Seimetz, Lena Dunham • 2017 • 101 minutes
A portrait of young New York and the misguided hopefuls who can't afford to live there but do anyway, Gabi on the ...
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Francine
Directed by Brian M. Cassidy and Melanie Shatzky • Drama • With Melissa Leo • 2012 • 74 minutes
After years of incarceration, a quiet, lonely woman, Francine (Academy Award® winner Melissa Leo), is released to start a new life in a small, rural town. But despite opportunities for warmth and conn...
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Redlegs
Directed by Brandon Harris • Drama • With Andrew Katz, Evan Louison, Nathan Ramos • 2012 • 67 minutes
A comedic drama set amongst grieving twenty-something man-boys in the industrial Midwest whose black friend was recently murdered in a historically troubled part of Cincinnati, Ohio.
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Shit Year
Directed by Cam Archer • Drama • With Ellen Barkin, Luke Grimes, Bob Einstein • 2011 • 95 minutes
A renowned actress, Ellen Barkin, abandons her successful acting career for a secluded life in the hills where reality becomes inseparable from unhinged obsessions in a hallucinatory struggle to rec...
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We Go Way Back
Directed by Lynn Shelton • Drama • With Amber Hubert, Maggie Brown, Kate Bayley • 2006 • 79 minutes
Lynn Shelton's debut feature draws on her past as a stage actress but WE GO WAY BACK is no autobiographical drama. Kate (Amber Hubert) is a struggling actress who has given up her happiness and he...
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You Won't Miss Me
Directed by Ry Russo Young • Drama • With Stella Schnabel, Greta Gerwig, Joe Swanberg • 2011 • 81 minutes
A kaleidoscopic portrait of Shelly Brown, an urban misfit recently released from a psychiatric hospital. The film is an evocative picture of a contemporary rebel and gives pathos to the fren...
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Happy Cleaners
Directed by Julian Kim, Peter S. Lee • Drama • With Hynaghwa Lim, Charles Ryu, Yun Jeong, Yeena Sung • 2020 • 98 minutes
When a new landlord comes around, Mr. and Mrs. Choi find their dry cleaning business, Happy Cleaners in Flushing, Queens, in jeopardy of closing after 17 years. While they mak...
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Lake Los Angeles
Directed by Mike Ott • Drama • With Corina Calderon, Roberto 'Sanz' Sanchez • 2016 • 85 minutes
A middle-aged Cuban man and a ten-year-old Mexican girl bond over being away from home in the hopeless back-drop that is Lake Los Angeles.
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The Retrieval
Movie
Directed by Cris Eska • Drama • With Keston John, Tishuan Scott, Ashton Sanders • 2016 • 92 minutes
1864: as war ravages the nation, on the outskirts of the civil War, it is business as usual for slave-owners and traders. The Retrieval follows Will (Ashton Sanders), a fatherless thirteen-year-ol...
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As Good As You
Directed by Heather de Michele • Drama • With Laura Heisler, Anna Fitzwater, Raoul Bhaneja, Bryan Dechart, Annie Potts • 2017 • 85 minutes
Jo (Laura Heisler) is having a bad year. She has major writer's block, a rather dire caffeine addiction and is deeply mourning the untimely death of her bea...