Directed by Mary Stephen • Documentary • 2026 • 109 minutes
Spanning eight decades and four continents, filmmaker and editor Mary Stephen embarks on a personal investigation into her English surname. It is not intended to be a narcissistic exploration, but rather an effort to uncover the dissonances and contradictions in our heritage that, despite our all too human desire for harmony and continuity, are the fundamental elements that shape us.
Drawing from her father’s home movies and diaries, family photographs, fragments of oral history and official archives, Stephen constructs a layered polyphonic narrative where personal memory and collective history converge. How and why did Hilda Yik and Chan Tik Fong become Hilda and Henry Stephen? PALIMPSEST: THE STORY OF A NAME assembles a delicate, fragmented mosaic meditation on reinvention, the irresistible temptation to rewrite one's story, and on the universal human impulse to fictionalize the self.
Up Next in New: Documentaries
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The Witches of the Orient
Directed by Julien Faraut • Documentary • 2021 • 100 minutes
How did a group of humble factory workers become a phenomenal sports success story and the pride of an entire nation? Julian Faraut's (John McEnroe: In The Realm of Perfection) ferociously innovative and visually stunning The Witches o...
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Burn Them
Directed by Adrián Jaime • Documentary • With Agustín Tosco, Atilio López, Elpidio Torres • 2023 • 120 minutes
The Cordobazo is a pivotal moment in Argentina's history, marking a fierce and transformative resistance against the military dictatorship of Juan Carlos Onganía in 1969. This documenta...
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Neirud
Directed by Fernanda Faya • Documentary • 2023 • 72 minutes
Neirud is a compelling documentary that unearths the lost legacy of a mysterious woman who once defied social norms and cultural boundaries. When filmmaker Fernanda Faya discovers that her late aunt—known only as Neirud—had a secret pas...
