Virtual Showing 
2020 | USA | 98 min | Documentary
Director: Sabrina Van Tassel
Producer: Isaac Sharry
Editor: Damien Bois

The State of Texas vs Melissa explores the life journey of Melissa Lucio, the first Hispanic woman to be sentenced to death in the state of Texas. For ten years she has been awaiting her fate, and now faces her last appeal. No one had ever seen Melissa be violent towards her children, yet she was blamed for the daily abuse and subsequent death of her two year-old daughter, who died from blunt head trauma. Set in the heart of the Latino community of South Texas, the film takes a look at Melissa’s broken childhood, her adulthood plagued by poverty and prejudice, and the miscarriage of justice Melissa faced, from the court appointed attorney who willingly set aside evidence, to the District attorney who used her case to help his re-election. State of Melissa v. Texas is the portrait of a woman’s fight against an entire system. Official Selection at Tribeca FF 2020. Winner Best Feature Documentary at Raindance Film Festival.

Virtual Showing 
2019 | USA | 75 min | Documentary
Directors: Deborah Shaffer, Rachel Reichman (Co-Director)
Producers: Deborah Shaffer, Davina Pardo, Amy Sultan
Editor: Rachel Reichman

At 88 years-old, Audrey Flack holds a unique place in the history of contemporary art in America. Feminist, rebel, mother, painter, sculptor and teacher, Audrey’s often controversial 40-year career evolved from abstract expressionism in the 1950s to photorealism in the 1970s. One of the first women ever included in the famed Janson’s History of Art, Audrey continues to create, explore, and inspire with her unique style and indomitable spirit.

Queen of Hearts follows Flack as she takes her work in a brand new direction and reveals her long-term struggles as the mother of a child with autism. Flack has something deep and genuine to communicate to the world. She is a provocateur and a rebel, an example and an inspiration. Queen of Hearts is a moving portrait of an artist who is still testing, still experimenting, still searching.

From Academy Award-winning filmmaker Deborah Shaffer, a new documentary about the art and life of Audrey Flack.

Forbes, The Artiest Films From New York’s Documentary Film Festival: “…she has been an incredible photorealist, armed with a convincing spray brush. Now, the artist finally gets her due in this documentary.”

Virtual Showing 
2020 | Canada | 48 min | Documentary
Directors: Aisling Chin-Yee, Chase Joynt
Producer: Sarah Spring

For decades, the life of American Jazz musician Billy Tipton was framed as the story of an ambitious woman passing as a man in pursuit of a music career. In NO ORDINARY MAN, Tipton’s story is re-imagined and performed by trans artists as they collectively paint a portrait of an unlikely hero. Together, the filmmakers join Tipton’s son Billy Jr. to reckon with a complicated and contested legacy: how do you tell the story of someone who was hiding in plain sight yet desperate to be seen?

Virtual Showing 
2020 |Canada | 106 min | Documentary
Directors: Joel Bakan, Jennifer Abbott
Producers: Betsy Carson, Trish Dolman
Editor: Peter Roeck

The New Corporation reveals how the corporate takeover of society is being justified by the sly rebranding of corporations as socially conscious entities. From gatherings of corporate elites in Davos, to climate change and spiraling inequality; the rise of ultra-right leaders to COVID-19 and racial injustice, the film looks at corporations’ devastating power. Countering this is a groundswell of resistance worldwide as people take to the streets in pursuit of justice and the planet’s future.

Virtual Showing 
2018 | USA | 137 min | Narrative
Director: Maria Peters

Dutch-born 24-year-old Antonia Brico was a child when she and her parents immigrated to the United States. She dreams of becoming a conductor, but nobody takes her ambition seriously. Her piano teacher advices her against taking the entrance exam for the conservatory. Because she has little to lose, she returns to her motherland, where she begs the famous conductor Mengelberg to teach her conducting lessons. Mengelberg is not comfortable with the idea and sends her to Berlin where she, against all expectations, has a better chance as a woman to make it. After a two-year study at the State Academy of Music she becomes the first woman to conduct the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. Emotional strain threatens to overwhelm her, when the love of her life puts her in a difficult position. What choice will Antonia make? This year, for the first time in Dutch history, the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra appointed a woman as its Chief Conductor: Karina Canellakis.

Virtual Showing 
2020 | USA | 127 min | Narrative
Director: Brendan Walsh
Producers: Bradley J. Ross Molly, Conners, Amanda Bowers, Vincent Morano, Jane Oster, Keri Nakamoto
Editor: Bradley J. Ross

In 2002, a young American couple, Matthew and Naomi, travel to the arctic mountains of Norway. After pulling over during a snowstorm, they wake up trapped in their SUV, buried underneath layers of snow and Ice. As if the stakes aren’t high enough, it is revealed that Naomi is eight months pregnant in their frozen prison.

With few resources, a dwindling food supply, and nothing but time, tension, blame, and personal secrets bubble to the surface. Matthew and Naomi realize they must work together to survive in a crippling battle against the elements, hypothermia, disturbing hallucinations, and plunging temperatures reaching as low as -30C. Will they make it out of this alive? 

Virtual Showing 
2020 | USA | 123 min | Narrative
Director: Lydia Dean Pilcher
Producer: Sarah Megan Thomas

As Great Britain’s forces were stretched thin during World War II, Winston Churchill’s Special Operations Executive (SOE) began to enlist women as spies. Their daunting mission: conduct sabotage and build a resistance. Spymistress Vera Atkins, later the inspiration for Ian Fleming’s Miss Moneypenny in the James Bond franchise, was the chief recruiter for this secret army. Atkins selected two unusual candidates: Virginia Hall, an American journalist from Baltimore hampered by a wooden leg, and Noor Inayat Khan, a wireless officer of Indian descent and an avowed pacifist. Together, they worked to undermine the Nazi regime in France. The courage, sacrifices and grit of these three women helped quell the Nazi occupation – and ultimately turned the tide of the war.