Cinemafile

In October 1985, Santa Ana, California was shaken by a brazen act of political violence when Palestinian American Alex Odeh, a beloved teacher and community leader, was killed by a tripwire bomb planted in his office. Despite substantial evidence and identified suspects, the case was never solved. Who Killed Alex Odeh? reopens the mystery, tracking a renewed investigation in real time as new leads emerge, long-buried records come to light, and the forces behind a political assassination are finally confronted. Unfolding like a detective thriller, the film weaves archival footage, firsthand testimony, and new reporting to expose the violent fundamentalist networks behind the attack and the institutional failures that protected them. As the investigation deepens, the story widens to reveal how the extremist ideology that fueled Odeh’s murder did not disappear - it evolved, gaining traction and legitimacy in the modern political landscape. Directed by Jason Osder and William Lafi Youmans, a Jewish American and a Palestinian American, Who Killed Alex Odeh? is both a gripping cold-case pursuit and a timely examination of political violence, asking what it means when acts of terror go unresolved, and how justice denied continues to shape the world we live in.

About the filmmaker - Jason Osder (co-director/producer) is the director of LET THE FIRE BURN. It premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and went on to play more than 50 film festivals and won the best editing prize at RIDM, the IDA Prize in Editing, the Cinema Eye Honor for Editing and the Independent Spirit Truer than Fiction Award. Jason is Associate Professor at The George Washington University.

About the filmmaker - William Youmans (co-director/producer) is an Associate Professor in Residence Northwestern University in Qatar. Youmans holds a Ph.D. as well as a J.D. He sits on the board of the Arab America Foundation. As an experienced researcher on Arab American history and Middle East politics, he is the project’s subject-matter expert on Alex Odeh.

Kallia and Ram are at their wits' end with their sleepless baby when they realize Kallia’s Greek mother is on a secret mission to exorcise the family from the evil eye. Trapped between the pressures of new age parenting, old world superstitions, and meddling in-laws, they fight to hold onto their dreams. Inspired by the cultural clash that took place after moving into the same Manhattan apartment building as Shaw’s parents shortly before their son’s birth, filmmakers Shaw and Kamalakanthan turn the lens on themselves as new parents Kallia and Ram—roles that they originated in their award-winning lo-fi comedy New Strains (2023 IFFR Special Jury Award winner) that represent loose alternative versions of themselves.

About the filmmakers - Struck by a lack of authentic films about new parenthood and the world of infants more generally, the married filmmaking couple sought to capture the experience of making a movie while in the midst of childcare. Further adapting to real-life conditions, the film incorporated the needs of Shaw’s mother, who suffers from a neurological disorder and blindness. Shot over three months in and around their New York apartment with improvised dialogue and no crew, the production worked around the baby’s schedule and the filmmakers’ day jobs.

Nearly a decade before Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert came under attack for their political humor, an unknown comedian from Ohio finds himself in even more serious trouble for making fun of the government. Crime & Parody follows the story of Anthony Novak, an amateur comedian who creates a parody Facebook page mocking his local police department. The page is satire, but the police take it very seriously. They raid Anthony’s home, throw him in county jail, and charge him with a felony punishable by up to 18 months in prison. Soon national headlines mushroom and The Onion head writer Mike Gillis authors the satirical publication's first-ever brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in defense of parody. Anthony’s case helps raise questions that continue to grow more urgent: how do you hold the government accountable in a system that punishes those who exercise their First Amendment rights while law enforcement is protected by expanded qualified immunity? Crime & Parody director Will Thwaites joins us for a spirited conversation on the why and how of restricting our basic, constitutionally protected civil rights is not funny, at all.

About the filmmaker - Will Thwaites is a documentary filmmaker based in Brooklyn, New York. He's worked on projects for Netflix, Amazon, National Geographic, and PBS. Will was a producer on the acclaimed Netflix series: Full Swing and My Next Guest with David Letterman. He started his career at Kartemquin Films (Oscar-nominated producers of Minding the Gap and Hoop Dreams) where he worked on the Emmy Award-winning film, The Homestretch.

The Other Roe uncovers the powerful, long-overlooked story behind Doe v. Bolton, the historic Supreme Court case that was decided on the same day as Roe v. Wade yet has been largely erased from public memory. While Roe became a national symbol, Doe quietly provided the broader legal framework that shaped reproductive rights for generations. The film centers on Margie Pitts Hames, a trailblazing civil rights attorney whose courage and brilliance were essential to the modern fight for bodily autonomy. Through archival footage, intimate interviews, and contemporary reflections, THE OTHER ROE traces Hames’s journey as she takes on a segregated hospital system, challenges the state of Georgia, and stands before the United States Supreme Court to argue a case that would redefine the meaning of “medical necessity” and expand access to abortion nationwide. As the nation revisits battles over reproductive freedom, The Other Roe brings forward the missing chapter of this landmark moment. The film restores recognition to the women who fought and paid dearly for rights that are once again under threat. The Other Roe is a reclamation of legacy, a re-examination of justice, and a reminder that history is never complete until all its voices are heard. Director Wendy Eley Jackson and Executive Producer Donia Hames Robinson stops by to discuss the importance of the often overlooked Doe V Bolton decision is and how it the legal principles brought to bear are more important then ever.

SMILE…the Worst is Yet to Come tells the story of Elder Millenial’s, BEN and BIRDIE, who are feeling the pressure of time. After closing his bar and suffering a heart attack-ish incident, Ben is struggling to find his purpose. Birdie put her photography ambitions on hold to be the financially “stable one” as a nurse, but is secretly exploring creative pursuits. Several failed IVF attempts have driven a wedge between them. They retreat to Big Bear Lake to reignite romantic sparks, but their efforts fail every time. Things get further upended when they meet JANUARY and JEREK, early-20s, Gen-Z influencers looking for content. Joining us is the Director Chloe Lenihan, as well as the writer and co-lead actor Joseph Mancuso.

About the filmmaker - Chloe Lenihan is a writer, director, producer, and actor based in Los Angeles. She holds an M.F.A. in Creative Producing from Columbia University. Her thesis film, How Far She Went, garnered many accolades including “Best Female Student Filmmaker” by DGAEast and “Best Student Film” at BendFilm Festival before its broadcast premiere on KQED’s “Film School Shorts” series, hosted by PBS. Chloe co-wrote, directed, and starred in the dark comedy All-American Sex Offender, which won “Best Web Series” at HollyShorts Film Festival and is currently streaming on Amazon Prime. She has participated in Stowe Story Lab, and Cine Qua Non’s Storylines and Revision Labs with her feature script Metanoia.

About the filmmaker - Writer/ Lead Actor “Ben”/ Executive Producer Joseph Mancuso is a Los Angeles based actor, writer, and editor. He spent 20 years in theater, performing on renowned NYC stages like The Cherry Lane and The Public, starring in Hanoch Levin’s American debut, Retzach. His TV and film credits include The Blacklist, Blue Bloods, Shades of Blue, and Pee Wee’s Big Holiday. As a producer and editor, Joseph has worked on projects for A&E, National Geographic, and Netflix, including the docuseries Against the Odds, which has 8 million YouTube views.

Currently available on HBO, director Jan Czarlewski’s riveting documentary film 33 PHOTOS FROM THE GHETTO tells the story of the only known photographs from inside the Warsaw Ghetto during the April 1943 uprising and its brutal repression that were not taken by German forces. The images, taken secretly by 23-year-old Polish firefighter Leszek Grzywaczewski, who witnessed the devastating response to the uprising as a member of the Warsaw Fire Service, present a rare civilian account of one of World War II’s darkest moments. The film traces two families, one of which is Jewish, who preserved the images for decades but hadn’t brought them to light. 80 years after their creation, the son of the photographer finds the forgotten negatives and launches an investigation. With a team of researchers, archivists, and animators who use near-forensic precision to reconstruct locations and contexts, they trace the circumstances of those tragic days and the lives captured in each frame. Director Jan Czarlewski joins us to talk about the many twists and remarkable turns that led to the discovery of these devastating photos and the courageous civilians who kept these photos from being lost forever.

Award-winning director Kim A. Snyder’s THE LIBRARIANS is four-alarm siren alerting us to nationwide campaign, funded by shadowy network of special interests to censor and deny Americans access to many of the most consequential books and historical information from world celebrated and renown authors, scientists and historians. THE LIBRARIANS highlights a concerted effort in Texas to restrict, ban and censor books and the so-called “Krause List”, a list of 850 books focused on race and LGBTQIA+ stories. After a Texas House Representative issued a list of these books to be removed from school libraries, Librarians across the state found themselves at the center of what has become a large-scale coordinated conservative movement against freedom of information. With unique access to a new movement in the making, THE LIBRARIANS traverses small-town USA with riveting interviews and troves of archival material to reveal the story of the country’s heroic librarians, who have become unlikely defenders of democracy, risking everything to uphold our most fundamental right. Joining us in conversation is The Librarians director Kim A. Snyder, an Academy Award® nominee and Peabody Award-winning Director / Producer. Her Oscar-nominated short DEATH BY NUMBERS, co-created with gun-violence survivor Sam Fuentes, has won multiple awards. Snyder’s acclaimed films include US KIDS (Sundance 2020), LESSONS FROM A SCHOOL SHOOTING (Netflix Original), and NEWTOWN (Sundance 2016, Peabody Award, PBS)

PAYING FOR IT is a live-action adaptation of acclaimed alternative-cartoonist Chester Brown’s best-selling graphic novel. In the late 90s, Chester and Sonny are a long-term, committed, romantic couple. When Sonny wants to redefine their relationship, Chester, an introverted cartoonist, starts sleeping with sex workers and discovers a new kind of intimacy in the process. PAYING FOR IT is about love, sex and non-monogamy for adults. It deals with the complicated subject of the exchange for sex-work versus the complications of romantic love. The movie celebrates the vibrant underground comic and zine era through the experiences of cartoonist Chester Brown. PAYING FOR IT was Executive Produced by John Cameron Mitchell (Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Shortbus) Our guest on this edition of Cinemafile is director Sook-Yin Lee who goal with the film was to connect the past with the present by bringing together emerging comic actors, performance artists, authors, activists and multimedia creators in front of and behind the camera.

About the filmmaker - SOOK-YIN LEE (Writer, Director, Co-Producer) is a Toronto-based filmmaker, musician, actor and broadcaster (CBC, BBC, MuchMusic). She starred in Shortbus, the ground-breaking 2SLGBTQ movie directed by John Cameron Mitchell that premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. Her feature film writer and directorial debut, Year of the Carnivore, starring Cristin Milioti, premiered at TIFF. In 2014, Lee won the Canadian Screen Award for Best Performance by a Lead Dramatic Actress in Jack and went on to write and perform Unsafe for Canadian Stage, which examined questions of censorship and artistic freedom. She won Best Director and Best Picture at the 2018 Downtown Los Angeles Film Festival for Octavio is Dead! --a ghost story starring Sarah Gadon and Rosanna Arquette. Death and Sickness, her feature movie made with Dylan Gamble, streams on CBC Gem. She acts in Darkest Miriam, executive produced by Charlie Kaufman, and is set to release her experimental comedy Rest and Relax. Sook-Yin is a music recording artist and film score composer. She contributed songs to Brandon Cronenberg's horror movies Infinity Pool and Antiviral.

Getting its World Premiere at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival, JOYBUBBLES begins in the 1950s, recounting the unbelievable story of Joybubbles, (the legal name of the former Joe Engressia since 1991) as he discovers he can control the global telephone system simply by whistling a magic tone. Born blind and hungry for connection, his early obsession with the telephone sparks a subculture that shapes the future of hacking and modern technology in the 20th century. Told through vivid archival footage and Joybubbles’ own voice recordings, the film celebrates a visionary who redefined connection and challenged assumptions about disability, identity, and imagination. JOYBUBBLES pulses with the curiosity and wonder he brought to the world, brought to life by our guest, director Rachael J. Morrison’s inventive, tactile storytelling.

About the filmmaker - Rachael Morrison is a documentary filmmaker and archival producer. Her short documentary, ELVERS, premiered at the 2019 Camden International Film Festival and is featured online as part of The Atlantic Selects. She has worked as an archival producer on documentary series and feature films for HBO, Hulu, Netflix, Paramount Plus, and FX. JOYBUBBLES is her feature-length directorial debut.

Middle-aged and erratic, Oscar is a failed writer who has given up on life. Unemployed and living with family, he wanders the streets of Medellín in a drunken stupor, lamenting the state of literature in his home country, where he has succumbed to the cliché of the tortured artist. However, the opportunity to mentor a young student offers a chance at redemption, if he doesn’t screw it up first. In a performance marked by darkly comic pathos, first-time actor Ubeimar Rios stars in Simón Mesa Soto’s Un Certain Regard Jury Prize-winner A POET, a raw and riotous farce about how good deeds are often met with the universe’s idea of cruel and unusually poetic punishment. Director Simón Mesa Soto joins us for a freewheeling conversation on why he was determined to tell Oscar’s story that would resonate with a broader audience and the unexpected physicality and pathos that Ubeimar Rios brought to Oscar.

About the filmmaker - Simón Mesa Soto is a Colombian director, screenwriter and producer. He studied Audiovisual Communication at the University of Antioquia and later pursued a Master’s Degree at the London Film School. His thesis film, Leidi, won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival 2014. With his next short film, Mother, he was again selected in the Official Competition of the Cannes Film Festival 2016. Both short films were widely screened at festivals around the world. Amparo, his first feature film, premiered at the Cannes Critics’ Week 2021, where it won the Louis Roederer Foundation Rising Star Award for the its lead actress. The film has toured more than fifty film festivals around the world and has won awards in Havana, Chicago, Lima and Punta del Este, among other festivals. Amparo was the big winner of the Colombian Film Academy’s Macondo Awards 2022, winning seven awards including Best Director and Best Film. A Poet is his second feature film.