Nowness

A young astrophysicist in a war-torn country watches the stars and black holes, holding a dialogue with her unborn daughter about the nature of light and darkness.

Artist and filmmaker Quentin Jones joins forces with Miley Cyrus in a kinky collaboration, stripping away the pop phenomenon's cartoonish persona in "Miley Cyrus: Tongue Tied".

Lou, a teenage tomboy in a small Californian town, idolizes her single father. When he has a date over one night and she is cast out of the house, Lou wanders to the outer reaches of town and into a new era of teenage identity.

“Sex work. The phrase evokes so much emotion, yet we understand it so poorly,” rising director Yago Hunt-Laudi wrote on an Instagram post celebrating the premiere of his new film, The Chrysalis. In this documentary profile, he paints an intimate portrait of stripper Haley Rolland, a young woman from Missouri who speaks about taking control of her body and the difficulties she encountered during the pandemic.

A frazzled adulteress played by Parisian beauty Zoë Le Ber wakes up in the familiar surroundings of Bar Chateau Marmont, only to find herself trapped in a prank at the hands of her restaurant-owner lover, Fred.

What does it mean to be goth—to be an outsider, to live both on the margins and in the midst of society? Filmmakers Jordan Hemingway and Alban Adam prize open the coffin on a world of darkness and light, exploring its multiplicities and intersections with subcultures and the ever-present experience of queerness.

Sohaila, Zahra and Zeinab train every day. Their dream is to become professional fighters and to show the world that all people are equal. Director Lukas Tielke and his team spent a week in Malakasa refugee camp, outside Athens, getting to know these inspirational young Afghan women.

A master of sound at work on a fashion film. If you’ve ever wanted to see the chasm between the finished product and the extraordinary lengths taken to produce it, this short is for you.

In this film, Pastor George of First African Baptist Church lends us his wisdom and experience of leading a congregation through the most turbulent year in living history. “I admired everything about that man, from his shoes to how he kissed my grandmother's hand,” says Lucas. “When Covid first hit, the cloud of isolation, ironically, drove me to reconnect with a place where Black folks have always found solace and care; our churches.”

Two girls find themselves locked in an Oslo public swimming hall and bond over school gossip, boys and dancing to the psychedelic sounds of Lindstrøm.

Richard Herrera is a champion swimmer from Coahuila, Mexico, who has won gold at numerous international events. Earnest, passionate and devoted to his parents, the young man proves to his family and peets, that Down’s Syndrome does not get in the way of achieving your dreams. Director Ariel Danziger took a very different approach to the filming of Ritmo del Agua. It’s light-footed, monochrome depiction of Herrera’s interior world is a far cry from the glossy, cinematic pacing of previous projects, such as Somewhere and Jamila. Instead, Danziger shoots straight for the heart in a pared-down documentary profile stitched together using the protagonist’s emotional bonds.

There are houses, and then there’s Ricardo Bofill’s house: a brutalist former cement factory of epic proportions on the outskirts of Barcelona, Spain. A grandiose monument to industrial architecture in the Catalonian town of Sant Just Desvern, La Fabrica is a poetic and personal space that redefines the notion of the conventional home. “Nowadays we want everyone who comes through our door to feel comfortable, but that's not Bofill’s idea here,” says filmmaker Albert Moya, who directed latest installment of In Residence. “It goes much further, you connect with the space in a more spiritual way.” Rising above lush gardens that mask the grounds’ unglamorous roots, the eight remaining silos that once hosted an endless stream of workmen and heavy machinery now house both Bofill’s private life, and his award-winning architecture and urban design practice.

Face to Face is an online made-to-order project created in response to the current global crisis. After a virtual consultation with Nakazato, a client will ship a simple, white shirt to the designer’s atelier in Tokyo. Based on the client’s backstory, interests and personality, Nakazato will reimagine and redesign the shirt, returning it to them as a completely new garment. This intimate and immersive experience takes fashion back to its purest form, where materials come together to tell a story about the wearer.

Emerging filmmaker Jade Ang Jackman shares a fierce new film about Olympian fencer Ysaora Thibus and her journey to the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. The Countdown consists of archive footage of Thibus in training, a stylized sequence that isolates the fencing lunge, and a self-shot video diary that gives viewers an insight into the athlete’s tireless training practice and what it takes to compete at an elite level.

Le Labo Fragrances takes us on an intimate journey to the Australian bush to visit the source of its soulful Sandalwood scents in Western Australia, a region renowned for its rugged landscapes, tidal flats and staggering coastlines. The Language of the Trees started life as an elevated documentary on the rhythm and processes of a sustainable sandalwood plantation in Australia, where one can find the source of the sandalwood oil that creates the heady fragrance combinations in Le Labo’s iconic collection of 18 eau de parfums.

In the indigenous communities around the town of Juchitán, the world is not divided simply into males and females. The local Zapotec people have made room for a third category, which they call “muxes” - men who consider themselves women and live in a socially sanctioned limbo between the two genders.

Two Asian-American teenagers meet in the bathroom of a Chinese restaurant while having dinner with their families.

Arab-American filmmaker Yumna Al-Arashi embraces the rhythmic rituals that have run alongside Islamic tradition throughout the centuries in this surreal and poetic short film. Piecing together old and new, Al-Rashi's dream-like imagery breathes fresh air to a subject hardly seen in positive light.

A moving recording of the late writer and renowned jazz singer Abbey Lincoln is captured in this new film from Brooklyn-born director Rodney Passé, who has previously worked with powerhouse music video director Khalil Joseph. Reading from her own works, Lincoln’s voice sets the tone for a film that explores the African American experience through fathers and their sons.