Dir. Renata Diniz (Brazil, 2019 ) 15 min / Rated G

Amani is a Muslim Pakistani girl. When she moves into her new home, she receives an unexpected gift from her Brazilian neighbour: a bikini.

Dir. Arjanmar H. Rebeta (Philippines, 2018) 15 min / Rated PG-13

An aging Caucasian has a phone conversation with his young Filipina lover who tried her best to win him and persuade to visit her country. During the conversation, he sees her beauty and contrasting social ills surrounding her until the phone is snatched making him witness an unforgettable sight.

Dir. Alexandra Lexton (Belize/USA, 2019) 67 min/ Rated

The Lure of this Land is an exploration of why people leave the places they know and love. Why do they leave their homelands? What are they looking for? What do they find? Filmmaker Alexandra Lexton came to Belize and found these stories: A story of a place, the story of others, and the more personal internal voyage of the foreigner in a foreign land. Among others, we meet people who have left everything to regenerate and rediscover themselves: Zookeeper Sharon Matola who has made the Belize Zoo out of Belize’s rescued indigenous and threatened creatures, nature documentary filmmakers Richard and Carol Foster, and eco lodge originators Mick and Lucy Fleming. Behind every door we find another story, another person who had the drive to change their life… and to risk for a time getting lost.

Dir. Edgar Soberon Torchia (Panama, 2019) 60 min / Rated G

PANAMA RADIO is the story of two girlfriends and a music store. They worked together from the 1950s to the 80s, during the peak years of recorded music sales, in a store in the center of Panama City, visited by Tito Puente, La Lupe, José José, Celia Cruz, Julio Iglesias and many other stars. It is also an account of the evolution of women’s roles in the post-war labor field in Panama, and of the boom of national orchestras and combos, as told by its two protagonists and popular artists of the times.

Dir. Alison Saunders (Barbados, Toronto, Cuba, Panama, 2018) 82 min / Rated PG

Panama Dreams transports us on the modern – day search of the filmmaker for descendants of an ancestor who left Barbados in the early 1900s to build the Panama Canal – one of the seven wonders of the modern world. She uncovers the complex history of that migration and troubling issues of race and discrimination that faced the West Indians on the Canal Zone and their descendants to the present day.

Dir. Nicole Schafer (South Africa,Sweden, 2019) 110 min / Rated PG 13

In a Chinese Buddhist orphanage in Africa, the film follows Enock Alu, a Malawain teenage from a rural village growing up between the contrasting worlds of his traditional African culture and the strict discipline of the Confucian, Buddhist value system of the Chinese. Once the start performer with dreams of becoming a martial arts hero like Jet Li , Enock, in his final year at school, has to make some touch decisions about his future and finds himself torn between returning to his relatives in the village or going abroad to study in Taiwan. Against the backdrop of China’s global rise and influence in Africa, the film is a subtle exploration of the forces of cultural soft power on the identity and imagination of an African boy and his school friends growing up between two cultures.

Dir Eli Jacobs- Fantauzzi (Cuba, 2019) 50 min Rated

Bakoso reveals the influence of contemporary African music in Cuba as not just a thing of the past, but a phenomenon happening now! This documentary produced and directed by Eli Jacobs-Fantauzzi, explores the technology, culture and landscape that forms the AfroBeats / Cuban fusion genre “bakosó”.

Dir. Eduardo Spiegeler & Maria Jose Alvarez (Nicaragua, 2018) 60 min / Rated PG-13

Carl Rigby Moses (1945 – 2017) is considered one of the pioneers of the NiCaribbean spoken word poetry. His poetic work incorporates performative elements, oscillating between social commentary and a critical dialogue with the Afro-descendant tradition of Central America. This film is the product of two years of conversations, poems, monologues and performance recorded at his home, studio or during strolls through the Old destroyed city of Managua or his native Pearl Lagoon in Nicaragua’s So.Caribbean. An attempt to capture and recover this unique discourse of this creator of words sounds and concepts. Delving into Rigby’s poetry reveals to us the wondrous voice of someone who, we feel, must be known and remembered for making his life a poetic existence.

Dir. Issa Lopez (Mexico, 2017) 84 min / Rated

A haunting horror fairytale set against the backdrop of Mexico’s devastating drug wars, TIGERS ARE NOT AFRAID follows a group of orphaned children armed with three magical wishes, running from the ghosts that haunt them and the cartel that murdered their parents. Filmmaker Issa López creates a world that recalls the early films of Guillermo del Toro, imbued with her own gritty urban spin on magical realism to conjure a wholly unique experience that audiences will not soon forget.

Dir. Che Espiritu ( Philippines, 2018) 1hr 53min/ Rated PG

A special little homeless girl (Aguy) travels about the Philippines curing the afflicted with her mysterious healing powers, until one day she befriends a sick old man (Sal) who for some perplexing reason she is unable to cure. The unlikely pair are drawn to each other with both of their lives forever changed by their unique friendship and magical journey together.

Dir. Blanca Rosa Blanco Azcuy, Alberto Luberta (Cuba,2018) 105 minutes Rated PG 17

Detective Patricia receives the news of the death of Mariano, a man whom she believes had been wrongly accused in the past. She travels to his hometown to inform the family of the news, determined to find the real culprit. There she meets Ubaldo, her former companion of the academy and who was her great love

Dir. Daniel Velasquez (Belize, 2019) 80 min/ Rated PG-13

In the late 80s Belize was victim to a crack epidemic and 10 year old Jon Deluna was abandoned by his crack addicted parents. He was adopted by his auntie and they moved to New York City were he became a young successful writer. Twenty-five years later he returns to Belize to write his next novel but is haunted by his horrible childhood memories and can’t find new inspiration. He struggles to write a new novel but his depression sends him on a 3 day drinking binge that makes him suicidal. Even though he is surrounded by nature loving artist childhood friends and a loving wildlife vet girlfriend who all try to save him, he keeps drowning his pain in the bottle.

Dir. Jorge Perez Solano (Mexico, 2018) 1hr 42min / Rated PG 13

The Black People tells the story of Magdelena and Juanita, two women who are united in the spiritual realm by their tona, or spirit animal, and in the material realm by neri, Juanita’s husband and magdalena’s lover. Juanita’s death will grant Magdalena the clarity that she needs to go on with her life without neri. This is the first Mexican feature film starring afro-mexican actors from various communities in the Costal region of Oaxaca.

Dir. Storm Saulter (Jamaica / US,2018) 111 min / Rated R

A Jamaican teen who is burdened by an unstable father and an unruly older brother hopes a meteoric rise in track-and-field can reunite him with his mother, who has lived illegally in the U.S. for over a decade.

Dir. Kenneth Muller (Guatemala, 2017) 1hr 10min / Rated PG-13

The dying Guatemalan war veteran agrees to accompany a girl searching for information about her grand father, his comrade in arms. Flashbacks show the campaign the men fought in when young.

Dir: Julius Amedume (USA) 114 min / Rated R

Based on Graham Farrow’s acclaimed stage-play RATTLESNAKES, award-winning writer/director Julius Amedume’s Neo Noir psychological thriller, tells the story of Robert McQueen. McQueen’s typical day takes a turn for the worst when he’s ambushed by three masked men, who accuse him of sleeping with their wives. He pleads his innocence, but what he does reveal will not only change all of their lives forever – but will it be enough to save his?

Dir. Norman Maake (South Africa, 2019) 113min/ Rated:

Zinhle Malinga is a hard working modern woman with strong traditional values who knows what she deserves, and believes she knows what kind of man she needs to be happy. She is not willing to play games and waste time, she is ready to take the next step in her life and get married. The story starts and she meets Nkosinathi Shange, a true blue player, who has been burned in love. The chemistry they feel for each other is too hard to ignore. They decide to give their relationship a chance. Because they have both been burned in love, they are hesitant to truly commit, and be too open about who they are. Zinhle is so real, and so unpretentious that he decides to give her one last test- he takes her to where he lives, his mother’s backroom.

Dir. Rob Grant (Belize/US, 2018) 82 min /Rated: PG-13

Rivalries, dark secrets, and sexual tension emerge when three best friends find themselves stranded on a yacht in the middle of the ocean under suspicious circumstances. When his girlfriend Sasha and best friend Jonah give hothead Richard a harpoon for his birthday, he wants to try this new toy out right away. So the three of them set out for a day trip on a boat, but suspicion and jealousy soon start to get the upper hand. Before long, the tension has become unbearable. To make matters worse, the boat’s engine fails and then it turns out they left their supplies on shore: a nerve-wracking struggle for survival ensues that spares no one’s secrets – or blood. This post-modern adaptation of a story by Edgar Allan Poe in which three shipwrecked sailors draw lots to see who has to sacrifice himself as a cannibalistic snack, is a bloodthirsty thriller that leaves sufficient space for laughs. It’s painfully obvious from (nautical) miles away that this triangular relationship is not going to end well.

Dir: Washington Carvalho (Brazil, 2018) 102 min / Rated PG

Lia is a young girl who lives in a favela of Rio. But one particular morning, she does not realize that traffickers from another favela are invading hers. Lia gets trapped inside the school, amid the crossfire. But she is not alone. She finds other girls with the same situation. And what would seem to be merely a confrontation of traffickers in search of more territory, becomes a traumatizing day for these innocent and helpless girls at the hands of cruel and violent men. Linked to all of this war among traffickers, it has a love history between two teenagers, a black and a white girl, whose father is a racist officer and a homophobic mother.

Dir. Patricia Ortega (Venezuela/Colombia, 2018) 97 min / Rated: R

Ariel discovers she was submitted to several surgeries to correct her intersexual body as a baby. This revelation will confront her with a challenge: to remain a “normal” but oppressed woman, or to dare to find herself outside gender binaries.