After a clown is killed by a virus in Romania, his corpses is brought back to the United States. Not long after, an office building is under attack by vampires and humanity’s only hope is a ragtag crew of inept night watchmen.
Blade of the Immortal (2017) [Fantasia International Film Festival 2017]
A talented samurai is cursed by a witch to live forever following a battle for the ages. Haunted by the past, he accepts to assist a young girl with her quest for revenge. As he goes through with his mission, he discovers a few things about the world and himself.
Jerry Lewis: The Man Behind the Clown (2017)
Gregory Monro’s documentary offers a scattershot overview of Jerry Lewis’ life and career, with a heavy emphasis on the funnyman’s peaks while carefully avoiding the controversies and failures that he generated. Lewis was the son of entertainers who put their careers before his childhood needs, and an emotional low point occurred when his parents managed to miss his bar mitzvah because they had stage engagements. The film notes that Lewis’ meteoric success in the late 1940s when he was barely out of his twenties created friction with his father Danny Lewis, a singer who never achieved stardom.
Starless Dreams (2016)
This entry in Mehrdad Oskouei’s trilogy on Iranian youth in their nation’s justice system – following It’s Always Late for Freedom (2007) and The Last Days of Winter (2011) – focuses on teenage girls at a rehabilitation and correction center. This facility looks nothing like the stereotypical Iranian prison: the girls enjoy pizza parties, play Truth or Dare and engage in playful snowball fights. Indeed, at times the facility feels like a happy sorority rather than a hijab-clad version of Orange is the New Black.
Forbidden: Undocumented and Queer in Rural America (2016)
Tiffany Rhynard’s documentary focuses on Moises Serrano, who came to the U.S. at the age of 18 months with his illegal immigrant Mexican parents. The Serrano family settled in rural North Carolina and lived without legal problems until 2007, when state laws began to crack down on the ability of illegal immigrants to have a driver’s license or obtain college scholarship funds.
Red Gringo (2016)
During the early 1960s, singer Dean Reed tried and failed to achieve stardom in the U.S. music scene. But he found a surprising level of popularity in South America, particularly in Chile, and for most of the 1960s he was a ubiquitous figure in the continent’s entertainment industry. Miguel Angel Viduarre’s documentary traces Reed’s unlikely stellar rise in South America, with rare recordings and film and television appearances that show the handsome performer perfectly at ease with Spanish-language lyrics.
When Knighthood Was in Flower (1922)
Barely seen since its 1922 theatrical release, this silent epic is a major surprise: a charming, entertaining adventure that contradicts the long-held prejudices by film scholars against the costume dramas starring the much-maligned Marion Davies and produced by her lover, publishing mogul William Randolph Hearst.