William Lehman

Targeted for several failed redevelopment plans dating back to the days of Robert Moses, Willets Point, a gritty area in New York City known as the “Iron Triangle,” is the home of hundreds of immigrant-run, auto repair shops that thrive despite a lack of municipal infrastructure support. During the last year of the Bloomberg Administration, NYC’s government advanced plans for a “dynamic” high-end entertainment district that would completely wipe out this historic industrial core. The year is 2013, and the workers of Willets Point are racing against the clock to forestall their impending eviction. Their story launches an investigation into New York City’s history as the front line of deindustrialization, urban renewal, and gentrification.

New mother Molly (Eléonore Hendricks) is overcome with the need to run away. Feeling abandoned by her husband and unable to connect with her infant son, she takes up an invitation from her old high school group of guy friends to go on a weekend trip to the mountains. Without the pressure of daily responsibilities and with the help of psychoactive mushrooms, Molly comes out of her shell and is ready to accept the beauty and love that can be found in nature. When Molly's “trip” turns into a dark out-of-body experience she is forced to choose between the person she was and the person she's become.

Things Left Behind explores the transformative power of 'Hiroshima,' the first major international art exhibit devoted to the atomic bomb. The exhibition, at the Museum of Anthropology in Vancouver, Canada, featured 48 large-format color photographic prints of clothing once worn by those who perished in the atomic bomb, taken by renowned Japanese photographer Ishiuchi Miyako. Ishiuchi brought the garments--still colorful and fashionable nearly seven decades later--out of permanent storage at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial archive and photographed them in the light, to trace the spirits of those who once wore them. The photographs, exhibited without any identifying caption, mutely solicited viewers to imagine or divulge a narrative, and unlocked a wealth of secrets and memories from those who encountered them.

The Universal Language is a new documentary from Academy Award-nominated director Sam Green (The Weather Underground). This 30-minute film traces the history of Esperanto, an artificial language that was created in the late 1800s by a Polish eye doctor who believed that if everyone in the world spoke a common tongue, humanity could overcome racism and war. Fittingly, the word “Esperanto” means “one who hopes.” During the early 20th century, hundreds of thousands of people around the world spoke Esperanto and believed in its ideals. Today, surprisingly, a vibrant Esperanto movement still exists. In this first-ever documentary about Esperanto, Green creates a portrait of the language and those who speak it today that is at once humorous, poignant, stirring, and ultimately hopeful.