Julia Lebedev

The Listener

Beth is a helpline volunteer – part of the small army that gets on the phone every night across America, fielding calls from all kinds of people feeling lonely, broken, hopeless. Over the last year the tide has become a tsunami. As Beth goes through her shift, the stakes rise: is this the night she will lose someone? Save someone? Eventually, Beth’s own story comes to light, revealing why she does it. All along we remain with her: listening, comforting, connecting – patching the world back together, one stitch at a time.

The American Society of Magical Negroes

A young man, Aren, is recruited into a secret society of magical Black people who dedicate their lives to a cause of utmost importance: making white people’s lives easier.

A Thousand and One

Struggling but unapologetically living on her own terms, Inez is moving from shelter to shelter in mid-1990s New York City. With her 6-year-old son Terry in foster care and unable to leave him again, she kidnaps him so they can build their life together. As the years go by, their family grows and Terry becomes a smart yet quiet teenager, but the secret that has defined their lives threatens to destroy the home they have so improbably built.

Bad Hair

In 1989, an ambitious young woman gets a weave in order to succeed in the image-obsessed world of music television. However, her flourishing career may come at a great cost when she realizes that her new hair may have a mind of its own.

Bad Education

A superintendent of a school district works for the betterment of the student’s education when an embezzlement scheme is discovered, threatening to destroy everything.

Skin

A destitute young man, raised by racist skinheads and notorious among white supremacists, turns his back on hatred and violence to transform his life, with the help of a black activist and the woman he loves.

Diane

Diane is a devoted friend and caretaker, particularly to her drug-addicted son. But as those around her begin to drift away in the last quarter of her life, she is left to reckon with past choices and long-dormant memories.

State Like Sleep

Following the death of her husband, Katherine travels to Brussels, where a few loose ends become a whole web of secrets as she untangles her late spouse’s mysterious last days alive.

Monsters and Men

After capturing an illegal act of police violence on his cellphone, a Brooklyn street hustler sets off a series of events that alter the lives of a local police officer and a star high-school athlete.

The Dinner

Two brothers and their wives meet up at a haute-cuisine restaurant to discuss what to do about a horrific crime that their sons committed together. As the quartet debate their options, the conversation reopens old wounds between the siblings.

Rental Family

A down-and-out actor living in Tokyo is hired as a token American guy for a Japanese rental-family company, leading him on an unexpected journey of self-discovery through the roles he plays in other people’s lives.

In Her Place

Cultural, gender, and emotional challenges are explored in this story of an Iranian-American widower who returns to his homeland to take a second wife.

Honour

A story centered on a young woman targeted by her family for an "honour killing" and the bounty hunter who takes the job.

Trash Mountain

A twenty something gay man travels from Chicago to his home in rural Missouri following the death of his father — an obsessive hoarder who has left a house full of items, some valuable and some not so, to pick through.

Dear White People

Four college students attend an Ivy League college where a riot breaks out over an "African-American" themed party thrown by white students. With tongue planted firmly in cheek, the film explores racial identity in 'post racial' America while weaving a story about forging one's unique path in the world.

Harmonia

Set in the 1980s, Rita is entranced by the mesmeric leader and renounces her family to embrace the world of the enigmatic Harmonia commune. Her daughters, Ella and Jo, put everything on the line to infiltrate the cult and bring their mother back home. Yet, once immersed in the commune, they find themselves inexorably drawn into the leader’s labyrinthine web of psycho-spiritual manipulation.