Leaving October 1

Directed by Andrew Ahn | 97 mins | 2016
Andrew Ahn’s remarkably assured debut feature is a portrait of forbidden sexual awakening set in the nocturnal world of spas and karaoke bars in Los Angeles' Koreatown. David Cho (Joe Seo, who won the Special Jury Award at Sundance for hi...

Leaving October 1

Directed by Jennifer Reeder | 80 mins | 2017
In writing this zesty but tender rom-com, Fawzia Mirza—also the film’s star—mined her life experience as a Muslim Pakistani lesbian living in Chicago. Zaynab (Mirza) finds herself falling for the effusive Alma (Sari Sanchez), but isn...

Leaving October 1

Directed by Sepideh Farsi | 83 mins | 2009
Facing strict restrictions placed on filming by the Iranian government but eager nevertheless to capture the tense atmosphere in the streets of Tehran in the months before the controversial 2009 elections, Farsi began shooting with her...

Leaving October 1

Directed by John Sayles | 109 mins | 1984
New to Earth and fleeing bondage on his own planet, a mute telepath extraterrestrial known only as “The Brother” (Joe Morton)—who has the outward appearance of a twentysomething African American male hits the streets of Harlem—gets a cr...

Leaving October 1

Directed by Penny Lane | 71 mins | 2018
Taking Leslie Jamison’s 2013 Harper’s essay on Morgellons disease as a jumping off point, Penny Lane here assembles clips of YouTube vloggers claiming to suffer from the controversial disease purposefully and with great care. She draws he...

Leaving October 1

Directed by Sepideh Farsi | 100 mins | 2023
Crisply animated in a vivid, minimalistic 2D style, Farsi’s "The Siren" shows us the opening salvos of the devastating 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War, and their terrible human toll, in telling the tale of 14-year-old Omid. As hostile forces th...

Leaving October 1

Directed by Hong Sangsoo | 77 mins | 2020
Hong mines wisdom and wit out of a deftly presented and deceptively simple scenario: a young woman’s visits to three of her friends while her husband’s away. In insightful, unpredictable conversations with people at different points in ...