Synopsis

The iconic, ironic ‘90s slacker-rock band Pavement gets its own appropriately wry and subversive music doc in the latest from indie-film iconoclast Alex Ross Perry (Listen Up Philip, Her Smell). Famous for their 1994 hit “Cut Your Hair” (“songs mean a lot / when songs are bought”), the band, known for its lo-fi sound and ingenious lyrics, was heralded by critics and sparked a cult following. But the mainstream always remained elusive.

In Pavements, Perry envisions an alternative reality where mercurial frontman Stephen Malkmus and the other members of the band are the subjects of a hot Hollywood biopic, an off-Broadway jukebox musical, and a pop-up museum exhibition, which all seem to be actually happening. Or are they? With hilarious making-of scenes featuring Jason Schwartzman and Tim Heidecker as record executives and Joe Keery as Malkmus, Pavements manages to be both a heartfelt tribute to the band and an absurdist deconstruction. It’s the ultimate movie adaptation of the sequel to their lives.

Synopsis

Through her decade-long quest to piece together fragments of her mother’s life, filmmaker Rachel Elizabeth Seed offers a moving and intimate portrait of Sheila Turner-Seed, who died a few months after Rachel was born. In her lifetime, Sheila shirked societal expectations by exploring the world as a journalist and photographer. Through a wealth of pictures, home movies, television interviews, and newly discovered audio recordings of conversations with iconic photographers such as Henri-Cartier Bresson and Gordon Parks, Seed pays homage to the thrilling life and impressive work of her mother as an artist, best known for her groundbreaking series “Images of Man.”

With inventive visual compositions that play with both cinematic and photographic forms, a hint of humor, and a nod to her mother’s Chicago ties, Seed explores questions of legacy, memory, feminism, and modern photography while attempting to close the gap between herself and the mother she never knew.

Synopsis

This emotional comic journey follows mismatched cousins David (Jesse Eisenberg) and Benji (Kieran Culkin), who reunite for a tour through Poland to honor their beloved grandmother. But their adventure takes a turn when the odd couple’s old tensions resurface against the backdrop of their family history. Eisenberg, who also wrote and directed, has created a film that deftly mixes the humorous and the heartrending. Fueled by its witty and sophisticated script and winning performances, especially Culkin’s magnetic portrayal of the wild-card relative you can’t — and may not even want to — control, A Real Pain subtly transforms into a compassionate story of family, forgiveness, and resilience.

Synopsis

The earthy tones of untamed nature, shot with stunning vibrancy by filmmaker Sean Price Williams, color a nameless medieval village somewhere in England that seems to exist out of time. A tight-knit community of villagers is suspicious of outsiders, and spend their days laboring for the generally affable landowner Charles Kent. Things begin to change when Kent’s nefarious cousin claims ownership over the land and installs plans for massive change. A cartographer is hired, maps are drawn, and the architecture of profit-driven, capitalistic agriculture begins to manifest.

Rich, textured visuals and impeccable performances create a lived-in universe that feels uncannily adjacent to our own. Unfolding over the course of a single hallucinatory week, the English-language debut of “Greek Weird Wave” godmother Athina Rachel Tsangari (Attenberg, 2010) is a breathtaking, atmospheric fable that satirizes modernity and its chaotic fallout.

Synopsis

Late one night, while Chris (Nnamdi Asomugha), his wife (Aja Naomi King), and their two daughters are sleeping upstairs in their home, Chris hears an intruder. Unsettled and scared, he warily investigates, and finds himself face-to-face with a stranger in his kitchen. Chris reacts impulsively to protect his family, and his response sets in motion a night that will have far-reaching consequences.

This stunning, compact thriller — which also marks star Asomugha’s directorial debut — takes place over the course of a few hours. A frantic family takes quick action. Throngs of police arrive to investigate the scene. And a bullish white detective (The Fighter’s Melissa Leo) sets the family in her sights, willing to do whatever it takes to quickly resolve the case. As tensions escalate between the family and police, The Knife sharply explores the ways in which a Black family experiences a tenuous relationship with security, justice, and the American dream.