2 Best Releases From JustFilms / Ford Foundation Studio

Nausheen Dadabhoy explores a wide array of Muslim-American experiences in this overstuffed, but impactful documentary. (This review is part of our coverage of the 2022 Tribeca Film Festival.) The documentary An Act of Worship opens with a group of Muslim women gathered in a small room. The space may be cramped, but this environment still seems freeing, since it’s being used for a meeting where everywhere can be open about their lives. Here, they can speak freely on the ways in which Islamophobia impacts their lives. Instructions come for the women to write down one specific way intolerance has adversely impacted their lives in America. Continue Reading →

Angelo Madsen Minax examines his family and their history with care, grace, and impeccable craft. (This review is part of our 2021 coverage of Reeling: The Chicago LGBTQ+ International Film Festival) Loss is a twisting, winding thing. Director Angelo Madsen Minax sets out to trace and retrace the losses he and his family have experienced in his new documentary North by Current. It’s an elegiac and heart-rending meditation on the mechanisms of memory, the metaphysics of coping, and the melodrama of life. Continue Reading →