Monthly Film Festival | InFocus: Indigenous Cinema

NewFilmmakers Los Angeles (NFMLA) hosts its November Monthly Film Festival, which features its annual InFocus: Indigenous Cinema program, which highlights the work of indigenous filmmakers in front of and behind the camera, the Los Angeles Premiere of Anima, writer-director Brian Tetsuro Ivie’s debut narrative feature, and November Shorts, an offering of highlights from NFMLA’s ongoing general program.

The line-up begins with shorts program, November Shorts, an eclectic mix of short narratives highlighted this month that offer laughter, family drama, and unexpected connections. This block has stories of a street artist navigating an immigration deadline, a tense family dinner, a woman preparing to report to prison with the help of her loved ones, a daughter’s complicated grief over her mother, a family processing the effects of war, the pursuit of an unlikely friendship, and one man’s quest to overcome his loneliness. 

The day’s programming continues with InFocus: Indigenous Cinema, a selection of  short films by indigenous storytellers and indigenous stories from around the world. This block offers stories about the preservation of indigenous traditions, the celebration of trangender community members, connecting to ancestors, navigating a life between two cultures, and a touch of anti-colonial body horror.

The evening concludes with the Los Angeles Premiere of Anima, the narrative directorial debut of writer-director Brian Tetsuro Ivie that World Premiered earlier this year at SXSW. This beautiful, visually rich and contemplative film explores grief, connection and legacy through humor and the relationship between two guarded strangers. “Anima is (as its title suggests) a film about the human soul, what has sometimes been referred to as our “best part,” and whether that part of us really exists. It is also a film about how we suffer in modern times, often alone, often in silence, and too often without someone willing to slow themselves down long enough to be of real and lasting assistance. But when they do, we see that it is the unhurried life that leads to the highest forms of love,” says Ivie.