21st Century Cinema
126 Episodes
Explore the best of contemporary cinema from around the world.
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1:27:32Episode 1
ABC Africa
Episode 1
Directed by Abbas Kiarostami • 2001 • Iran
Starring Abbas Kiarostami, Seifollah SamadianIn 2000, Abbas Kiarostami traveled to Africa at the request of the United Nations to document a humanitarian crisis unfolding in Uganda, where 1.5 million children had been orphaned by civil war and AIDS. Wo...
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14:55Episode 2
Masquerade
Episode 2
Directed by Olive Nwosu • United Kingdom, Nigeria • 2021
Starring Teniola Aladese, Sheila Chukwulozie, Loveth OnyemaobiSalewa (Sheila Chukwulozie), a young queer woman living with her wife in London, returns to her hometown in Nigeria for her mother’s funeral. There, she confronts her complex f...
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13:58Episode 3
A New Year
Episode 3
Directed by George Sikharulidze • 2018 • Georgia
Starring Eka Demetradze, Giorgi Bandzeladze, Demetre GratiashviliIn this poignantly understated portrait of everyday resilience, a mother and son face a difficult holiday season when the patriarch of the household announces he is leaving to join ...
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Tattoo
Episode 4
Directed by Farhad Delaram • 2019 • Iran
Starring Behdokht Valian, Alireza Sanifar, Anahita EghbalnejadA young Iranian woman attempting to renew her driver’s license is plunged into a menacing bureaucratic limbo when officials begin questioning her about her tattoos.
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Poetry
Episode 5
Directed by Lee Chang-dong • 2010 • South Korea
Starring Yoon Jeong-hee, Lee Da-wit, Kim Hee-raLee Chang-dong’s follow-up to his acclaimed SECRET SUNSHINE is an exquisite story about the power of art to bear witness to both sublime beauty and the violent truths that lie hidden in the hearts of ...
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14:47Episode 6
All the Crows in the World
Episode 6
Directed by Tang Yi • 2021 • Hong Kong
Starring Chen Xuanyu, Xue BaoheWinner of the Palme d’Or for best short film at Cannes, this blissfully bonkers, neon-drenched odyssey follows a teenage girl as she embarks on an irreverent night of adventure—complete with surreal dance numbers and queer ro...
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2:36:39Episode 7
Celluloid Man
Episode 7
Directed by Shivendra Singh Dungarpur • 2012 • India
Starring P. K. Nair, Krzysztof Zanussi, Lester James PeriesAn engaging, heartfelt look at one man’s battle to preserve his nation’s cinematic heritage, CELLULOID MAN is an intimate portrait of legendary Indian archivist P. K. Nair, who founde...
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16:49Episode 8
Bad Night for the Blues
Episode 8
Directed by Chris Shepherd • 2010 • United Kingdom
It’s a holiday to remember—or not—when a young man joins his dotty elderly aunt for a Christmas party at her local Conservative Club, where the wine is flowing, the bingo is heated, and the cracks in the genteel facade start to show.
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15:45Episode 9
The Headhunter’s Daughter
Episode 9
Directed by Don Josephus Raphael Eblahan • 2022 • Philippines
Starring Ammin Acha-ur, Pablo QuintosThis sublime winner of the Short Film Grand Jury Prize at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival follows Lynn (Ammin Acha-ur), who leaves her family’s remote home behind to traverse the harrowing roads o...
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Volver
Episode 10
Directed by Pedro Almodóvar • 2006 • Spain
Starring Penélope Cruz, Carmen Maura, Yohana CoboPedro Almodóvar’s VOLVER is set in Madrid’s lively working-class neighborhoods, where three generations of women survive wind, fire, and even death, thanks to goodness, audacity, and a limitless vital...
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1:47:05Episode 11
The Fog of War
Episode 11
Directed by Errol Morris • 2003 • United States
Starring Robert S. McNamaraThis Oscar-winning documentary is a twentieth-century fable, the story of an American dreamer who rose from humble origins to the heights of political power. Robert S. McNamara was both witness to and participant in many...
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1:56:00Episode 12
My Architect
Episode 12
Directed by Nathaniel Kahn • 2003 • United States
Louis I. Kahn, who died in 1974, was one of the greatest architects of the twentieth century, but he left behind an illegitimate son, Nathaniel, and a personal life of secrets and broken promises. MY ARCHITECT takes us on a heartbreaking yet humo...
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51:16Episode 13
Gramercy Stories
Episode 13
Directed by Joyce Chopra • 2008 • United States
GRAMERCY STORIES is an inspiring look inside a unique residence in Manhattan that provides a safe home for twenty-five gay and transgender teenagers who have experienced violence at home and on the streets. Told from their candid, often witty persp...
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Take Out
Episode 14
Directed by Sean Baker and Shih-Ching Tsou • 2004 • United States
Starring Charles Jang, Jeng-Hua Yu, Wang-Thye LeeThe American dream has rarely seemed so far away as in Sean Baker and Shih-Ching Tsou’s raw, vérité TAKE OUT, an immersion in the life of an undocumented Chinese immigrant struggli...
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1:29:44Episode 15
Mysterious Object at Noon
Episode 15
Directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul • 2000 • Thailand
Starring Duangjai Hiransri, Somsri Pinyopol, Kannikar NarongApichatpong Weerasethakul brought an appetite for experimentation to Thai cinema with his debut feature, an uncategorizable work that refracts documentary impressions of his homel...
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58:29Episode 16
Porto of My Childhood
Episode 16
Directed by Manoel de Oliveira • 2001 • France, Portugal
Starring Jorge Trêpa, Ricardo Trêpa, Maria de MedeirosWith the freedom and rigor that were his trademarks, Portuguese master Manoel de Oliveira returned to Porto, the city where he had been born ninety-three years before, for this sublime...
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2:02:02Episode 17
This Is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection
Episode 17
Directed by Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese • 2019 • Lesotho, South Africa
Starring Mary Twala, Makhaola Ndebele, Jerry MofokengWith a poet’s eye for place, light, and the spiritual dimensions of everyday existence, Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese crafts a meditation on the concept of homeland and a transcen...
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24 Frames
Episode 18
Directed by Abbas Kiarostami • 2017 • Iran
For what would prove to be his final film, Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami gave himself a challenge: to create a dialogue between his work as a filmmaker and his work as a photographer, bridging the two art forms to which he had dedicated his life. ...
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1:57:15Episode 19
Code Unknown
Episode 19
Directed by Michael Haneke • 2000 • France
Starring Juliette Binoche, Thierry Neuvic, Alexandre HamidiOne of the world’s most influential and provocative filmmakers, the Oscar–winning Austrian director Michael Haneke diagnoses the social maladies of contemporary Europe with devastating precisio...
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Yi Yi
Episode 20
Directed by Edward Yang • 2000 • Taiwan, Japan
Starring Nianzhen Wu, Elaine Jin, Issey OgataThe extraordinary, internationally embraced YI YI (A ONE AND A TWO . . .), directed by the late Taiwanese master Edward Yang, follows a middle-class family in Taipei over the course of one year, beginnin...
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2:11:01Episode 21
The Piano Teacher
Episode 21
Directed by Michael Haneke • 2001 • France
Starring Isabelle Huppert, Benoît MagimelIn this riveting study of the dynamics of control, Academy Award–winning director Michael Haneke takes on Nobel laureate Elfriede Jelinek’s controversial 1983 novel about perverse female sexuality and the world ...
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Old Joy
Episode 22
Directed by Kelly Reichardt • 2006 • United States
Starring Daniel London, Will OldhamTwo old friends reunite for a quietly revelatory overnight camping trip in this breakout feature from Kelly Reichardt, a microbudget study of character and masculinity that introduced many viewers to one of co...
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1:26:03Episode 23
Frances Ha
Episode 23
Directed by Noah Baumbach • 2013 • United States
Starring Greta Gerwig, Mickey SumnerGreta Gerwig is radiant as Frances, a woman in her late twenties in contemporary New York trying to sort out her ambitions, her finances, and, above all, her intimate but shifting bond with her best friend, Sop...
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1:30:14Episode 24
George Washington
Episode 24
Directed by David Gordon Green • 2000 • United States
Starring Candace Evanofski, Donald Holden, Damien Jewan LeeOver the course of one hot summer, a group of children in the decaying rural South must confront a tangle of difficult choices. An ambitiously constructed, elegantly photographed med...