DIE MY LOVE

Featuring: Jennifer Lawrence (Actor/Producer), Justine Ciarrocchi (Producer); moderated by Rebecca Ford (Vanity Fair)

Where to Watch: Mubi

Logline: Grace, a writer and young mother, is slowly slipping into madness. Locked away in an old house in Montana, her increasingly agitated and erratic behavior leaves her companion, Jackson, increasingly worried and helpless.

What critics are saying: “But I loved it the first time I saw it, and loved it more the second. Not only because it takes a huge swing and connects, but because this is the role I’ve been wanting to see Lawrence play since I first saw her in ‘Winter’s Bone’ all those years ago. Watching someone go for broke and actually make it is exhilarating.
And when a movie leaves me feeling as if I just swam across rapids and barely dragged myself out alive— well, that’s why I go to the movies,” writes Alissa Wilkinson for the NYTimes.

Interview Highlight: “I was so aware of how important ‘I’m sorry’ is, because I was doing the opposite…. and I, Jennifer, I am a wife and I am responsible for someone’s feelings, and I would just be like, ‘She’s gotta say sorry at some point.’ It made me really aware how much that can change the course of something—being aware and accountable and saying ‘I’m sorry’.”

 

 

LEFT-HANDED GIRL

Featuring: Shih-Ching Tsou (Co-Writer, Director, Producer), Sean Baker (Co-Writer, Producer, Editor), Shih-Yuan Ma (Actor), Nina Ye (Actor); moderated by Rebecca Sun Where to Watch: Netflix

Logline: A single mother and her two daughters relocate to Taipei to open a night market stall, each navigating the challenges of adapting to their new environment while striving to maintain family unity.

What critics are saying: “How much can a family bear before it begins to burst? LeftHanded Girl seeks to ask, as each character’s internal tensions bleed into broader family dynamics, culminating in more of an explosion than a slow unraveling. But perhaps the ultimate test of strength occurs when the dam breaks, Tsou seems to argue — when the water begins to flood, washing away old traditions and instead, creating something surprising and new,” writes Teresa Xie for NPR.

Interview Highlight: “So for the character…this scene is where she finally had the opportunity to have this release for herself and also for the whole family. Everything they had been storing inside, the emotions and resentments and loves and expressions that had been accumulating inside that’s causing conflict and misunderstanding, they can finally be released… In the scene, her motivation is as simple as, ‘She’s had enough.’ These things need to be said and that’s why it was such an explosive scene for her.”

 

 

THE CHRONOLOGY OF WATER

Featuring: Kristen Stewart (Writer, Director, Producer); moderated by Katie Walsh (LA Times)

Where to Watch: Theaters

Logline: A woman, after an abusive childhood, escapes into competitive swimming, sexual experimentation, toxic relationships, and addiction before finding her voice through writing.

What critics are saying: “It cuts deep even while washing over you with soothing images of water, as the title suggests. ‘Come in. The water will hold you,’ says Lidia at the end, which is exactly what the movie invites us to do, in ways that may be triggering, but perhaps also cathartic,” writes David Rooney for The Hollywood Reporter.

Interview Highlight: “If a lot of your reality is shaped by what you read, and a lot of your own memories are unearthed by what you read when it’s really true, this was such a nice, perfect way of making something really personal, but also about everyone.”

 

 

PREDATORS

Featuring: David Osit (Director, Producer); moderated by Christy Lemire (Film Critic, Breakfast All Day)

Where to Watch: Paramount+

Logline: A documentary exploring the controversial NBC series that caught potential child predators in sting operations, leading to arrests, and its eventual cancellation.

What critics are saying: “But as David Osit’s probing, troubling documentary ‘Predators’ demonstrates, the sociological implications of the show were (and are) anything but simple, beginning with what the series’ popularity suggests about the viewers who watched it,’ writes Ben Kenigsberg for the NYTimes.

Interview Highlight: “A lot of documentaries are just kind of there, and they’re made, and they’re purporting to be the voice of ethical goodness, and they’re purporting to tackle a social issue in some way, and you’re right as an audience because you watched the movie, and then the movie’s over, and you’re right, and the film’s right, and you’re affirmed by the movie. And I think at a certain point I started to realize this is not how the world works and in fact makes the world much smaller, to not have experiences that challenge us. It challenged me making it and so I wanted to challenge you watching it.”

 

 

BLUE MOON

Featuring: Ethan Hawke (Actor); moderated by David Canfield (The Hollywood
Reporter)

Where to Watch: VOD

Logline: In 1943, lyricist Lorenz Hart confronts his shattered self-confidence in a bar as his former collaborator, Richard Rodgers, celebrates the opening night of his groundbreaking hit musical “Oklahoma!”.

What critics are saying: “Hawk sells all of Hart’s delusions, destructive impulses, and high-velocity downward spirals with an energy that keeps this bitchy, old-school collection of bon mots and screwball bickering moving along nicely. Portraits of great men given the movie-star treatment usually accentuate the positive. Linklater finds it more interesting to look at a self-sabotaging artist’s greatest misses. It’s a tribute that’s really a cautionary tale,” writes David Fear for Rolling Stone.

Interview Highlight: “It’s as if Lennon and McCartney are gonna break up one night, and one of them is gonna start a band that’s bigger than The Beatles, and the other is gonna die… that’s how high the stakes are. That’s a pitch. This is a wild ninety minutes in a person’s life.”

RENTAL FAMILY

Featuring: HIKARI (Writer, Director, Producer), Eddie Vaisman (Producer), Julia Lebedev (Producer); moderated by Francisco Velasquez (Film Independent)

Where to Watch: Theaters/VOD Jan 13th

Logline: An American actor in Tokyo struggling to find purpose lands an unusual gig: working for a Japanese “rental family” agency, playing stand-in roles for strangers. As he immerses himself in his clients’ worlds, he begins to form genuine bonds that blur the lines between performance and reality. Confronting the moral complexities of his work, he soon rediscovers purpose, belonging, and the beauty of human connection.

What critics are saying: “But thanks to HIKARI’S elegant direction, a nimble and melancholic script by HIKARI and Stephen Blahut, and the tenderhearted and attuned performances by an ensemble led by Brendan Fraser, Takehiro Hira, Mari Yamamoto, and Akira Emoto, this is a beautiful and contemplative film, with lovely messaging and a couple of sly twists. I’m not ready to call it the best film of 2025, but it might just be my favorite,” writes Richard Roeper for RogerEbert.com.

Interview Highlight: “Something really beautiful happens with those people who provide the service, they’re actually being healed by the person who gets the service. You think it’s the other way around because the person who rents is so lonely and there is that truth, but there is a human energy that happens whenever you give something positive, you also receive the positive energy. I always have a good time when I help someone. I always feel like I’m gaining so much more love then I’m giving.”