When a mother of a young boy dies suddenly but expectedly, the father goes to great lengths to keep her alive with the son. He records hours of her talking, plays the recording, and hammers the door shut. As the boy grows up, he gets to have a relationship with his mother, who he thinks is a door. The door is as much of a parent as his father.

On August 21, 2017, a once-in-a-lifetime total solar eclipse passed straight across the heart of Nebraska. From Carhenge to Homestead National Monument, relive the Great American Eclipse in 360-degrees as thousands wait in the rain with Bill Nye the Science Guy to see if the clouds will part in time for totality. Watch this trailer and be sure to view the full 360 video at pbs.org/filmfestival.

Rigorous in its thoughtful self-examination, this personal family portrait details director Diana Newton’s own journey toward acceptance alongside her sister Christine, a trans woman navigating the emotional and physical perils of coming out. Wrenching and eloquent, The Ties That Bind offers an inside look at living authentically amidst one Southern family’s own culture wars.

Contemporary blaxploitation film about the parallels between the predator-prey relationship of a black man facing the prejudicial bounds of society. The embodiment of the black fish takes the shape of the black man who is vulnerable to being fed on by society. He reflects the underlying qualities, while showing that the integrity of his dispositions reveals much more.

Sable Island, a small strip of land less than a mile wide, is home to a near-mythical breed of completely wild horses. Since no human attempts at colonization have ever succeeded, the land has remained unchallenged as a self-sustaining ecosystem. In this short film viewers are transported to the shores of the Sable through a narrator mysteriously enmeshed within the island.

Redneck Muslim explores the intersection of American Muslim and Southern “redneck” cultures, opening an urgently needed cross-cultural inquiry about racial justice at a time of deep polarization and increasingly strident white nationalism.

In this episode of Pops, we meet La Guardia Cross, a filmmaker and a rapper who once opened up for KRS-One, who decides to chronicle his journey on becoming a new father with a series of funny videos on YouTube. He talks to his baby daughter, who may or may not understand him, while capturing her growth and evolving personality.

Technology plays a significant role in the unfolding family rupture and dynamics between Maira and her mother as she discovers fragmented recordings of her parents through the mobile devices around her home; which forces her to confront a reality that would prompt her to grow up.

Today, Avery D. Wilson appears to be a confident pillar of his community, but in this uplifting story, he reveals otherwise. He was bullied as a child, and later questioned how being gay would affect his faith. As an adult, he feared how his parents would react to his secret. It wasn’t until years later that Avery learned to accept himself – to love himself – and become Mr. United States.

The Melancholy Man tells the story of the world’s saddest man who meets the world’s saddest woman. Through a fantastical lens, these characters come together in their harmonious misery and find something that surprises them both.

KA PIKO is the story of a Makana, a Hawaiian teenager who loses the love of his life when his girlfriend Kelia dies during childbirth. When he is then forced to fulfill an ancient Hawaiian ritual with Kelia’s father, Makana finds the connection he was always searching for.