Tue, October 7, 2025

This cinematic exploration rounds up a seven-year-long research of the Salton Sea -- the largest lake in California on the verge of ecological collapse with history of genocide, military testing, and exploitation, and the resilient community struggling to survive within this dystopian reality.

After 18-year-old foster child, Vera, is betrayed by a music producer who steals her composition, she must find her voice and take a stand to fight for the future of her dreams in Latin Jazz. A story proving that anything is possible with resilience and self-belief.

DIRTY HOLLYWOOD is one of two new documentaries about the untold history of Hollywood, world premiering at the festival as a double bill ... More About Dirty Hollywood -- From Scarface to Reservoir Dogs, The Godfather, Goodfellas, or Heat, gangster films have left their mark on cinema history. To make this film, real actors and directors are featured: Brian De Palma, Quentin Tarantino, Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Michael Mann. They all admit that real gangsters were their “spiritual and technical guides.” The new generation of actors reveal how they secretly met with these figures, and how legality and illegality blurred together on set.

HOLLYWOOD BABYLON is one of two new documentaries about the untold history of Hollywood, world premiering at the festival as a double bill ... More About Hollywood Babylon -- In the wild 1920s, Hollywood produced up to 700 films per year, showing adultery, homosexuality, abortion, and corruption without restraint. In response, puritan America fought back against these “dirty films.” In 1934, the Hays Code—a code of good conduct under lawyer William Hays—was introduced. But Hollywood, with its rebellious spirit, continued to dodge censorship with wit and talent.