Film

Everybody loved I Love Lucy, a TV show so popular that, as we are reminded in the new film Being the Ricardos, audiences weren't going anywhere that night of the week, the show averaging 60 million viewers each episode, basically a 90% share at that time (the 50s). The film, written and directed by Aaron Sorkin, reminds us also about the relationship between American comedienne Lucille Ball (played by Nicole Kidman) and Cuban husband Desi Arnaz (Javier Bardem), partners extraordinaire in life and art, just before the Cuban revolution of 1959 would forever alter the relationship between the two countries.

Multi Golden Globe-winner Steven Spielberg takes on a genre he has never tackled before in his long career – the musical, and at 75 he conveys an energy and enthusiasm rare to see on the screen today. Furthermore, his is not a film adaptation of just any musical.

Chris Rodriguez, born in Florida from Argentinian parents, first met Grant Rosado, born in Texas from a Cuban father and an American mother, when they both showed up at their assigned room at Emerson College in Boston. Soon they learned that they got along very well, and also that they shared a lot of common interests, including filmmaking.

It was late 2020. Midnight Sky had just opened over the holidays.

AIDS remains a major public health issue that still affects the entire world; it's estimated that close to 38 million people have HIV right now. Although the world has made significant progress in recent decades, there are still important goals to reach.

Writing With Fire, Rintu Thomas and Shushmit Ghosh’s feature documentary debut tells the story of Khabar Lahariya, a female-run newspaper in northern India whose journalists are all Dalit, the lowest group in the Hindu caste system. Highly acclaimed, the film has won an audience award and special jury award at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival and is nominated for best feature honors by the International Documentary Association (IDA).

In tick, tick… Boom!, Andrew Garfield tackles his first major musical role by stepping into the shoes of the acclaimed American composer and playwright Jonathan Larson. The Netflix movie is based on the autobiographical musical by Larson, who also wrote the award-winning musical Rent, and it serves as the feature directorial debut of Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda.

Thought-provoking themes of mental anxiety, mourning and manipulation all stir to the surface in the biographical feature The Electrical Life of Louis Wain. The movie’s story follows the life of the eccentric English artist and illustrator Louis Wain, played by three-time Golden Globe nominee Benedict Cumberbatch.

In October 2018, actress Selma Blair revealed that she had been diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis (MS).  In Introducing, Selma Blair, a raw, unpolished, if ultra-honest documentary, Rachel Fleit, making her feature directorial debut, provides an inmate look at Blair's new life chapter of living with Multiple Sclerosis.

A good film festival is defined by its programming: diversity and inclusion play as much a role as does variety in all genres of filmmaking. The New Orleans fest distinguishes itself by also paying attention not only to local filmmakers but to local stories: topics that resonate with or were born from the city, the state, or the region.