September 26, 2006
“Saint of 9/11″ presents the turbulent, restless, spiritual and remarkable journey of Father Mychal Judge. Compassionate champion of the needy and forgotten, a beloved Fire Department Chaplain, rousing Irish-American balladeer and iconoclast, Father Judge was a humble parish priest who wrestled with his own private demons while touching others in powerful and miraculous ways.
In an enduring photograph of September 11th, a team of rescue workers carry a Franciscan priest’s body from the World Trade Center. The world came to know Father Mychal Judge, Chaplain, FDNY, in death as a symbol of courage and sacrifice.
Throughout his career as a friar, he lived a life of witness, action and love. He provided hope, warmth, compassion, and acceptance. Mychal Judge also knew the pain of loss and suffering. He struggled with alcoholism and was an outspoken AA advocate. Through his own vulnerability, imperfection and fragile humanity, he was able to reach people in their pain, shame and fragility. Father Judge was a gay man who loved his priestly work.
“Saint of 9/11″ weaves interviews with friends, colleagues, congregants and archival footage with Father Judge’s words. “Saint of 9/11″ portrays his life as a spiritual adventure and an honest embrace of life, where alcoholism and sexuality were acknowledged. “Saint of 9/11″ is the story of a life’s journey interrupted. Inspired by his life, the documentary embraces his full humanity.
Watch trailer
After closing the border to Palestinian workers, Israeli authorities sought to fill gaps in the job market by encouraging emigrant workers from other parts of the world. Among those who answered the call were Filipinos in various stages of gender transition. These individuals who see themselves in a female persona, shunned by their families and communities at home, build new lives in Israel as caregivers for elderly, orthodox Jewish men, many of whom come to look upon them as substitute children. On their nights off, the workers perform as a drag queen ensemble, “Paper Dolls,” in Tel Aviv nightclubs. Although the troupe’s members enjoy Israel’s liberal atmosphere, they are still outsiders and are always treated as such. Tomer Heymann’s moving documentary explores the role of immigrant worker in Western culture, and delves into the lives of societal outcasts seeking freedom and acceptance, however tenuous.
Watch trailer
Out patrolling a California highway, police officer Edward Malus (Nicolas Cage) stops a station wagon to return a little girl’s lost doll. Moments later, a runaway truck slams into the station wagon, igniting it into a fiery wreck with the mother and child trapped inside. Edward fails to save them before the car explodes…and then spends months of his life choking down pills to get the image of their faces out of his head.
But Edward is about to get a second chance.
A desperate letter from his former girlfriend, Willow (Kate Beahan), arrives at his home with no postmark. Willow came into his life and left just as unexpectedly years before. But now, her daughter Rowan has gone missing, and Edward is the only person she trusts to help locate her. She asks him to come to her home on a private island - Summersisle - a place with its own traditions where people observe a forgotten way of life. Edward seizes the opportunity to make his life right again, and soon finds himself on a seaplane bound for the islands of the Pacific Northwest.
But nothing is what it seems on isolated Summersisle, where a culture, dominated by its matriarch Sister Summersisle (Ellen Burstyn), is bound together by arcane traditions and a pagan festival called “the Day of Death and Rebirth.” The secretive people of Summersisle only ridicule his investigation, insisting that a child named Rowan never existed there… or if she ever did was no longer alive.
But what Edward doesn’t know is that Willow’s plea for help has invited more into his life than a chance for redemption. In unraveling Summersisle’s closely held secrets, Edward is drawn into a web of ancient traditions and murderous deceit, and each step he takes closer to the lost child brings him one step closer to the unspeakable. And one step closer to the Wicker Man.
Watch trailer