OVID’s February Lineup: Marking Black History Month, Battle over Brooklyn’s Industry City, Ben Rivers with Oliver Laxe & Rose Wylie, Inquisitive Nuns with music by Philip Glass & much more!

For February, OVID presents 16 new films and nine exclusives! To mark Black History Month, OVID will exclusively premiere The Forgotten Occupation: Jim Crow Goes to Haiti, which weaves personal narrative with political history to trace how American racial practices extended beyond U.S. borders during the brutal occupation of Haiti in the early 20th century.

Other docs include Emergent City by Kelly Anderson (her film My Brooklyn is a top-watched doc on OVID) and Jay Arthur Sterrenberg, about residents, city officials, and planners who clash over differing visions for Industry City’s urban development future: “Rather than indulge in nostalgic fantasies of a better New York of the past, we witness how the messy work of democracy can, at the systemic level, serve the people.” (Eileen G’Sell, Reverse Shot). Later in the month, we’ll present Anderson’s Unstuck, a movie told from the point of view of OCD kids. 

We’ll also present two compelling films by Mare’s Nest director Ben Rivers: The Sky Trembles with Oliver Laxe (director of the acclaimed Sirāt and Mimosas, the latter currently streaming on OVID), and What Means Something, a portrait of the British artist Rose Wylie and her uniquely recognizable compositions (this month, Wylie will open her largest exhibition to date at the Royal Academy of Arts).

Full details on February’s complete lineup are below.

Image above from Kelly Anderson & Jay Arthur Sterrenberg's EMERGENT CITY, premiering on OVID on February 20th.

Wednesday, February 4

My Letter to the World
Directed by Sol Papadopoulos
Narrated by Cynthia Nixon
Music Box Films, Documentary, UK/USA, 2018, 80 min

Emily Dickinson has spent the 130 years since her death unfairly pigeonholed as the strange recluse in white. My Letter To The World is an in-depth exploration of her life and work, filmed in her hometown of Amherst, Massachusetts. Narrated by Cynthia Nixon and featuring behind-the-scenes clips from the Emily Dickinson biopic A Quiet Passion [streaming on OVID], this documentary journeys through the seasons of Emily’s life amid 1800s New England and features interviews with world experts, bringing to light new theories about the poet’s personal relationships and revered work.

* Pair this with A Quiet Passion by Terence Davies with Cynthia Nixon, concurrently streaming on OVID

Friday, February 6

Benny’s Bathtub
Directed by Jannik Hastrup, Flemming Quist Møller
Deaf Crocodile/MVD, Animation, Denmark, 1971, 40 min

How can you not love a psychedelic animated kids’ film in which a young boy, bored with the dreary and gray Adult World, follows an enchanted tadpole into his bathtub – where he discovers a surreal and musical undersea world?! In addition to the candy-colored, kaleidoscopic visuals, the film is famed for its incredibly addictive soundtrack featuring Jazz heavyweights of Copenhagen circa 1970, with vocals sung by the cream of Danish late 60s Pop and Rock. Considered a national treasure in Denmark where it was selected for the country’s Cultural Canon alongside works by Carl Th. Dreyer, Isak Dinesen and Hans Christian Andersen, Benny’s Bathtub has been beautifully restored from the original camera negative.

** Bodil Awards 1971, Winner: Special Award

The Heirloom
Directed by Ben Petrie
With Ben Petrie, Grace Glowicki 
Factory 25, Drama, USA, 2024, 87 min

The film follows a neurotic couple whose relationship is brought to the edge by the arrival of a traumatized rescue dog. Surprising, raw, and devotedly funny, The Heirloom draws from Petrie and Glowicki’s real-life relationship to produce a hilarious and intimate chamber piece about a couple teetering on the brink between calamity and commitment.

“Both a sweetly affecting dog movie and a surprising metafictional relationship comedy.” –Scott Macaulay, Filmmaker Magazine

“The Heirloom has a steady stream of wit and tension with a style that elevates the film’s playful psychodrama.” –Rory O’Connor, The Film Stage

“Never misses a comic beat. It’s hilarious.”  –Jane Darcy, The Reviews Hub

** International Film Festival Rotterdam, Munich Film Festival

Tuesday, February 10

Hummingbirds 
Directed by Silvia Del Carmen Castaños, Estefanía Contreras, Jillian Schlesinger, Miguel Drake-McLaughlin, Leslie Benavides, Diane Ng, Ana Rodriguez-Falcó, Rivkah Beth Medow
With Silvia Del Carmen Castaños and Estefanía Contreras
Factory 25/MVD, Documentary, USA, 2023, 78 min

Silvia and Beba tell their own coming-of-age story, transforming their hometown on the Texas-Mexico border into a wonderland of creative expression and activist hijinks. Filmed collaboratively over the final summer of their fleeting youth, their cinematic self-portrait celebrates the power of friendship and joy as tools of survival and resistance.

New York Times Critic’s Pick! “The closing credits list four co-directors, which explains how Silvia and Beba could film themselves so fluidly.” –Ben Kenigsberg, The New York Times

“A remarkably vibrant debut that embodies the hopes and dreams of two bright young talents on the cusp of adulthood.” –David Opie, IndieWire

“A gorgeous, heartfelt, weird, and wonderful self-portrait, the micro-budget doc Hummingbirds feels like a little punk rock miracle.” –Marya E. Gates, Cool People Have Feelings, Too.

** Berlin International Film Festival, True/False Film Festival

Thursday, February 11

The Forgotten Occupation: Jim Crow Goes to Haiti
Directed by Alain Martin
Monkey Wrench Films, Documentary, USA, 2023, 103 min

Filmmaker Alain Martin weaves personal narrative with political history to trace how American racial practices extended beyond U.S. borders during the brutal occupation of Haiti in the early 20th century. Martin addresses a letter to his deceased grandfather, Brunel Martin, with a sense of guilt about making a film that will frame Brunel as an antagonist, given that his grandfather raised him. The film, Alain tells his grandfather, is one that is going to be critical of the latter’s view on race, class, the United States, Haiti, and Haitians themselves.  

“This film about the U.S occupation is transformative. It will change you.” —Leslie Alexander, Professor of American History, Rutgers University

OVID EXCLUSIVE

Friday, February 13

The Sky Trembles and the Earth Is Afraid and the Two Eyes Are Not Brothers
Directed by Ben Rivers
With Oliver Laxe
Docudrama, UK, 2015, 95 min

A labyrinthine, epic film that moves between documentary, fiction and fable. Shooting against the staggering beauty of the Moroccan landscape, from the rugged terrain of the Atlas Mountains to the stark and surreal emptiness of the Moroccan Sahara, with its encroaching sands and abandoned film sets, a director abandons his film set descending into a hallucinatory, perilous adventure of cruelty, madness and malevolence. But what is the reality of this? A multi-layered excavation into the illusion of cinema itself.

“[An] absurdist fever dream… a true achievement.” —Joshua Brunsting, CriterionCast

“A challenging, cerebral slow-burner from the artist and film-maker Ben Rivers. It unfolds calmly, blankly, then contorts into violence: part drama, part opaque essay film on the nature of orientalism.” —Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian

“Part documentary, part a curious adaptation of a Paul Bowles short story about a peculiar form of post-colonial retribution. Exquisitely shot, this will please fans of Rivers’s art-film oeuvre, with its odyssey of clashing cultures in the Moroccan desert.” —Kate Muir, The Times

OVID EXCLUSIVE

What Means Something
Directed by Ben Rivers
With Rose Wylie
Documentary, UK, 2015, 66 min

A portrait of the British artist Rose Wylie (b. 1934) and her uniquely recognizable, colorful, and exuberant compositions. This month, Wylie will open the largest exhibition of her life at the Royal Academy of Arts.

“I met Rose quite a few years ago and we became good friends… She gave me complete access to filming her painting – so there are long sequences simply watching this process, alongside more relaxed times reading, looking at sketchbooks, talking about painting and other things, looking at source material and sitting in her jungle-like garden.” —Ben Rivers, filmmaker

“Wylie is known as an art-world rebel and for her remarkable rise as a painter when she was already in her 70s… As Wylie’s popularity soared in her 80s, people have been eager to demystify her boundless energy, to discover what her secret is. The truth is that hers is a kind of magic that can’t be explained – her art is inimitable, vibrant and unique because she is too.” —’At 91, Art-World Rebel Rose Wylie Is Preparing For The Largest Show Of Her Life,’ Charlotte Jansen, British Vogue

OVID EXCLUSIVE

Tuesday, February 17

Inquiring Nuns
Directed by Gordon Quinn, Gerald Temaner
With music by Philip Glass
Kartemquin Films, Documentary, USA, 1968, 66 min

Two young nuns explore Chicago, from a supermarket to the Art Institute and in front of churches on Sunday, confronting people with the crucial question: “Are you happy?” The humor and sadness of these honest encounters lift the film beyond its interview format to a serious and moving inquiry into the concerns of contemporary man, and also into the circumstances in which men will actually express their concerns.

“In this fascinating 1968 documentary, one of the earliest by Kartemquin Films, two outgoing Catholic nuns, Sister Marie Arne and Sister Mary Campion, walk around Chicago asking people if they’re happy. The answers they get are reasoned, spiritual, sometimes philosophical, and, in one case, frankly sexual, but a recurring motif is hope that the Vietnam War will end soon. The sisters’ warmth and interest are reciprocated by their subjects, most of whom show concern for others and little regard for their moment in the spotlight.” —Andrea Gronvall, The Chicago Reader

OVID EXCLUSIVE

Wednesday, February 18

It Happens to Us
Directed by Amalie R. Rothschild
New Day Films, Documentary, USA, 1972, 32 min

Released a year before Roe v. Wade, this short film by Amalie Rothschild lays out the dire realities of illegal abortion, interviewing women from a variety of backgrounds who made the choice to terminate a pregnancy.

“A jolting indictment of the furtive illegality of abortion… Some of the testimonies are shattering. The experienced speakers are personable, intelligent and plain-spoken.” —The New York Times

“The strength of the film is that with the extraordinary range of the women represented, they make a uniform plea. Rich and poor, educated and uneducated, they reveal, by their searching self-awareness, that they are fully capable of taking the responsibility for their own bodies that the law should entitle them to.” —Molly Haskell, The Village Voice

OVID EXCLUSIVE

Thursday, February 19

Becoming Astrid
Directed by Pernille Fischer Christensen
With Alba August
Music Box Films, Drama, Sweden, Denmark, 2018, 123 min

A biopic of Swedish writer Astrid Lindgren, the author of numerous children’s books and creator of Pippi Longstocking.

New York Times Critic’s Pick! “Quite beautiful, and the performances…are pitch-perfect.” —Jeannette Catsoulis, The New York Times

“A gorgeous piece of heritage filmmaking.” —Alissa Simon, Variety

“Absorbing…As Astrid, Alba August is high-spirited, rebellious, and resourceful.” —Andrea Gronvall, Chicago Reader

Friday, February 20

Emergent City 
Directed by Kelly Anderson, Jay Arthur Sterrenberg
MVD, Documentary, USA, 2024, 95 min

Over a decade, within the borders of a single Brooklyn community district, a microcosm of American democracy emerges. Residents of Sunset Park face a tangled web of rising rents, a legacy of environmental racism and the loss of the industrial jobs that once sustained their community. When a global developer purchases Industry City – a massive industrial complex on the waterfront – and begins to transform it into an “innovation district,” a battle erupts over the future of the neighborhood and of New York City itself. Emergent City sheds light on power and process, illuminating systems and giving viewers a front row seat to the public and private spaces where the city is shaped. 

“A film that exposes how the very presence of the creative class, no matter its progressive attitude or good will, can rupture a community.” —Eileen G’Sell, Reverse Shot

“Curious and patient, taking the time to understand its subject… a kind of nonfiction Rorschach test to help us illuminate how we really think about everything from housing costs to climate change.” —Washington City Paper

“An absorbing study…you can see the architecture of how modern cities are designed and who they are made for.” —The Moveable Feast

OVID EXCLUSIVE

Tuesday, February 24

My Sailor, My Love
Directed by Klaus Härö
With James Cosmo, Catherine Walker, Bríd Brennan
Music Box Films, Drama, Ireland, 2023, 103 min

A widowed sailor, Howard, lives alone on the coast of Ireland and struggles to care for himself. His daughter, Grace hires Annie to help out around the house. Though Howard initially rejects this imposition, Annie’s charm and gentle care win him over, and the two fall in love. This windswept drama deftly balances a universal family saga with a tender and timeless romance. 

“My Sailor, My Love will play to any nation where humans struggle to make themselves understood.” —Donald Clarke, The Irish Times

“Beautifully nuanced performances underpin an interesting drama that evolves from late-life romance into study of family trauma across generations” —The Guardian

** Toronto International Film Festival, 2022

First One In
Directed by Gina O’Brien
With Kat Foster, Georgia King, Alana O’Brien
Film Sales Company, Comedy, USA, 2020, 97 min

Thrown off a popular reality show in disgrace, an unemployed real estate agent teams with a group of misfit tennis players in a do-or-die match against an overachieving, tightly wound, real estate shark–and her tennis-playing minions.

“A nonstop camp-fest with an underlying message of female friendship.” —Olivia Simonds, Bust Magazine

“Beautifully made.” —Kyle Bain, Film Threat

Wednesday, February 25

Unstuck: An OCD Kids Movie
Directed by Kelly Anderson, Chris Baier
New Day Films, Documentary, USA, 2017, 22 min

To uncover what OCD is — and what it isn’t — filmmakers Kelly Anderson and Chris Baier focus on an unlikely group of experts: kids. Unstuck documents OCD through kids’ eyes only. It avoids sensationalizing compulsions and obsessions, and instead reveals the complexity of a disorder that affects both the brain and behavior. As six resilient kids and teens roadmap their process of recovery, the film inspires viewers to believe it is possible to fight their worst fears and beat OCD.

OVID EXCLUSIVE

Thursday, February 26

Concrete, Steel and Paint
Directed by Cindy Burstein & Tony Heriza
New Day Films, Documentary, USA, 2009, 55 min

Concrete, Steel & Paint tells the complex story of men in prison, victims of crime, and an artistic partnership that helps break down barriers between them. As prisoners, victims, and victim advocates collaborate on a mural about healing from crime, their views on punishment, remorse and forgiveness collide.

“Informs us with piercing eloquence that, through art and honesty, salvation and transcendent understanding are possible.” —The Huffington Post

OVID EXCLUSIVE

Friday, February 27

On The Line: Where Sacrifice Begins
Directed by Mike Mascoll
New Day Films, Documentary, USA, 2017, 75 min

Highlights one of the longest-running voluntary school desegregation programs in the country, the historical impact on the city of Boston, and those personally involved in the program itself.

OVID EXCLUSIVE

Complete list of films premiering on OVID this month (in alphabetical order):

Becoming Astrid, Pernille Fischer Christensen(2018)
Benny’s Bathtub, Jannik Hastrup, Flemming Quist Møller (1971)  
Concrete, Steel and Paint, Cindy Burstein & Tony Heriza (2009)
Emergent City, Kelly Anderson, Jay Arthur Sterrenberg (2024)  
First One In, Gina O’Brien (2020)
Hummingbirds, Silvia Del Carmen Castaños, Estefanía Contreras, Jillian Schlesinger, Miguel Drake-McLaughlin, Leslie Benavides, Diane Ng, Ana Rodriguez-Falcó, Rivkah Beth Medow (2023) 
Inquiring Nuns, Gordon Quinn, Gerald Temaner (1968)
My Letter to the World, Sol Papadopoulos (2018) 
My Sailor, My Love, Klaus Härö (2020)
On The Line: Where Sacrifice Begins, Mike Mascoll (2017)
The Forgotten Occupation: Jim Crow Goes to Haiti, Alain Martin (2023) 
The Heirloom, Ben Petrie (2024)
The Sky Trembles and the Earth Is Afraid and the Two Eyes Are Not Brothers, Ben Rivers (2015) 
Unstuck: An OCD Kids Movie, Kelly Anderson, Chris Baier (2017)
What Means Something, Ben Rivers (2015)