OVID’s September Lineup: Twenty-One New Films, Seven Docs from Latin America, Marianna Brennand’s MANAS Mary Stephen’s PALIMPSEST & much more!

This September, OVID presents seven Latin American films from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, and Mexico—including Marianna Brennand’s Manas (executive produced by Sean Penn, Walter Salles, Jean-Pierre & the Dardenne brothers), fresh off its Film Forum premiere: “Leaves you stunned—for the story it tells, for how it tells it, and for the piercing performances of its actors.” (Vittoria Scarpa, Cineuropa)  Another highlight is Fernanda Faya’s Neirud, about the titular wrestler (pictured above) in an underground all-female Brazilian circus troupe: “A fascinating story about race and identity, and queer life in last century’s Brazil.” (James Kleinmann, The Queer Review)

On the way via Icarus Films and The dGenerate Films Collection, Mary Stephen’s docu-memoir Palimpset: The Story of a Name: “Richly detailed, startlingly creative…  while also wry and playful… conveying the warmth and occasional strangeness of family ties along with the imaginative implications of family lore.” (Richard Brody, The New Yorker).

Plus, Bitterroot by Vera Brunner-Sung: “An impassioned, poetic depiction of Montana’s Hmong community… deeply authentic in its rhythms… nothing short of a consummate artistic achievement… one of the most uplifting movies this year.” (Siddhant Adlakha, Joy Sauce)

Full details on September’s complete lineup are below.

Image above from Fernanda Faya's NEIRUD, premiering on OVID on September 17th.

Wednesday, September 2

Songs of Slow Burning Earth
Directed by Olha Zhurba
EPF Media, Documentary | Ukraine, Sweden | 2024 | 95 min

Songs of Slow Burning Earth follows the lives of Ukrainians during the first two years of Russia’s full-scale invasion. The film captures the everyday resilience and deep personal losses of a country living through war. Through intimate scenes with civilians, children, and aid workers, it reveals how ordinary people endure extraordinary circumstances in the shadow of ongoing violence.

“Both intimate and universal: a portrait of a nation and of resilience, and the enduring impact of conflict, rendered with profound humanity and depth.” —Bianca-Olivia Nita, Modern Times Review

Thursday, September 3

Canuto’s Transformation
Directed by Ernesto de Carvalho & Ariel Kuaray Ortega
EPF Media, Documentary | Brazil | 2023 | 130 min

In a Mbyá-Guarani community on the Brazil-Argentina border, locals reenact the legend of Canuto, a man said to have transformed into a jaguar. Blending myth and reality, the documentary explores indigenous storytelling, collective memory, and the power of cinema.

“Weaves myth, memory, and everyday life into a portrait of a community reclaiming its stories… A fascinating folk tale, a behind-the-scenes documentary, cultural preservation, anthropology, and a love letter to a long-dead grandfather all wrapped up into one beautiful, complicated package.” —Video Librarian

M20 Matamoros
Directed by Leonor Maldonado
EPF Media | Documentary | Mexico | 2023 | 87 min

A group of men from the slums of Matamoros, Mexico create a dance that beats the ground, that contradicts and breaks the stereotypes of their lives and what is expected of them. These men shape their identities and their ways of relating to each other, challenging their masculine stereotypes.

“Immersive… M20 Matamoros offers a rare inside look at how young men in Matamoros use dance to navigate the pressures of border life.” —Video Librarian

OVID EXCLUSIVE

Friday, September 4

Boomba Ride
Directed by Biswajeet Bora
Deaf Crocodile / MVD | Drama | India | 2021 | 76 min

Scathing comic satire of corruption in India’s rural education system – and one 8-year old boy who knows how to rig the game for himself. Inspired by a true story, the film was shot in the state of Assam on the banks of the Brahmaputra River with a mostly nonprofessional cast. The story revolves around an impoverished school where there is only one (unwilling) student, Boomba.

“Charming… the movie is able to forge such a reassuring bond with its audience.” —Kalpa Jyoti Bhuyan, North East Film Journal

Tuesday, September 8

Bastard. The Legacy of Pinochet’s Genocide
Directed by Pepe Rovano
Pragda | Documentary | Chile, Italy, Sweden | 2023 | 83 min

On discovering his father was the head of Chilean police intelligence guilty of human rights abuses, the director confronts him and looks for victims.

“Bastard is emblematic of the profound trauma that generations of Chileans continue to process” — Juan Marín, Culturizarte

Wednesday, September 9

Freeports – The Beauty of Tax Free Storage
Directed by Martin Gronemeyer
First Hand Films / DS2, Documentary | Germany | 2021 | 52 min

There is a global network of tax-free storage facilities for valuable goods, catering to the super-rich. Freeports feature the highest security levels and confidential record-keeping. Through their offshore legal status, freeports serve as legal loopholes for tax avoidance and shadow business. With broad access to freeport operators and forwarders of the world’s most precious artworks, the film takes a deep dive into what freeports are really offering to wealthy clients worldwide, including the case of Russian oligarchs who used freeports to shirk international sanctions. Freeports takes us inside the walls and steel gates of these secretive high-security warehouses that otherwise remain closed to the general public.

Thursday, September 10

We Never Left
Directed by Loulwa Khoury
Watermelon Pictures | Documentary | USA | 2025 | 83 min

Saying goodbye to loved ones at the Beirut airport has become an unfortunate tradition in Lebanon, almost a curse. Lebanese emigrants, driven abroad by decades of turmoil, are more than double those still left in their homeland. After civil protests erupt in Lebanon on October 17th 2019, We Never Left follows three young Lebanese expats as they take part in the Lebanese revolution from New York fighting for a better country, each protesting in their own way. As they go through their collective journey, they all individually confront both their relationship with their homeland and their own complicated identities. This is the story of the Lebanese people and revolutions both political and personal.

Six Days: The War That Changed the Middle East
Directed by Ilan Ziv
Icarus Films | Documentary | USA | 2007 | 109 min

Although the fighting lasted only six days in June of 1967, the effects of the Six Day War are still apparent today. For Israel, the 1967 war was a military success, but it also redrew the Middle East map and mired the region in a never-ending cycle of occupation, resistance and reprisal. It also accelerated the Palestinian national movement. Shot on location in Israel, Palestine, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Moscow and Washington, Ziv takes us through the weeks that preceded the war, its six days of fighting and the aftermath that still lingers today. 

“Ilan Ziv provides invaluable perspective and fresh insights while offering an enlightening history lesson with the narrative momentum of an engrossing drama.” —Variety

“[An] intricate, propulsive explication… gives The Battle of Algiers a run for its money.” —Mark Holcomb, Time Out

OVID EXCLUSIVE

Friday, September 11

Signals: A Space Adventure
Directed by Gottfried Kolditz
With Piotr Pawlowski, Evgeniy Zharikov, Gojko Mitic, Alfred Müller
Deaf Crocodile / MVD | Feature | East Germany | 1970 | 92 min

The first and most ambitious of two epic space operas that prolific East German genre director Gottfried Kolditz made for state-run film studios, Signals takes on Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey behind the Iron Curtain. The film used many of the same tricks: expansive shots of the cosmos and Futurist space design.

“There’s a quiet brilliance to this film that has stuck with me since I first watched it for this feature. If anyone is reading this now and is looking for a film that has something interesting to say about themes of unity, human space travel, civilizational progress, and cooperation, this would be well worth your time.” —The Skiffy and Fanty Show

The Maiden
Directed by Graham Foy
Altered Innocence | Drama | Canada | 2022 | 117 min

Two high school kids lose their best friends. The discovery of a diary transports us to a mirror world, a magical ravine, and a paranormal encounter. 

“If many filmmakers have taken inspiration from Apichatpong Weerasethakul in the last decade, few have been able to tap into his emotional frequency.” —C.J. Prince, The Film Stage

“Intriguingly atmospheric… there is an eerie beauty and a strange sort of comfort in the idea of there being a place, perhaps not so very far away from the haunts they always haunted, where all the lost children find themselves, and where they can find each other.” —Jessica Kiang, Variety

OVID EXCLUSIVE

Tuesday, September 15

Taking Back Detroit
Directed by Stephen Lighthill
Icarus Films | Documentary | USA | 1980 | 55 min

In the 1970s and early 1980s Detroit was the setting for an unusual development in U.S. urban politics, as voters elected two socialists to citywide office. Taking Back Detroit examines these people and their organization against the backdrop of a city in extreme economic crisis. The film profiles City Council member Ken Cockrel and Recorders Court Judge Justin Ravitz. Cockrel and Ravitz and their political organization, DARE, opposed the accepted agenda for Detroit – tax abatements for industry, federal money for developers, cuts in city services, abandonment of older neighborhoods. They emphasize that the city could be made to serve its residents first – though promoting this idea was no simple task.

“Fascinating, marvelous, uplifting!” —Andy Merrifield, Antipode

OVID EXCLUSIVE

Black Limbo
Directed by Lorenzo Benítez
Impronta Films | Documentary | Spain | 2024 | 76 min

The secrets and impunity of the Franco dictatorship in the former Spanish Guinea continue to be present in the Spanish democracy. The Franco regime managed to hide its crimes and torture against the National Liberation Movement of Equatorial Guinea at the end of the 1950s. One of its main leaders, Acacio Mañe, was arrested and made to disappear. Now his family demands justice and reparation from Africa. Some 1,500 Equatorial Guineans suffered colonial repression in those initial years of the independence process. 

OVID EXCLUSIVE

Wednesday, September 16

Bitterroot
Directed by Vera Brunner-Sung
With Wa Yang, Qu Kue, April Charlo, Gia Vang
Icarus Films | Drama | USA | 2025 | 85 min

Bitterroot offers rare insight into an immigrant Hmong community in America, entering the emotional terrain of a man grappling with the aftermath of a failed marriage. In western Montana, recently divorced Lue keeps to a steady, quiet routine while living with his widowed mother, Song, whose efforts to find him another wife are unwelcome. Song fears she can’t get through to him, seeking guidance from ancestors. Lue discovers that the spirit world may still have influence over his life, and he must finally face the pain that he had tried to bury. 

“An impassioned, poetic depiction of Montana’s Hmong community… deeply authentic in its rhythms… nothing short of a consummate artistic achievement… one of the most uplifting movies this year.” —Siddhant Adlakha, Joy Sauce

“Superbly crafted. What impresses most profoundly about Bitterroot is the film’s pristine confidence.” —The Movie Waffler

Thursday, September 17

Neirud
Directed by Fernanda Faya
Pragda | Documentary | Brazil | 2023 | 72 min

When filmmaker Fernanda Faya discovers that her late aunt, known only as Neirud, had a secret past as Gorilla Woman, a controversial wrestling persona in an underground all-female Brazilian circus troupe, she embarks on a personal journey through forgotten archives and fractured family memories. Spanning the 1960s to the 1980s, Neirud explores vital themes of race, identity, gender performance, and queer visibility in Latin America.

“Neirud alternates poetic lyricism with poignant anecdotes, the net result is a heartfelt ode to the pioneers of the past who have made today possible.” –Hammer to Nail

“Not only a great love story, but an acute survey of Brazilian history and progress made in women’s place in society… a playful cinematic investigation with great warmth and heart.” –Dustin Chang, Screen Anarchy

** DOC NYC 2023

Friday, September 18

Manas  
Directed by Marianna Brennand
With Jamilli Correa, Fátima Macedo, Rômulo Braga, Emily Pantoja
Executive produced by Sean Penn, Walter Salles, Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne
KimStim | Drama | Brazil, Portugal | 2024 | 106 min

Aware that the future does not hold many options for her in a riverside community on Marajó Island, a 13-year-old girl decides to confront the violent machinery that governs her family and the women in her community. 

“Brennand spent years researching abuse in the Amazon before making Manas, and the film shows, in ways both subtle and explicit, how patriarchal mores and isolation can make girls like Marcielle feel like they are out of options. This is an upsetting film with an abrupt ending, but the feeling of despondence it imposes upon the audience is part of the point.” —Natalia Winkelman, The New York Times

“It’s hard not to leave Manas punch-drunk and gutted.” —Christian Craig, In Review Online

** World Premiere, 81st Venice International Film Festival, Winner of the Director’s Award

Tuesday, September 22

Burn Them
Directed by Adrián Jaime
With Agustín Tosco, Atilio López, Elpidio Torres 
Pragda | Documentary | Argentina | 2023 | 120 min

The Cordobazo was a pivotal moment in Argentina’s history, marking a fierce and transformative resistance against the military dictatorship of Juan Carlos Onganía in 1969. This documentary traces the powerful civil disobedience of the people of Córdoba, where workers and students united to challenge oppressive labor laws and the dictatorship’s growing authoritarianism.

Burn Them provides an in-depth analysis of the social and political context of The Cordobazo, highlighting its importance in Argentina’s revolutionary movements and its legacy in Latin American resistance history.

Thursday, September 24

Palimpsest: The Story of a Name
Directed by Mary Stephen
Icarus Films | From The dGenerate Films Collection | Documentary | USA | 2025 | 109 min

Best known for her numerous collaborations with French New Wave auteur Éric Rohmer, Stephen worked on eight feature films with Rohmer over 15 years as his principal editor from 1992 to his final feature in 2007. In Palimpsest: The Story of a Name, the veteran Hong Kong-born editor and filmmaker turns the camera on herself. Spanning eight decades and four continents, Stephen embarks on a personal investigation into her English surname in an effort to uncover the dissonances and contradictions in heritage that, despite our all too human desire for harmony and continuity, are the fundamental elements that shape us.

“Richly detailed, startlingly creative… while also wry and playful…conveying the warmth and occasional strangeness of family ties along with the imaginative implications of family lore.” —Richard Brody, The New Yorker

“Absorbing and endlessly surprising… A genuinely riveting exploration of the self, revealing how each one of us represents – and is sometimes burdened by – so much more than what we present to the outside world.” —James Marsh, South China Morning Post

OVID EXCLUSIVE – SVOD PREMIERE

The Witches of the Orient
Directed by Julien Faraut
KimStim | Documentary | France | 2021 | 100 min

How does a Japanese women’s volleyball team from the late 1950s become an international sensation, feminist role models, the subject of a wildly popular comic book and a still-influential anime? This stranger-than-fiction story is dynamically told by Julien Faraut with an ironic twist on the original demeaning moniker, Oriental Witches. A group of Osaka textile workers are transformed into a fiercely competitive volleyball team by their astonishingly ruthless coach whose unconventional techniques emphasize speed and aggression. A record-setting winning streak and a dramatic 1964 Tokyo Olympics triumph follow.

Critic’s Pick! “The movie uses chic archival footage to set up a mythic reconsideration of their triumphs… Montages are set to a hip electronic score, complete with Portishead needle drops… This documentary elegantly restores the glow of legend.” –Teo Bugbee, The New York Times

“A crackling editing style and a facility with 16mm archive footage that practically puts you inside its gorgeous grain… Mesmerizing, trance-like interplay of vintage volleyball coverage, old newsreels and anime cartoons… Hypnotic. Spellbinding.” –Jessica Kiang, Variety

Friday, September 25

The Swallows of Kabul    
Directed by Zabou Breitman, Eléa Gobbé-Mévellec
With Hiam Abbass, Swann Arlaud, Simon Abkarian, Zita Hanrot
KimStim | Animation | France | 2019 | 81 min

Adapted from Yasmina Khadra’s acclaimed novel and set in Taliban-controlled Kabul, young lovers Zunaira and Mohsen dream of a future free from violence, oppression, and religious extremism, while prison guard Atiq struggles to care for his terminally ill wife Mussarat. Following one tragic, impulsive act, the lives of both couples become inextricably linked as they confront injustice, sacrifice, and the struggle to preserve hope in a society stripped of compassion and freedom.

** Premiere, Un Certain Regard, 2019 Cannes Film Festival

OVID EXCLUSIVE

Tuesday, September 29

She They Us
Directed by Zaïde Bil, Sam Peeters & Heleen Declercq
First Hand Films / DS2 | Documentary | Belgium | 2023 | 5 episodes x 45 mins each

How to navigate the world fiercely when it doesn’t seem created for your body, work, well-being, love? She They Us is a series capturing the vision of women and their future, inspired by intersectional feminism and global responsibility.

Through five visually surprising and thematic episodes, three young filmmakers Zaïde Bil, Sam Peeters and Heleen Declercq travel across Europe to examine how women deal on a daily basis with discrimination.

Featuring musician Charlotte Adigéry, e-sports journalist Eefje ‘Sjokz’ Depoortere, cultural worker Fatima-Zohra Ait El Maâti, top model Hanne Gaby Odiele, domestic worker Mieke Van Hove, space scientist Angelique Van Ombergen, and gender expert Kaouthar Darmoni.

OVID EXCLUSIVE

Wednesday, September 30

Seguridad
Directed by Tamara Segura
Pragda | Documentary | Canada, Cuba | 2024 | 76 min

A filmmaker confronts her father’s death and Cuba’s militarized past, weaving intimate family archives into a narrative of forgiveness and reckoning. 

“Seguridad offers a different look into her home country beyond the poolside bars and sugar cane plantation excursions.” –Rachel Ho, POV Magazine

“The film is a personal essay, an attempt to get to know the man from whom she was estranged, through the traces and memories he left behind.” –Sara Swain, The Independent

** Hot Docs 2024

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

Bastard. The Legacy of Pinochet’s Genocide, Pepe Rovano (2023) 
Bitterroot, Vera Brunner-Sung (2025)
Black Limbo, Lorenzo Benítez (2024)  
Boomba Ride, Biswajeet Bora (2021)
Burn Them, Adrián Jaime (2023) 
Canuto’s Transformation, Ernesto de Carvalho & Ariel Kuaray Ortega (2023) 
Freeports – The Beauty of Tax Free Storage, Martin Gronemeyer (2021) 
M20 Matamoros, Leonor Maldonado (2023) 
Manas, Marianna Brennand (2024)  
Neirud, Fernanda Faya (2023) 
Palimpsest: The Story of a Name, Mary Stephen (2025)
Seguridad, Tamara Segura (2024) 
She They Us, Zaïde Bil, Sam Peeters & Heleen Declercq (2023) 
Signals: A Space Adventure, Gottfried Kolditz (1970) 
Six Days: The War That Changed the Middle East, Ilan Ziv (2007)
Songs of Slow Burning Earth, Olha Zhurba (2024)  
Taking Back Detroit, Stephen Lighthill (1980)
The Maiden, Graham Foy (2022)
The Swallows of Kabul, Zabou Breitman, Eléa Gobbé-Mévellec (2019) 
The Witches of the Orient, Julien Faraut (2021)
We Never Left, Loulwa Khoury (2025)