Day 2 Schedule: American Documentary Film Festival

Site Staff Arts & Entertainment, Attractions

The best part of the American Documentary Film Festival is the variety of genres.

No matter your interest, there is likely a documentary film that addresses it.

In its second year, the film festival features 100 documentary films, ranging in length from 4 minutes to nearly 2 hours. Film screenings will be split between the Camelot Theatres in Palm Springs and Century Theatres at The River in Rancho Mirage..

Here is the April 5 schedule:



"Stray Tales"

Time: 11 a.m.
Where: Camelot Theatre 2
Title: Cultivation (Russia/USA – 19 minutes)
Synopsis: In a Soviet-era “academic village” surrounded by Siberian forest, mathematicians lament the decline of education. Original soundtrack based on Dmitri Shostakovich’s 5th Symphony.

Time: 11 a.m.
Where: Camelot Theatre 2
Title: The Will of Victory (USA – 45 minutes)
Synopsis: Footage of World War II from Russian archives immerses viewers in images of the Nazi invasion, occupation, and retreat from Russia. Featuring brutal and unrelenting real views of war, accompanied only by music, this “doc opera” illustrates — without words — endurance in the extreme and the power of human resilience.

Time: 11:30 a.m.
Where: Camelot Theatre 1
Title: Cans of Hope (Japan – 13 minutes)
Synopsis: When faced with closure of a business destroyed in Japan’s 2011 tsunami, a restaurateur puts in an order that changes the future of the company and the people who work there. This documentary captures the anxiety and hopes of the victims, with grand yet emotionally charged scenery of the disaster’s aftermath.

Time: 11:30 a.m.
Where: Camelot Theatre 1
Title: Downeast (USA – 84 minutes)
Synopsis: This film details the closing of the last U.S. sardine cannery in April 2010 and what happened a few months later, when entrepreneur and Italian-transplant Antonio Bussone purchased the plant, hoping to re-build a lobster processing facility and rehire the laid-off sardine workers.

Time: 11:30 a.m.
Where: Century Theatres at The River
Title: April (USA – 4 minutes)
Synopsis: Faith’s smile obscures the pain of the past and her fear of bullets striking her mother’s Memphis apartment. Her refuge is a magnolia tree that she calls April. Nearby, Hattie Mae writes messages on a tree stump in her front yard, telling those who pass to live now.

Time: 11:30 a.m.
Where: Century Theatres at The River
Title: A Part of Me (USA – 17 minutes)
Synopsis: This courageous personal journey explores whether a family can rebuild after a divorce. Nathan Flanagan-Frankl struggles with the separation of his parents. Upon returning home for Thanksgiving, he is forced to face the troubles he left behind and come to terms with his family as a separate whole.

Time: 11:30 a.m.
Where: Century Theatres at The River
Title: Stray Tales (Spain/Germany/USA – 20 minutes)
Synopsis: The story of four emigrants, who, without knowing it, trace each other’s urban paths. Their interwoven stories connect on multiple levels and tell a remarkable tale of mobility and human connection. Shot on location in Berlin, New York City, Tel Aviv, and Vejer de la Frontera.

Time: 11:30 a.m.
Where: Century Theatres at The River
Title: American Colter (USA – 23 minutes)
Synopsis: This documentary follows Colter White from incarceration to graduating from Santa Clara University with a bachelor’s degree in communication. White spent nearly half of his life in California prisons. After parole, he attends college and, with tattoos from the neck down, is immediately branded as a felon.

Time: 11:30 a.m.
Where: Century Theatres at The River
Title: Tramping in Bohemia (USA – 23 minutes)
Synopsis: In communist Czechoslovakia, it wasn’t so difficult to find a sense of freedom. All you needed was a backpack, a guitar, and a place to sleep under the stars. But in today’s democratic Czech Republic, there’s little reason for rebellion and escape. Is there still a place for these old romantics and the youth culture that defined them?

"Dancing Salmon Home"

Time: Noon
Where: Camelot Theatre 3
Title: Chicken and Zoe (USA – 4 minutes)
Synopsis: In this short documentary, eating chicken takes on new meaning for 4-year-old Zoe as she witnesses her first slaughter.

Time: Noon
Where: Camelot Theatre 3
Title: Covenant (USA – 43 minutes)
Synopsis: Filmed over three years at farmsteads and agricultural fairs throughout Ohio, this film introduces farmers reflecting upon the nature and economy of keeping livestock. During the film, a narrated poem calls your attention to the anxieties and challenges of the human/farm animal bond.

Time: Noon
Where: Camelot Theatre 3
Title: Just a Moment (Lithuania – 60 minutes)
Synopsis: It’s been 21 years since the collapse of the Soviet Union. In Belarus, locals survive by making and selling soft toys. This compelling film looks at a sliver of the world where people make stuffed animals and sell them to travelers.

Time: 1:30 p.m.
Where: Camelot Theatre 2
Title: Blackstone’s Equation (USA – 53 minutes)
Synopsis: The story of Tim Masters, who spent over nine years in prison for a crime he did not commit. A story of the American justice system, the pitfalls of criminal profiling, and the need — in our darkest of hours — to never, ever give up.

Time: 1:30 p.m.
Where: Camelot Theatre 2
Title: Hypothesis (USA – 47 minutes)
Synopsis: A documentary about Brigham Young University physics professor Steven E. Jones, who, in 2005, released a scientific paper outlining evidence that the World Trade Center was destroyed by pre- positioned explosives, rather than the hijacked jetliners on 9/11. Jones received hate mail, bribes, and even threats to end his research.

Time: 2 p.m.
Where: Camelot Theatre 1
Title: Strong (USA – 6 minutes)
Synopsis: Enter into the world of a buffalo farmer who joins the Lakota Indian tribe and learns to speak to his animals through the ancient ritual of sweat lodge.

Time: 2 p.m.
Where: Camelot Theatre 1
Title: Eyes in the Forest: The Portraiture of Jim Lawrence (Canada – 13 minutes)
Synopsis: Follow experimental filmmaker Miriam Needoba in this rare view of British Columbia’s remote Lardeau Valley, as seen through the eyes of wildlife photographer Jim Lawrence.

Time: 2 p.m.
Where: Camelot Theatre 1
Title: Dancing Salmon Home (USA – 67 minutes)
Synopsis: The story of loss and reunification across generations and oceans, as the Winnemem Wintu tribe of northern California travels to New Zealand to meet their long-lost Chinook Salmon relatives, who have been missing from their Mccloud River homeland for 65 years.

Time: 2 p.m.
Where: Century Theatres at The River
Title: H2Indo (USA – 76 minutes)
Synopsis: If you liked the ’1960s classic, “The Endless Summer”, you will love this film that immerses the viewer into the world of paddleboard surfing.

Time: 2:30 p.m.
Where: Camelot Theatre 3
Title: Tea or Electricity (Belgium – 93 minutes)
Synopsis: A story about the implementation of electricity in a tiny isolated village in the Moroccan grand Atlas Mountains. Over three years, the film reveals the technological net of merciless modernity in which the small village becomes engulfed.

"The Pride of Palm Springs"

Time: 4 p.m.
Where: Camelot Theatre 2
Title: Herd in Iceland (USA/Iceland – 28 minutes)
Synopsis: The horse holds a precious place in Icelandic culture and Icelandic law prohibits the importation of horses onto the island. This film follows Icelandic herders as they collected their horses across the island’s remote terrain and captures the symbolism behind the horses and the nation they represent.

Time: 4 p.m.
Where: Camelot Theatre 2
Title: Vana (Czech Republic – 80 minutes)
Synopsis: Filmed over three years, this action-packed, award-winning film chronicles the incredible life of Vana, arguably the best jockey in history, who continues to compete into his 70s, and who lives by the credo, “The biggest race is life itself.”

Time: 4:30 p.m.
Where: Camelot Theatre 1
Title: The Pride of Palm Springs (USA – 22 minutes)
Synopsis: In 2006, Palm Springs High School band director Brian Ingelson entered his marching band in the Palm Springs Pride Parade. Seven years later, what started out to be a controversial decision has become one of the band’s most meaningful performances of the year.

Time: 4:30 p.m.
Where: Camelot Theatre 2
Title: American Bear: An Adventure in the Kindness of Strangers (Czech Republic – 100 minutes)
Synopsis: Armed with nothing but curiosity and a camera, Sarah and Greg travel through America relying on the kindness of strangers on a fate-driven journey that takes them through 30 states and five towns in the country called Bear.

Time: 4:30 p.m.
Where: Century Theatres at The River
Title: Achill (Germany – 9 minutes)
Synopsis: Real excitement is always a little out of focus. All joy lies buried in a blind rush and hasty perceptions. That’s why this filmmaker says she never had her eyes lasered.

Time: 4:30 p.m.
Where: Century Theatres at The River
Title: Fight Like a Girl (USA – 82 minutes)
Synopsis: A gritty, first-person narrative shot over five years that delves inside the world of female boxers. From world champions to amateurs training for local tournaments, the women profiled share common emotional histories and traumas. A compelling story about women overcoming adversity and finding healing through boxing.

Time: 5 p.m.
Where: Camelot Theatres 3
Title: A Flicker in Eternity (USA – 26 minutes)
Synopsis: The coming-of-age tale of Stanley Hayami, a talented young teenager thrust into the turmoil of World War II and caught between his dream of becoming a writer/ artist and duty to his country.

Time: 5 p.m.
Where: Camelot Theatres 3
Title: Be Home Soon, Letters from my Grandfather (USA – 77 minutes)
Synopsis: An intimate, personal documentary about war and faith, love and loss, and family myth and legacy based on letters from the patriarch, who volunteered as a chaplain in WWII in the Philippines, survived the Bataan Death March, and died as a Japanese prisoner of war.

"The Reindeer People"

Time: 6:30 p.m.
Where: Camelot Theatres 2
Title: The Reindeer People (Russia – 23 minutes)
Synopsis: A film about nomadic Chukchi reindeer breeders, who pack their simple baggage in a sleigh and, guided by reindeer, roam from place to place around the bound- less expanse of northeastern Russia. For the Chukchi, the reindeer is the main divine being, protecting them from misfortune.

Time: 6:30 p.m.
Where: Camelot Theatres 2
Title: In the Steppes of Ghenghis (USA – 59 minutes)
Synopsis: The story of a 9 year-old girl who lives to ride horses. This film follows Khoroldai through a brutal winter, as she tends to her animals, and then travels across the Mongolian steppe in summer to compete in the oldest horse race in the world.

Time: 7 p.m.
Where: Camelot Theatres 1
Title: The Will (Denmark – 90 minutes)
Synopsis: As his grandfather lies dying, 30-something Henrik looks forward to receiving an inheritance from the successful family hotel business. But getting his hands on the money proves to be much more complicated than he thought. It soon becomes clear that nothing is for certain in this Danish family.

Time: 7 p.m.
Where: Camelot Theatres 1
Title: Cans of Hope (Japan – 13 minutes)
Synopsis: When faced with closure of a business destroyed in Japan’s 2011 tsunami, a restaurateur puts in an order that changes the future of the company and the people who work there. This documentary captures the anxiety and hopes of the victims, with grand yet emotionally charged scenery of the disaster’s aftermath.

Time: 7 p.m.
Where: Camelot Theatres 1
Title: Downeast (USA – 84 minutes)
Synopsis: This film details the closing of the last U.S. sardine cannery in April 2010 and what happened a few months later, when entrepreneur and Italian-transplant Antonio Bussone purchased the plant, hoping to re-build a lobster processing facility and rehire the laid-off sardine workers.

Time: 7:30 p.m.
Where: Camelot Theatres 3
Title: The Beauty Factory (USA/Venezuela – 85 minutes)
Synopsis: Venezuela has produced more Miss Universes than any other nation. This film follows five contestants over the course of four months as they compete for the coveted Miss Venezuela crown; offering an intimate look into the world of beauty — and the sometimes-ugly things people do to be part of it.

For tickets and more information, visit the American Documentary Film Festival website.