Author: Josh Hornbeck

Josh is the founder of Cinema Cocktail, and he is a writer and director, podcaster and critic, and communications and marketing professional living and working in the greater Seattle area.

Supa Modo (2018) | May 23, 7:00 pm

Jo, a witty 9-year old terminally ill girl, is taken back to her rural village to live out the rest of her short life. Her only comfort during these dull times are her dreams of being a superhero, which prove to be something her rebellious teenage sister Mwix, overprotective mother Kathryn, and the entire village of Maweni think they can fulfill. – Telescope Film

Director: Likarion Wainaina

Cast: Stycie Waweru, Nyawara Ndambia, Marrianne Nungo, Johnson Gitau Chege

Country: Germany, Kenya

Distributor: Juno Films

Rating: Not Rated

Runtime: 1 hour, 14 minutes

Platform: Video-On-Demand (Now available on Amazon Prime)

Special Programming: Family Films

Special Events: Centerpiece Gala

WHERE TO WATCH
CENTERPIECE GALA

Take Me Somewhere Nice (2019) | May 23, 5:30 pm

Alma travels to Bosnia to bid farewell to a father she hardly knows. This starts a journey with an unknown destination in which the outwardly indifferent teen discovers herself and her country of origin. – MUBI

Director: Ena Sendijarević

Cast: Sara Luna Zoric, Lazar Dragojevic, Ernad Prnjavorac

Country: Netherlands, Bosnia, Herzegovina

Rating: Not Rated

Runtime: 1 hour, 32 minutes

Platform: MUBI (Not currently available)

FIND ON OTHER PLATFORMS WHEN AVAILABLE

Selah and the Spades (2019) | May 23, 3:00 pm

Five factions run the underground life of Haldwell School, a prestigious east coast boarding school. At the head of the most powerful faction – The Spades – sits Selah Summers, walking the fine line between being feared and loved. – Amazon Prime

Director: Tayarisha Poe

Cast: Lovie Simone, Nekhebet Kum Juch, Ana Mulvoy-Ten, Jharrel Jerome, Jesse Williams, Celeste O’Connor

Country: United States

Distributor: Amazon Pictures

Rating: R

Runtime: 1 hour, 37 minutes

Platform: Amazon Prime

Special Events: Filmmaker Conversations

WATCH ON AMAZON PRIME

Filmmaker Conversations

Liz and the Blue Bird (2018) | May 23, 1:00 pm

Mizore Yoroizuka and Nozomi Kasaki are two close friends who are part of the Kitauji High School music club. Quiet and reserved Yoroizuka plays the oboe while lively and popular Kasaki plays the flute. The group has decided to play Liz and the Blue Bird, a song inspired on a fairy tale about the relationship between a girl and a bird. The musical piece puts both Mizore and Nozomi on the spotlight due to a solo part by Yoroizuka and forces the two girls to reexamine their friendship. – Hoopla

Director: Naoko Yamada

Cast: Atsumi Tanezaki, Nao Touyama, Ayaka Asai, Tomoyo Kurosawa

Country: Japan

Distributor: Shout! Factory

Rating: Not Rated

Runtime: 1 hour, 30 minutes

Platform: Hoopla

WATCH ON HOOPLA
WATCH ON OTHER STREAMING SERVICES

Pachamama (2018) | May 23, 11:00 am

When a sacred statue is taken from his Andean village, a spirited boy who dreams of becoming a shaman goes on a brave mission to get it back. – Netflix

Director: Juan Antín

Cast: Andrea Santamaria, India Coenen, Saïd Amadis, Marie Christine Darah

Country: France, Luxembourg, Canada

Distributor: Netflix

Rating: PG

Runtime: 1 hour, 12 minutes

Platform: Netflix

Special Programming: Family Films

WATCH ON NETFLIX

Before We Vanish (2017) | May 23, 12:30 am

Three aliens travel to Earth on a mission in preparation for a mass invasion. Having taken possession of human bodies, the visitors rob their hosts of the very essence of their being, leaving psychological and spiritual devastation in their wake. – Hulu

Director: Kiyoshi Kurosawa

Cast: Masami Nagasawa, Ryuhei Matsuda, Mahiro Takasugi, Yuri Tsunematsu

Country: Japan

Distributor: Super LTD

Rating: R

Runtime: 2 hours, 9 minutes

Platform: Hulu

Special Programming: Midnight Movies

WATCH ON HULU
WATCH ON OTHER STREAMING SERVICES

Transnistra (2019) | May 22, 10:15 pm

Atmospherically shot on 16mm film, Transnistra is an intimate and vital account of love and friendship in a complex, contradictory world. Award-winning director Anna Eborn (Pine Ridge) intimately follows a group of young people as they move from a sweltering, carefree summer through an unforgiving winter in the self-proclaimed state of Transnistria, where the national flag still holds the hammer and sickle. – Momento Film

Director: Anna Eborn

Cast: Tatyana Lipovskaya, Anatoly Nikolaevich, Alexander Stadnik

Country: Sweden, Denmark

Rating: Not Rated

Runtime: 1 hour, 33 minutes

Platform: MUBI (Not currently available)

Special Programming: Documentary Cinema

FIND ON OTHER PLATFORMS WHEN AVAILABLE

The Death of Louis XIV (2016) | May 22, 8:00 pm

Versailles, August 1715. Back from hunting, Louis XIV feels pain in his leg. A serious fever erupts, which marks the beginning of the agony of the greatest King of France. Surrounded by a horde of doctors and his closest counselors who come in turns at his bedside sensing the impending power vacuum, the Sun King struggles to run the country from his bed. – Kanopy

Director: Albert Serra

Cast: Jean-Pierre Léaud, Patrick d’Assumçao, Marc Susini, Bernard Belin

Country: France, Spain, Portugal

Distributor: The Cinema Guild

Rating: Not Rated

Runtime: 1 hour, 55 minutes

Platform: Kanopy

Special Events: Filmmaker Conversations

WATCH ON KANOPY
WATCH ON OTHER STREAMING SERVICES

Filmmaker Conversations

Soni (2018) | May 22, 6:00 pm

Soni, a young policewoman in Delhi, and her superintendent, Kalpana, have collectively taken on a growing crisis of violent crimes against women. However, their alliance suffers a major setback when Soni continues to get into violent situations while on duty, raising concerns about her temperament. – Telescope Film

Director: Ivan Ayr

Cast: Geetika Vidya Ohlyan, Saloni Batra, Vikas Shukla, Himanshu Kohli

Country: India

Distributor: Netflix

Rating: TV-MA

Runtime: 1 hour, 37 minutes

Platform: Netflix

WATCH ON NETFLIX

Sweet Country (2018) | May 22, 3:30 pm

Sam Kelly, a middle-aged Aboriginal man, works the land of a kind preacher, Fred Smith, in Australia’s Northern Territory. After an ill-tempered bully arrives in town and Kelly kills him in self-defense, he and his wife go on the run as a posse gathers to hunt him down. – Telescope Film

Director: Warwick Thornton

Cast: Hamilton Morris, Bryan Brown, Sam Neill, Thomas M. Wright

Country: Australia

Distributor: Samuel Goldwyn Films

Rating: R

Runtime: 1 hour, 53 minutes

Platform: Amazon Prime

Special Events: Filmmaker Conversations

WATCH ON AMAZON PRIME
WATCH ON OTHER STREAMING SERVICES

Filmmaker Conversations