Lucien Castaing-Taylor, Veréna Paravel (France/U.K./U.S., 2012). Lucien Castaing-Taylor in person. A thrilling adventure both on the high seas and in documentary storytelling, Leviathan immerses viewers in the waterlogged world of fishermen toiling on a creaking trawler. “Looks and sounds like no other documentary in memory” (Dennis Lim, NY Times). (87 mins)

Gus Van Sant (U.S., 1991). Lecture by Emily Carpenter. Gus Van Sant's melancholic portrait of street hustlers in Portland follows a narcoleptic Mike (River Phoenix) and his best friend Scott (Keanu Reeves) as they embark on a journey to find Mike's mother. With “magnetic performances from Reeves and Phoenix" (Rolling Stone).

Jan Nemec (Czech Republic, 2009). Nemec returns to the Prague Spring and his own Oratorio for Prague with this oblique look at memory, love, and politics. Followed by a free screening of the recent Czech TV documentary on Nemec and the Czechoslovak New Wave, Golden Sixties: Jan Nemec. (136 mins)

Neto Villalobos (Costa Rica, 2013). An impoverished security guard struggles to care for a fighting rooster in this quixotic Costa Rican comedy anchored by stellar performances from a mostly nonprofessional cast. (85 mins)

Mohammad Rasoulof (Iran, 2013). Iranian writer-director Rasoulof extends his uncompromising body of work with a taut, finely woven drama based on real-life events impacting a small circle of aging writers menaced by the Secret Service. (127 mins)

Amit Dutta (India, 2013). Celebrated Indian filmmaker Dutta fuses painterly technique and cinematic vision to form an engrossing meditation on the artistic legacy of northern India's lush Kangra Valley. (70 mins)

Hubert Sauper (France/Austria, 2013). Intrepid documentarian Sauper (Darwin's Nightmare) delivers a piercing examination of the human cost of neocolonialism in newly independent South Sudan. (110 mins)

Nobuhiro Yamashita (Japan, 2013). An apathetic recent college graduate in small-town Japan finds herself with two choices: either sabotage her father's budding romance, or find a place for herself in the world. (78 mins)

Vivian Qu (China, 2013). What's it like to be a twenty-first-century young adult in China's surveillance state? Qu's slow-building noir uses a simple boy-meets-girl tale to unearth a hidden world of government control just below the surface. (94 mins)