Roberto Minervini’s follow-up to his acclaimed “Texas Trilogy” is an indelible, surprising, and often unnerving portrait of bayou nihilism, tactfully portraying Louisianian junkies and a militia in all their contradictions, and immersing us in their daily routines with an eye and ear for unexpected comedy and poetry, as well as for the political ramifications of their downtrodden, hedonistic libertarianism.

Ben Rivers’s latest exploration of solitude is an intimate, real-time portrait of the painter Rose Wylie at work in her home studio in the English countryside, and a film that truly illuminates a singular creative process.

Artist Jumana Manna picks up the torch of seminal ethnomusicologist Robert Lachmann and records contemporary musicians from a variety of Palestinian communities. Unpretentious in its approach and beautifully photographed, this infectious film proves Manna a master of conveying both the quotidian and the staged.

In this thought-provoking meditation on film form, art, love, and gender, José Luis Guerín (In the City of Sylvia) invents a university seminar about the role of women in the creation of art, led by Professor Raffaele Pinto and attended entirely by actresses. A favorite at the Locarno Film Festival and Film Comment’s fourth best undistributed film of 2015.

Winner of the Special Jury prize at Locarno 2015, Mauro Herce’s exquisitely shot, surreal journey of a freighter from Ukraine to New Orleans doubles as a piercing insight into global capitalism.

The poets Ingeborg Bachmann and Paul Celan exchanged letters for nearly 20 years, and the Austrian documentarian Ruth Beckermann presents this remarkable correspondence with two young actors (Anja Plaschg and Laurence Rupp) reading their words before the camera, occasionally commenting on the text. As emotionally wrenching as it is elegantly precise, The Dreamed Ones is a minimalist tour de force.

A powerful document of the abusive, dangerous, grueling, and humiliating conditions under which “unskilled” female laborers in South Korea and Cambodia have suffered, and their attempts to receive better treatment. Winner of the Silver Lion at the 2015 Venice Biennale.

An unflinching look at the First Liberian Civil War—and war itself—from the testimonies of seven former warlords and warriors. Crucial viewing for our current age of extremism. Screening with: Impression of a War (Camilo Restrepo, 26m).

Jean-Gabriel Périot charts the evolution of the Red Army Faction members from impassioned intellectuals to urban guerrillas using only a variety of footage from the era.

A group of hunters tell stories about a local hermit who lived alone in a cave for over 60 years, advancing theories through personal reminiscences as to why he chose to abandon society. Winner of DocLisboa’s 2015 Best International Film Award.

Director Philip Trevelyan’s 1971 portrait of a family depicts a lifestyle rich in eccentricities, wit, and independence. Cut off from London society and its influences just 20 miles away, the Page family lives a simple but self-sufficient existence in their ramshackle house without electricity, gas, or running water.

After seeing a documentary that triggers a long-lost memory of visiting a park with his father, a Chilean filmmaker living in Brooklyn goes on a wild chase to track down a statue.

An unassuming and bitterly poignant portrayal of a father-son relationship, the wordless rituals around sport, and the transformative power of the World Cup.

Andrés Duque’s affectionate, free-form portrait of Russian piano virtuoso Oleg Nikolaevitch Karavaychuk features the enigmatic maestro wandering through the halls of the Hermitage while speaking about the art on the walls, and eventually his own life.

A fly-on-the-wall look at a struggling Japanese fishery that slowly reveals the economic and xenophobic tensions that are bubbling under the surface of society.

A bawdy, absurdist journey across China’s remote Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region that yields 16 funny and astute poems. Grand Prize winner of the 2015 Jeonju International Film Festival.

The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world, with the tentacles of the criminal justice system reaching far beyond the prison walls. Brett Story’s deftly photographed and elegantly structured film weaves together a captivating essayistic depiction of our quotidian carceral nation.

Filled with fascinating interactions between people and the different spaces they happen to occupy, Hassen Ferhani’s quietly profound slice of workers’ lives in and around a slaughterhouse in Algiers is a documentary that illuminates the entire region.

A Roma family living inside a Toronto housing block awaits their asylum hearing by rehearsing stories about their past and apartment block, some true and others mythical.

Inspired by Deleuze, Thom Andersen’s film poetically associates clips from one to the next—surprising, enlightening, charming, and bewildering in their juxtapositions—to reflect a vision deeply linked to the moments and visions that have sculpted his cinematic and philosophical perspective.

Half-ecology, half-ethnography, this gorgeous documentary explores the different people who pass through (or take up residence) in Paris’s Le Bois de Vincennes park.

A Congolese protest song scores a history of activism, man-made caverns open deep beneath the surface of Singapore, outsiders witness a transformative Xucuru-Kariri tribe ritual, and the manic construction of Brasília sinks a neighboring town in these four nonfiction shorts: One.Two.Three (Vincent Meessen, 36m), Sea State Six (Charles Lim, 11m), Toré (João Vieira Torres & Tanawi Xucuru Kariri, 16m), and All Still Orbit (Dane Komljen & James Lattimer, 22m).

A volcanic eruption off the coast of Sicily, the opening shot of Diary of a Country Priest, and a central concept of Scientology are manipulated to diverse effect in these three nonfiction shorts: Lampedusa (Philip Cartelli & Mariangela Ciccarello, 14m), The Mesh and the Circle (Mariana Caló & Francisco Queimadela, 34m), and Engram of Returning (Daïchi Saïto, 19m).

This program compiles a number of Bruce Baillie’s poetic and social documentaries created for Canyon Cinema venues, entitled The News. These little films provided a format for creating low-budget, urgent, and politically motivated works. They also demonstrated possibilities for a more immediate transition from production to exhibition.

Features three works surveying America’s (inner) landscape, this program includes Quick Billy, Baillie’s most personal piece; along with Pastorale D’Ete by Will Hindle, one of Baillie’s beloved filmmaker friends, and the astonishing Starlight by Robert Fulton.

The two films presented here—Quixote and To Parsifal—explore the imagistic heroic with which Baillie identified during his quest period with many idols.

For more than five decades, Bruce Baillie corresponded with Stan Brakhage. They shared fascinating letters, films, and even audiotapes recorded from a van on the road. This program shows some possible connections and affinities between these two friends’ film universes.

Bruce Baillie and Chick Strand founded Canyon Cinema in 1961. The era was one of social idealism and communal energy, and the films they showcased boldly embraced purely cinematic visual expression and cultural critique. This program includes some works of the filmmakers that belong to that community and who were influenced by this spirit.