Currents Program 3: Common Ground

Jacob’s House
Lucas Kane, 2025, U.S., 22m
North American Premiere

Jacob’s House

A film about spiritual warfare and rentier capitalism, Jacob’s House lingers on a 12-year resident of a Clinton Hill home who has been resisting eviction since 2021. As jackhammers fight to drown out Jacob’s thoughtful voice-over narration on the soundtrack, Lucas Kane’s lovingly detailed 16mm portrait offers at once a dreamy evocation of a dedicated artist, clothing designer, and caretaker, and an incisive treatise on the meaning of home and the violence of private property.

Anoka
Karthik Pandian, 2025, U.S./India, 12m
English, Spanish, Tamil, Lakota, and Anishinaabemowin with English subtitles
World Premiere

Anoka

Distilling riotous energies and vibrant sensations, Karthik Pandian’s discursive and polyphonic film traverses geographic expanses in search of a subterranean spirit of collectivity, kinship, and exchange. Titled with a word that has many homophones across different languages—Dakota, Ojibwa, and Sanskrit—Anoka locates a shared space in which to build anti-colonial solidarity across language, culture, and time.

Give It Back: Crimes Against Realty
New Red Order, 2025, U.S., 34m
North American Premiere

Give It Back: Crimes Against Realty. Courtesy of New Red Order.

“Are you tired of living on stolen land?” Part infomercial, part agit-prop satire, Give It Back: Crimes Against Realty playfully documents and models a Land Back project alongside a cast of allies and accomplices that includes the mayor of Oakland, a college professor, and a “reformed Native American impersonator.” With mischief and formal play, New Red Order navigates the quandary of real estate and the “rematriation” of Indigenous lands from the Redwood Forest to a luxury Park Avenue condo.