Having wriggled their way out from beneath their father’s domineering thumb, the two Savage siblings are now firmly cocooned in their own complicated lives. Wendy (Laura Linney) is a struggling East Village playwright and. Jon (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is a neurotic college professor writing books on obscure subjects in Buffalo. Then comes the call that informs them that the father they have long feared and avoided, Lenny Savage (Philip Bosco), is slowly being consumed by dementia and they are the only ones that can help. Featuring nuanced performances from an extraordinary cast, The Savages marks the return of writer and director Tamara Jenkins who won acclaim for the humor and humanity of her previous film, The Slums of Beverly Hills.

Beverly Hills, known for Rodeo Drive, posh hotels, and celebrity mansions, also has a wrong side of the tracks, and there lives the nomadic Abramowitz family. Single father Murray (Alan Arkin) is determined to keep his kids in California’s most glamorous ZIP code, even if only on the fringes. “Furniture is temporary,” he counsels his peripatetic children, “but education is forever.” The focus of this coming-of-age comedy is daughter Vivian, the only girl in the otherwise all male family, who is mortified to discover that with maturity suddenly comes breasts and the attention of boys, both of which are too much for her to handle. Into their already unpredictable life comes sexually liberated Rita (Marisa Tomei), daughter of Murray’s brother Mickey (Carl Reiner), who, to the horror of Vivian’s father, becomes a role model for the budding teenager. Produced by Robert Redford, director Tamara Jenkins’s semi-autobiographical screenplay was developed and refined during Screenwriters and Filmmakers Labs sessions at the Sundance Institute.

Nick Broomfield’s latest film is a highly realistic, fictional rendering of an incident that took place in the village of Haditha, Iraq, where much of the insurgency has taken place. In November 2005, a roadside explosive killed one US Marine and wounded two others. Enraged fellow Marines exacted revenge by killing twenty-four Iraqis: men, women and children. In Battle for Haditha, Broomfield sets out to recreate the incident, imagining the circumstances that provoked the violence and led to the massacre. The dialogue is largely improvised by a cast of non-professionals, many of whom had seen extensive combat in Iraq.

Director Nick Broomfield has stepped out of his documentarian role to create a grippingly compelling film. Ai Qin, a young Chinese woman, borrows $25,000 to be smuggled into the UK illegally so she can support her son and family. Once in the UK she becomes one of 3 million migrant workers. She finds work cockling off the Lancashire coast, until tragedy strikes. Ai Qin and the other principal characters are played by Chinese former illegal immigrants who have drawn on their life experiences to give passionate and authentic performances.

Tickets for this OFFScreen event are $3.00 and available only at the door.