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Exclusive: Freestyle Digital Media has acquired North American rights to a pair of coming-of-age dramas: writer-director Alana Waksman’s debut feature We Burn Like This, and writer-director Anna Matz’s first feature, Love You Anyway. The digital film distribution division of Byron Allen’s Allen Media Group plans to release both titles across internet and satellite platforms on June 28.

Inspired by true events, the former film from Armian Pictures shows the inherited effects of historical trauma and the strength of survival and healing. When 22-year-old Rae (Madeleine Coghlan), a descendant of Holocaust survivors, is targeted by Neo-Nazis in Billings, Montana, her ancestors’ trauma becomes real. As antisemitism continues to rise in the community, we follow Rae on her journey to forgive herself, her mother and the broken world. We Burn Like This also stars Reservation Dogs‘ Devery Jacobs, as well as Kendra Mylnechuk, Angelo Rizzo, Casidee Riley and Megan Folsom.

The 2021 summer film festival season is continuing forward, slightly off-kilter, with Tribeca in June and Cannes in July, before the fall season takes off with in Venice, Telluride, Toronto and New York. The American Film Institute’s AFI Docs 2021 (June 22-27), which is skewed toward the virtual, (much like the lockdown iteration of 2020), will screen 77 Films from 23 countries, opening with Garrett Bradley’s “Naomi Osaka”, a world premiere of the upcoming mini-series about the tennis champion, and closing with Isabel Bethencourt and Parker Hill’s Sundance 2021 premiere “Cusp.” Morgan Neville’s Tribeca 2021 debut “Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain” as the centerpiece gala.

Like last year, all the films will be available to view online at Docs.AFI.com, plus in-person screenings at the AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center in Silver Spring, Maryland. Select films will be available with closed captioning and descriptive audio. 52 percent of the films are directed by women,...

The 2021 summer film festival season is continuing forward, slightly off-kilter, with Tribeca in June and Cannes in July, before the fall season takes off with in Venice, Telluride, Toronto and New York. The American Film Institute’s AFI Docs 2021 (June 22-27), which is skewed toward the virtual, (much like the lockdown iteration of 2020), will screen 77 Films from 23 countries, opening with Garrett Bradley’s “Naomi Osaka”, a world premiere of the upcoming mini-series about the tennis champion, and closing with Isabel Bethencourt and Parker Hill’s Sundance 2021 premiere “Cusp.” Morgan Neville’s Tribeca 2021 debut “Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain” as the centerpiece gala.

Like last year, all the films will be available to view online at Docs.AFI.com, plus in-person screenings at the AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center in Silver Spring, Maryland. Select films will be available with closed captioning and descriptive audio. 52 percent of the films are directed by women,...

The American Film Institute has announced the slate for its hybrid 2021 edition from June 22-27. Titles include the centerpiece screening of Morgan Neville’s “Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain,” while Garrett Bradley’s “Naomi Osaka” will open the festival and “Cusp” is the closing night selection.

Held in Silver Spring, MD and on docs.afi.com, the lineup features 77 films from 23 countries, including four world premieres. The festival’s programming will feature 52% of the films directed by women, 40% by Bipoc directors and 18% by LGBTQ directors.

“We are living in the Golden Age of documentary film,” said Sarah Harris, AFI Festivals Director of Programming. “At AFI Docs, we are proud to celebrate excellence in the films of 2021 – connecting audiences across the nation, engaging them in lively conversation and inspiring them with both the unprecedented challenges and the breathtaking beauty of the world around us.”

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