Over four days, Common Good International Film Festival showcases high-quality cinema from around the world, handpicked by our curatorial team. Our vision is simple: to show films and have discussions that elicit common sense, common decency, and the common good. Join us at the Claremont Laemmle movie theater for a weekend of inspiring, celebratory cinema from around the world!

Schedule:
Friday, February 17, 2023
7:00pm: Feature Film: A Fire Inside
When a volunteer firefighter drives his car into almost certain death, during the worst fires in Australian history, he does it because he ‘has a job to do’. Three months later, the fires are out, but his fight is just beginning. Turning a sensitive lens on the unprecedented devastation of Australia’s 2019/2020 ‘Black Summer’ bushfires from a country-wide emergency to the astonishing stories of help that emerged, A FIRE INSIDE presents an inspirational look at the way people respond to crisis and its true impact on the human spirit.

Director: Justin Krook and Luke Mazzaferro

Film Length: 91 minutes

Saturday, February 18, 2023
10:30am: Feature Film: For Tomorrow
Filmed with local crews around the world from the Andes to Sierra Leone, and with rare access to the United Nations Development Programme, FOR TOMORROW (narrated by Daisy Ridley) is the story of grassroots innovators dedicated to fighting some of today’s most pressing sustainability issues. Through actions, big and small, everyday changemakers are tackling local problems and inspiring their communities with ingenuity, resilience and vision. Whether it’s a solar-powered car built from electronic waste, or soaps and detergents made from food scraps by someone with no chemistry background, grassroots solutions are setting the planet on a more sustainable path. For a real breakthrough, governments and the private sector must recognize these unlikely innovators and celebrate them just as do those from Silicon Valley.

Director: An Tran

Film Length: 72 minutes

1:00pm: Feature Film: Rebellion
Rebellion is the first feature-length documentary to tell the behind-the-scenes story of Extinction Rebellion from its launch in 2018. With unprecedented access, the filmmakers follow a group of unlikely allies and capture the human drama of social movements first hand. The film crucially tells a story about the health of our democracy, as we witness moves to restrict the power of peaceful protest – including a government bill threatening 10 year jail sentences for those causing ‘serious annoyance or inconvenience.’ The moment of protest freedoms depicted in the film may soon be impossible.

Director: Maia Kenworthy and Elena Sánchez Bellot

Film Length: 82 minutes

4:00pm: Feature Film: Riverside Mukolitta
Takeshi (Kenichi Matsuyama) arrives in a small village in the Hokuriku region. There, he begins to work at a small factory which makes shiokara (salted fish paste). Through the introduction of the CEO of the factory, he begins to live in at an old and cheap apartment building. One day, his apartment building neighbor Kozo (Tsuyoshi Muro) visits Takeshi and asks to take a bath in his bathroom. Takeshi then begins to make relations with the residents at the apartment building and he becomes friends with Kozo. Later, Kozo learns the secret of why Takeshi came to the village.

Director: Naoko Ogigami

Film Length: 120 minutes

7:30pm: Feature Film: Being Michelle
BEING MICHELLE follows the astonishing journey of a deaf and disabled woman who survived incarceration and abuse under unimaginable circumstances by a system that refused to accommodate her needs as a deaf person with autism. Michelle’s trajectory changed when she met Kim Law, a blind volunteer life coach who teaches classes to people in prison. Today, outside of prison, Kim and Michelle are doing the difficult work of unraveling Michelle’s history, of telling the story of Michelle’s traumatic childhood and her adverse experiences in the criminal justice system. With the support of Kim, Michelle realizes her own voice and strength.

Director: Atin Mehra

Film Length: 80 minutes

Sunday, February 19, 2023
10:30am: Short Films Block
Adjustment
Shahrokh sits in the classroom, scraping off his nail polish anxiously. The Villagers complain the Teacher, calling Shahrokh a wicked boy, who must be kicked out of the school for his effeminacy and the bad effect he may produce on other students. The Teacher asks Shahrokh not to come to school for a few days until he comes up with a solution. In the night, Shahkroh’s father asks his son to show him his hands and flips out when he sees one of Shahrokh’s hands with painted nails; because the guests are to come to their house to ask for Shahrokh sister’s hand and father thinks Shahrokh brings shame on him by his behavior.

Director: Mehrdad Hassani

Film Length: 17 minutes

Burros
In southern Arizona, twenty miles from the Mexico border, a young Indigenous girl discovers a Latina migrant her age who has been separated from her father while traveling through the Tohono O’odham Nation into the United States.

Director: Jefferson Stein
Film Length: 15 minutes

Eating the Silence
Rolf, a hemiplegic, spends his days dozing on a sofa bed in his dusty apartment. On TV, he learns of a deadly pandemic sweeping around the globe. While the world around him falls apart, he bears witness to it on his screen with relish. When his nurse fails to visit him, Rolf realizes that his survival is anything but certain.

Director: Joël Jent and Ali Al-Fatlawi
Film Length: 24 minutes

Paco
Paco is a Filipino immigrant living in Canada, trying to make ends meet so he can make a better life for his family in Manila. While he spends his days as a janitor, his nights are spent scraping dollars together to re-enroll in university.  He carefully balances family and pride until his wife asks for a monetary favor.

Director: Kent Donguines

Film Length: 15 minutes

1:00pm: Feature Film: Queens of the Qing Dynasty
In a remote small town, Star (Sarah Walker), a neurodiverse teen, forms an unlikely rapport with An (Ziyin Zheng), an international student from Shanghai volunteering at the hospital. Between the two, a bond forms, cemented by their candid conversations, nightly text messages, and exchange of their deepest secrets. The boundaries of their friendship quickly expand into something special, altering both Star and An’s inner alchemy.

Director: Ashley McKenzie

Film Length: 122 minutes

4:00pm: Feature Film: Okay! The ASD Band Film
This is how one member of The ASD Band, featuring four talented autistic individuals, describes what’s it like when you’re on the spectrum. Through a shared loved of music, Rawan, Jackson, Spenser and Ron shatter the stigma of those with autism as loners, coming together to express themselves through song.

Okay! (The ASD Band Film) follows the members of the ASD Band as they embark upon the difficult journey of writing and recording their first album, and ultimately performing their first public show. Along the way we delve into the deep corridors of their lives, as they learn to navigate a world foreign to them by finding strength in others who share the same challenges. Life on the spectrum has many individual challenges, but together, anything is possible.

Director: Mark Bone

Film Length: 75 minutes

7:30pm: Feature Film: Riceboy Sleeps
So-young is a Korean single mother raising her adolescent son ****-hyun in the suburbs of Canada during the 90s. Determined to provide a better life for him than the one she left behind in her native country, she does her best to overcome the constant racial and cultural challenges that confront them. As ****-hyun gets older, he becomes increasingly curious about his Korean heritage and in particular, about his deceased father – a topic that So-young refuses to address. Instead, she is set on continuing to build on her new life which now includes a relationship with a kind Korean-Canadian man who is eager to take on the role of ****-hyun’s surrogate father. This only exacerbates the tense relationship between her and ****-hyun. Then, sudden devastating news prompts the mother and son to return to South Korea for the first time since their initial departure with hopes of reconnecting to their roots and reconciling their tragic past.

Director: Anthony Shim

Film Length: 117 minutes

Monday, February 20, 2023
4:00pm: Feature Film: Tortoise Under the Earth
In a uranium mining area of Jharkhand, India, a tribal couple cope with the loss of their daughter. For them, the land and forest are witness to their daughter’s memory. With great sensitivity and beauty, the film explores the deeply intertwined connections between  tribal communities and the forest that is their traditional home. Deftly interweaving the vivid colors of their festivals, their folk songs and the sense of community that binds them together, TORTOISE UNDER THE EARTH is a poetic elegy to a world that is rapidly disappearing, subsumed by unchecked development and displacement.

Director: Shishir Jha

Film Length: 135 minutes

7:30pm: Feature Film: Karaoke
Meir and Tova live a middle class life in a sleepy suburb, plagued by an unspoken sense of disappointment and regret. When Itsik Marziano a former Miami based model agent, moves into their building, their lust for life is reignited. The couple is fascinated by the international open minded bachelor, who doesn’t succumb to social expectations. Meir tries to alter his appearance, in an attempt to transform himself into a modern man, while Tova attempts to turn Itsik into their best friend. But soon enough, they become obsessive towards Itsik as they compete with their neighbors for his affection. In their attempt to win him over, their entire existence is turned on its head.

Director: Moshe Rosenthal

Film Length: 100 minutes

Date: February 17 - 20, 2023

Location: Laemmles Claremont 5 - 450 West 2nd Street Claremont, CA 91711

Click here for Tickets

Click here for more information