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Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt (Raven Jackson)

A film that feels uprooted from deep beneath the earth, Raven Jackson’s poetic, patient debut is a distillation of cinema to its purest form, a stunning patchwork of experience and memory. Tethered around the life of Mack, a Black woman from Mississippi, as we witness glimpses of her childhood, teenage years, and beyond, All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt becomes a sensory experience unlike anything else this year. Shot in beautiful 35mm by Jomo Fray and edited by Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s collaborator Lee Chatametikool, there’s a reverence for nature and joy for human connection that seems all too rarified in today’s landscape of American filmmaking. – Jordan R.

Where to Stream: Prime...

The BFFoundation (Bff), in collaboration with founding partner Walmart and presenting partner Coca-Cola, has today announced the full lineup for the 2025 Bentonville Film Festival (Bff), launching next month. As ever, the festival remains committed to building a slate around inclusion and authentic representation.

This year’s festival will showcase 28 feature competition films, including 9 world premieres, plus the newly-launched Homegrown Competition highlighting powerful stories from filmmakers based in or filming in Arkansas. Of this year’s competition slate, 66 percent of the films are from creators identifying as female or gender non-conforming; 51 percent identify as Bipoc, Asian, or Pacific Islander; 29 percent identify as Lgbtqia+; 18 percent are filmmakers over the age of 50; and 12 percent identify as a person with a disability.

The festival, which was founded by Geena Davis and backed by Wal-Mart, celebrated its tenth anniversary last year, a period that’s been marked by profound growth, both for the festival and...

Mubi will exclusively debut Courtney Stephens and Callie Hernandez’s semi-autobiographical conspiracy film “Invention” on streaming in North America. The specialty streamer will release the feature on its platform during the summer, following its limited theatrical engagement beginning Friday in New York City at Metrograph.

A collaboration between writer-director Stephens and writer and star Hernandez, the 16mm-shot “Invention” incorporates archival footage of Hernandez’s real father, an alternative medicine physician who died of Covid in 2021. Hernandez plays “Carrie,” a woman who must navigate her own grief after she inherits an odd healing doohickey from her late father. The film’s cast also features other indie filmmakers, such as Caveh Zahedi, Joe Swanberg and James N. Kienitz Wilkins.

“Invention” debuted at the 2024 edition of the Locarno Film Festival, where Hernandez won the Pardo for best performance in the Filmmakers of the Present Section of the fest. Since Locarno, the film had...

Note: This review was originally published as part of our 2024 Berlinale coverage. Invention opens in theaters on April 18.

Grieving comes in many guises. In Courtney Stephens’ Invention, speculative fiction blends with personal history to explore the ways we process death. The subject is Callie Hernandez, an actress and filmmaker whose father died of a Covid-related illness in 2021. There’s much archival footage of the man, mostly television recordings from his times as a kind of telemarketer for new-age healing methods, but Stephens and Hernandez go one further, suggesting an alternative timeline. In this ersatz world, a patent for an electromagnetic healing device is left to her in her father’s will. No categorization does the film justice: it’s about death and mourning, of course, but it’s just as interested in people’s susceptibility to conspiracy.

Invention begins with Hernandez going through the most mundane posthumous rituals. She meets with her father’s lawyer,...

With Invention, director Courtney Stephens and writer-actor Callie Hernandez tell a very “American” story. In spite of its disarming, self-deprecating tone, the film depicts a culture of artifice held together with little more than dodgy credit and naïveté, where we’re happy to celebrate scammers if they can bamboozle enough of us into investing in their “therapeutic objects.” Invention, in this land of boosterism, has as much to do with reinventing the self as it does with patenting ideas for novel stress-reduction gadgets.

Invention blends fiction and autobiography to fascinating implications. The plot follows Carrie (Callie Hernandez), a cynical woman whose rather idiosyncratic father has recently died. Hernandez plays a lightly fictionalized version of herself here, with her real father, likewise deceased, making ghostly appearances throughout the film via various ’90s infomercials, in which he leverages his MD to hawk miracle cures beyond the pale of Western medicine.

Dr. J...

Last year I was fortunate to see a rough cut of Invention, a new film by Courtney Stephens that toes the documentary-fiction boundary more nimbly than most: it stars Callie Hernandez (who also co-wrote and is credited as co-author) as a woman seeking clarification on the death of her inventor father whose death spurs an investigation both clerical and conspiratorial. Stephens interpolates conversations (both expository and atmospheric) with sequences that might be dreams, fantasies, or emanations from one of her father’s creations. Even as an enthusiast of the director I wasn’t entirely prepared for this experience, but understood it was unlike any recent narrative film. Now Invention, credited to both director and star, opens at Metrograph on April 18 following last summer’s Locarno premiere, during which Hernandez won a much-deserved Pardo for Best Performance in the Filmmakers of the Present section. With it comes a trailer that deftly...

What is grief if not living in the liminal space between mourning and coping, of life and death itself? Courtney Stephens’ fiction and autobiography hybrid film “Invention” blurs fact and fiction as it centers on the aftermath of actress/co-writer Callie Hernandez’s own father’s death.

Director Stephens and Hernandez both are credited for the script, with Hernandez also starring in it (the duo also produce together). Hernandez won the Pardo for Best Performance in the Filmmakers of the Present at the 2024 Locarno Film Festival.

The official synopsis for the film reads: “The film fictionalizes the aftermath of Hernandez’s father’s death using a real archive of varied TV appearances he made as an alternative health doctor in the late ’90s through 2020. The fictional storyline revolves around the patent of an experimental healing device that becomes his daughter’s (played by Hernandez as the character of ‘Carrie Fernandez’) sole inheritance.

On Monday December 16 2024, Travel broadcasts Mysteries of the Unknown!

Blinded in Space, Flying Forever and Invention of Bubble Wrap Season 3 Episode Summary

The upcoming episode of “Mysteries of the Unknown” is titled “Blinded in Space, Flying Forever and Invention of Bubble Wrap.” This episode promises to delve into some intriguing topics, exploring the mysteries that surround them. Don Wildman, the show’s host, will guide viewers on this fascinating journey as he uncovers extraordinary artifacts that relate to these unusual subjects.

In this episode, Don Wildman will investigate the story behind the phrase “blinded in space.” This phrase hints at a mysterious event or phenomenon that has puzzled many. The exploration aims to shed light on what really happened and what it means in the context of space exploration.

Another topic in this episode is the concept of “flying forever.” This could refer to various legends or scientific theories related...

The upcoming episode of “Mysteries of the Unknown” promises an exciting journey into the past as Don Wildman explores fascinating artifacts. Titled “Blinded in Space, Flying Forever and Invention of Bubble Wrap,” this episode will air on Monday, December 16, 2024, at 8:00 Pm on Travel.

In this episode, Don dives deep into some of history’s most intriguing mysteries. He will uncover stories behind unusual artifacts that shed light on events and inventions that have shaped the world. From the curious tales of space exploration to the unexpected origins of everyday items like bubble wrap, viewers can expect a mix of wonder and discovery.

Don’s knack for storytelling and his passion for history make each artifact come alive. As he investigates these extraordinary items, he seeks to answer questions that have puzzled people for generations. This episode is sure to captivate anyone interested in the hidden stories of our past,...

How well do we know each other? Is it even possible to know a person “well” nowadays, with our varieties of lifestyles and diversified sources of information? What if it is a family member? A close relative? What happens with us when the mentioned close person dies? Does our perception change? What does the grieving process look like according to that, even though there is no formula for grieving?

Those are the questions the subject/protagonist/co-author of the film Invention has to face. Starring Callie Hernandez, directed by Courtney Stephens and written by both of them, it tells the meta-fictional, mostly true story of Hernandez’s experience of losing her father whom she barely knew outside of his public persona as an eccentric telemarketer. Since the premiere at this year’s Locarno, it has been touring the festivals, including Italy's Lanceono D'oro, spawning a discussion more about its categorisation than about its qualities.

Courtney Stephens’ new film Invention blends fiction and reality in insightful ways. Callie Hernandez, who co-wrote the project with Stephens, stars as a woman dealing with the recent death of her father. He was an inventor and alternative health practitioner who left behind archival footage and a mysterious healing device.

Through its nuanced storytelling, Invention delves into how people process grief and make sense of loss. Stephens shot the film on 16mm, crafting a gentle yet thought-provoking style to match the hazy nature of Hernandez’s character’s emotional state. In meeting those who knew her father, she sees him through new eyes and questions perspectives on life, healing, and belief.

Blending personal experiences – Hernandez’s real father passed in 2021 – with imaginative elements, Invention takes an intimate look at these complex topics. It seamlessly brings fiction and non-fiction together to examine our instinct towards narrative when confronting the unexplainable. With compassion and complexity,...

Exclusive: Luke Brawley’s specialist non-fiction agency Indox has snapped up a trio of 2024 festival breakouts, including the TIFF debut title Blue Road – The Edna O’Brien Story by Sinead O’Shea (Pray For Our Sinners).

Blue Road is produced by Claire McCabe and Ellie Emptage and debuted as part of TIFF Docs. The pic is described as a deeply personal and captivating portrayal of Edna O’Brien, one of Ireland’s literary giants.

“I have loved working with Luke in the past and am excited to work with him again via Indox,” O’Shea said. “The world of film festivals can seem overwhelming but he is a smart and kind collaborator.”

Brawley has also added Locarno competition title Invention and Tribeca flick They’re Here from Daniel Claridge and Pacho Velez to his slate. Invention is a project co-created by director Courtney Stephens (The American Sector...

Following a decade of work in experimental and documentary cinema, director Courtney Stephens steps into fiction for the first time with Invention, a remarkably resourceful microbudget drama that nonetheless resists strict categorization. Starring and co-conceived by Callie Hernandez, the film draws upon the actress’s real-life relationship with her late father, a medical doctor turned small-time huckster who made a name for himself on local television talk shows and public access programs in the ’90s and 2000s. In this fictionalized telling set in the Berkshires, VHS footage of those TV appearances weave through a story in which Hernandez, playing a version […]

The post “America is Desperate for a Narrative”: Courtney Stephens and Callie Hernandez on Invention first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Following a decade of work in experimental and documentary cinema, director Courtney Stephens steps into fiction for the first time with Invention, a remarkably resourceful microbudget drama that nonetheless resists strict categorization. Starring and co-conceived by Callie Hernandez, the film draws upon the actress’s real-life relationship with her late father, a medical doctor turned small-time huckster who made a name for himself on local television talk shows and public access programs in the ’90s and 2000s. In this fictionalized telling set in the Berkshires, VHS footage of those TV appearances weave through a story in which Hernandez, playing a version […]

The post “America is Desperate for a Narrative”: Courtney Stephens and Callie Hernandez on Invention first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

After the death of her father, Carrie (Callie Hernandez), the protagonist of “Invention,” finds herself the beneficiary of a patent for an electromagnetic healing device—modeled after one Hernandez’s own late father possessed, a flashing cylinder of multicolored tubes emitting odd electrical noises, looking like something straight out of a sci-fi movie.

Los Angeles-based director Courtney Stephens, speaking with Variety about her Locarno-premiering film “Invention,” describes the machine as “the mystery at the center of the film.” Unsure of what to make of it—or of her father’s death—Carrie struggles to process the loss of a larger-than-life figure: a doctor turned “spiritual healer,” and a man whose trustworthiness was always in question.

On the surface, “Invention” explores the universal human experience of grieving a complicated loved one. What sets the film apart, however, is its innovative format. Competing in the Concorso Cineasti del Presente category at this year’s Locarno Film Festival,...