The combined 20th New Horizons International Film Festival and the 11th American Film Festival will begin on Thursday, 5th November at 8:30 am. Some films will be shown at the New Horizons Cinema and the Lower Silesian Film Centre in Wrocław, as well as Kino Muraów in Warsaw, others online - granting access to viewers all around Poland. As every year, the program features the latest excellent American documentaries, including many that cover topics dear to our festival. We especially recommend:

Coded Bias, dir. Shalini Kantayya - a story about how artificial intelligence affects our lives here and now. Why are facial recognition systems unable to recognize Black people? Did Amazon's automated recruitment system automatically reject applications submitted by women? Why does artificial intelligence operate on the basis of racial and gender prejudices? “(…) Despite appearances, these aren't summaries of Black Mirror episodes. This is how a significant part of the world works," writes journalist Jakub Demiańczuk in his review of Coded Bias.

How to Overthrow the US Government (Legally), dir. Caveh Zahedi - Is a revolution in the United States still possible? Director Caveh Zahedi and activist Jacques Servin give a series of lectures on how to legally prevent Donald Trump from turning the United States into the Fourth Reich. As Piotr Mirski writes, “It does not seem that a fire of revolution will start in this dark room and spread to the rest of the country. Still, something radical does finally happen: the adolescents and their teachers become closer. After empathy comes solidarity. This is precisely how great political change begins: through interpersonal understanding."

Truth to Power: Barbara Lee Speaks for Me, dir. Abby Ginzberg - The life and work of one of the most important African-American activists. Barbara Lee is the representative of California's 13th congressional district in the United States House of Representatives. "She deals with issues of human rights and equality. She emphasizes that helping the poorest and fighting inequality is part of the struggle for democracy," writes film critic Łukasz Knap.
 
City Hall, dir. Frederick Wiseman - the latest film by the legendary, 90-year-old documentary filmmaker, laureate and special guest of the jubilee edition of WATCH DOCS in 2010. In "City Hall" he watches the work of local government officials in his hometown of Boston. As the director of AFF Ula Śniegowska writes, it is “a wonderful, though lengthy, lesson in democracy and the activities of local authorities. This time, one of the great directors of American observational documentary, who previously ‘spied on’ readers at the public library, the staff and students of Berkeley, and dancers at the Paris Opera, takes his camera to his hometown, specifically to Boston City Hall, where he takes a close look at the daily work of officials at various levels and the variety of problems that this institution handles.” The film premiered at this year's Venice festival.