OVID’s October Lineup: 21 Films, Spooky Phantoms, Paranoid Thrillers, Kani Releasing, Myths about Trees & much more!

This October, OVID collaborates with our new content partner Kani Releasing to bring you restored gems and contemporary releases in Asian cinema, including Lav Diaz’s first major masterpiece, Batang West Side, his only feature primarily shot in the United States (the second film by Diaz to join OVID), and Nobuhiko Obayashi’s Beijing Watermelon, a Japanese slice-of-life comedy-drama from 1989 based partly on true events (the fourth film by Obayashi to join the platform).

We will keep you spooked for Halloween, with the paranoid techno-thriller VIDEOPHOBIA set in Osaka, and Estonian giallo-noir Dead Mountaineer’s Hotel. Plus, a deranged Weimar-era erotic sci-fi horror Alraune starring Brigitte Helm (Metropolis). Staying with the theme of hauntings, we’ll present Ghassan Salhab’s Phantom Beirut, “an intelligent thriller of deception, loyalty and betrayal” (The New York Times) about a man who returns to Lebanon after he faked his death a decade earlier.

Exclusive premieres include Agatha’s Almanac, a “vivid profile of a nonagenarian free-spirited Canadian farmer” (The New York Sun), and Treewashing: The Planting Illusion, which confronts the myth of “just plant more trees” and engages Indigenous knowledge to explain the grave problems of tree monocultures. We also present six films by Polish filmmaker Maciej J. Drygas, “a modern master of archive documentary.” (BFI)

Full details on October’s complete lineup are below.

Image above from DEAD MOUNTAINEER’S HOTEL, premiering on OVID on October 28th.

Thursday, October 1

One Day in People’s Poland     
Directed by Maciej J. Drygas
EPF Media / DS2 | Documentary | Poland, France | 2005 | 59 min

By weaving together archival files, inspection reports, newsreels, diary fragments, and intercepted letters, One Day in People’s Poland constructs a chronological narrative of a single day in the Polish People’s Republic. What appears to be an ordinary “day in the life” becomes a powerful exploration of a paranoid political system.

“Serious and sobering in its ingenious rendering of a repressed and paranoid society.” —Joe Leydon, Variety

OVID EXCLUSIVE

Violated Letters
Directed by Maciej J. Drygas
EPF Media / DS2 | Documentary | Poland | 2010 | 58 min

Explores the hidden inner life of socialist Poland through personal correspondence intercepted by the state’s security apparatus. Between 1945 and 1989, specialized units of Poland’s secret police read, cataloged, and reported on millions of private letters—letters written by ordinary people about daily life, love, anger, fear, ambition, and resistance. The film brings these intimate texts back to life through careful readings over archival footage from the era.

OVID EXCLUSIVE

Friday, October 2

Hear My Cry
Directed by Maciej Drygas
EPF Media / DS2 | Documentary | Poland | 1991 | 48 min

In December 1968, during a state-sanctioned celebration at Warsaw’s Palace of Culture, Ryszard Siwiec set himself on fire in protest against the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. His act of defiance, witnessed by thousands, was immediately suppressed and erased from public memory by the communist authorities. Hear My Cry reconstructs this forgotten act of resistance through meticulous archival research.

“One of the most important films in the history of Polish cinema.” —Film Threat

OVID EXCLUSIVE

Wednesday, October 7

State of Weightlessness
Directed by Maciej Drygas
EPF Media / DS2 | Documentary | Poland, France | 1994 | 60 min

An archival documentary that uses material from Soviet space missions as a lens through which to look at the psychological and historical dislocations of the late Cold War period. Drawing on rare audio recordings from orbit, the film explores how cosmonauts experienced isolation and uncertainty, while the political system that sent them into space, the USSR, was collapsing below.

“If you’ve ever been curious about what it was actually like on the other side of the Space Race, Drygas gives you a front-row seat—and it’s more human than you’d expect.” —Alan Ng, Film Threat

Thursday, October 8

Phantom Beirut
Directed by Ghassan Salhab
With Aouni Kawas, Darina Al Joundi, Rabih Mroue, Carol Abboud
Several Futures | Drama | Lebanon/France | 1998 | 120 min

Ghassan Salhab’s debut follows the story of Khalil who returns to Beirut under a new identity, forced to confront the old friends and comrades he left behind after faking his death a decade earlier. A haunting exploration of the official silences and collective amnesias that stalk the lives of those who live through conflict.

“An intelligent thriller of deception, loyalty and betrayal.” –Mark Deming, The New York Times

“Weaves the familiar Lebanese themes of exile, destruction, memory, hope, and illusions into a poem to a beloved city and its people, as scarred as its buildings.” –Variety

Friday, October 9

Batang West Side
Directed by Lav Diaz
With Yul Servo, Joel Torre, Gloria Diaz, Angel Aquino
Kani Releasing | Drama | Philippines, USA | 2001 | 301 min

Widely considered Lav Diaz’s first major masterpiece, it is his only feature primarily shot in the United States. Running a comparatively brisk (for Lav Diaz) five hours, Batang West Side unspools with the scope and ambition of a classic novel. Its inciting incident is the sidewalk murder of a Filipino teen from Jersey City, which starts a police investigation that reveals an underworld of crystal meth and gang warfare in Diaz’s study of the myth of the American dream.

“At once deadly serious and howlingly absurd… Mesmerizing from first frame to last… a masterpiece.” –Variety 

Tuesday, October 13

Abu Haraz
Directed by Maciej J. Drygas
EPF Media / DS2 | Documentary | Poland | 2013 | 75 min

In a small village in northern Sudan, life has followed the same natural rhythms for a thousand years. Everything changes when a huge dam is built on the Nile, threatening to flood the land and submerge the village under 35 meters of water. As the floodwaters approach, the residents face a profound crisis: Can their culture and way of life continue in a new place, or will everything that defines them be lost?

“A story of pain, loss, despair and the displacement of a community whose lives rarely make it into the news.” —Middle East Monitor

Voice of Hope
Directed by Maciej J. Drygas
EPF Media / DS2 | Documentary | Poland | 2002 | 58 min

Traces how Radio Free Europe’s broadcasts — heard by parents and their children alike despite government jamming — became a source of truth and inspiration under Poland’s communist regime. For listeners, tuning into RFE was not just a way to hear uncensored news but a private form of protest and psychological resistance against totalitarian information control.

“Demonstrates a never-ending politics of frequency – the air as the frontline in the war for freedom, a space of threat to the communist powers for its ability to contaminate radical ideas, a placeless space where the voice of opposition can disrupt, infect and radiate hope.” —Sight and Sound

OVID EXCLUSIVE

Wednesday, October 14

Krakatit
Directed by Otakar Vávra
Deaf Crocodile | Drama | Czechoslovakia | 1948 | 110 min

Czech director Otakar Vávra’s astonishing fever dream of a movie that mixes 1940s film noir, paranoid thriller, and speculative atomic-bomb sci-fi in the story of a chemist named Prokop who hallucinates fragments of how he’s invented a proto-nuclear weapon.

“Hallucinatory… Few films have more potently captured the distress of living in a time where mankind’s impulse for self-destruction was seemingly at its peak.” —Michael Barrett, Slant 

OVID EXCLUSIVE

Thursday, October 15

Fools’ Paradise (lost?)
Directed by Alexandra Lexton
Bullfrog Films | Documentary | USA | 2026 | 98 min

After acquiring an organic apple farm, filmmaker Alexandra Lexton found herself searching for the “stories of others who’d reconnected with nature in different ways, then brought their experiences in some meaningful way into the world.”

“Exposes our deepening estrangement from the natural world – and reminds us that the greatest danger may be not climate collapse itself, but our growing numbness to it. Through inspiring encounters, this fascinating film reveals how reconnecting our bodies, senses, and ethics to the living Earth is no longer optional, but an urgent need to challenge the largest mass migration in history, towards the screen-lit indoors.” —Alberto Arenas, Professor of Environmental and Sustainability Education, University of Arizona, Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Environmental Education 

OVID EXCLUSIVE

Friday, October 16

Beijing Watermelon 
Directed by Nobuhiko Obayashi
With Bengal, Masako Motai
Kani Releasing | Comedy-drama | Japan | 1989 | 135 min

Based partly on true events, the film follows the relationship between a Japanese greengrocer and a group of Chinese exchange students. Shot between May-July of 1989 and addressing the historically charged notion of a Sino-Japanese friendship, this lesser-seen masterpiece from director Nobuhiko Obayashi chronicles the end of a decade marked by the Japanese economic bubble and the brutal close of possibility in China. A delicate elegy to the Chinese students of its time, the film is noted for the proximity of its production and release to the Tiananmen Square massacre, which forced the cancellation of plans to shoot the Beijing-set portions of the film on location. This is the fourth film by Nobuhiko Obayashi to join OVID. 

“A treasure of wry, telling observations… an eloquent commentary on the magic of the cinema itself.” —Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times

OVID EXCLUSIVE

Desert of Namibia
Directed by Yoko Yamanaka
With Yuumi Kawai, Daichi Kaneko, Kanichiro
Kani Releasing | Comedy | Japan | 2024 | 137 min

21-year-old Kana works a disaffected job at a beauty salon, where she bristles against the beauty expectations placed on women her age. Noncommittal and trapped, Kana slowly makes her way towards the inner desert of her emotions.

“An ultra-melancholic slapstick comedy, a slow-burn vaudeville, a fantasy film without monsters or ghosts–or else entirely populated by monsters and ghosts, but with a seemingly everyday quality.” –Jean-Michel Frodon, Slate (France)

“Yuumi Kawai is immediately magnetic… Yamanaka’s work defies binaries… The film and its lead feel[s] pulsating alive.” –Siddhant Adlakha, Variety

OVID EXCLUSIVE

Tuesday, October 20

My Heart is that Eternal Rose
Directed by Patrick Tam
With Joey Wong, Kenny Bee, Tony Leung
Kani Releasing | Drama | Hong Kong | 1989 | 91 min

Who doesn’t love a mafia romance? Directed by the foremost stylist of the Hong Kong New Wave (and a mentor to Wong Kar-Wai), My Heart Is That Eternal Rose is the apotheosis of Patrick Tam’s time within the strictures of the Hong Kong mainstream. Tam’s dream-like direction bridges the distance between the bullet ballets of John Woo and the festering darkness of David Lynch.

“Miraculous… a pulpy, blood-soaked thrill ride imbued with Tam’s heartfelt sensibility. It ranks alongside Le Samourai as one of the coolest, most gorgeous gangster films ever made… Deliriously entertaining and also a film of desperate longing and soul-searching.” –Jimmy Dean, The Geek Show

Wednesday, October 21

Black Rabbit, White Rabbit
Directed by Shahram Mokri
Deaf Crocodile | Drama | Tajikistan, UAE | 2025 | 139 min

A film armorer suspects a fake firearm is real. An actor arrives on set demanding a role. A car crash victim fears her accident was deliberate. Three seemingly disparate stories weave into an enigmatic whole. This is the fourth film by Shahram Mokri to join OVID.

“[A] wildly ambitious, wryly comic puzzle film.” —Lee Marshall, Screen International

“Iranian filmmaker Shahram Mokri has transformed the Möbius strip into a cinematic form of its own… Black Rabbit, White Rabbit expands his exploration of cinema’s self-reflective potential, positioning itself as a layered, meta-puzzle of narrative and form.” —Martin Kudlac, Screen Anarchy

OVID EXCLUSIVE

Thursday, October 22

Toxic Waste: A Time Bomb Under Our Feet
Directed by Ghislaine Buffard
Icarus Films | Documentary | France | 2026 | 54 min

Underground storage is being hailed as a permanent solution for some of the world’s most dangerous industrial waste—but what happens when it fails? Ghislaine Buffard investigates the environmental risks, staggering costs, and democratic consequences of burying hazardous materials deep beneath our feet.

OVID EXCLUSIVE – SVOD PREMIERE

Treewashing: The Planting Illusion
Directed by François-Xavier Drouet
Icarus Films | Documentary | France | 2026 | 53 min

Will trees save the planet? That is the promise made by governments, the logging industry and various environmental organizations. As deforestation accelerates and CO2 emissions hit record highs, planting trees is touted as a common-sense solution to the ecological crisis. But is it really that simple? François-Xavier Drouet takes his investigation into this crucial issue across five countries: France, Spain, Portugal, Congo, and Brazil, to expose the economic and political interests driving these reforestation campaigns. This is the third film from François-Xavier Drouet to join OVID.

“Fascinating! Every case study presented here could easily warrant a film of its own.” —Télérama

OVID EXCLUSIVE – SVOD PREMIERE

Friday, October 23

Agatha’s Almanac
Directed by Amalie Atkins
Icarus Films | Documentary | Canada | 2025 | 86 min

A filmmaker’s 90-year-old aunt still lives a fiercely independent life, revolving around her lifelong devotion to her farm.

“CHARMING…endearing, even inspiring…in searing colors on 16-millimeter film…a compendium of Bock’s green-thumb wisdom.” –Ben Kenigsberg, The New York Times

“Spun with care, love and passionate attention.” —High on Films 

** Best Canadian Feature Documentary, Hot Docs Festival 2025, North American Premiere

OVID EXCLUSIVE – SVOD PREMIERE

🦇 Halloween Week!

Wednesday, October 28

Dead Mountaineer’s Hotel  
Directed by Grigori Kromanov
With Jüri Järvet, Karlis Sebris, Lembit Peterson
Deaf Crocodile | Horror | Estonia | 1979 | 84 min

Estonian director Grigori Kromanov’s dazzling, paranoid mixture of locked-room mystery, the film combines an eerie Shining-like mountain locale with 1970s Euro giallo and classic noir, with a stellar electronica/prog score by composer Sven Grünberg. Based on a novel by famed Soviet authors Arkady and Boris Strugatsky (Stalker), the hall-of-mirrors plot follows Glebsky as he’s trapped by an avalanche in the ski lodge with a gallery of strange suspects.

“An enduring cult item and one of Estonian cinema’s towering peaks… Dead Mountaineer’s Hotel throws off the trappings of a whodunnit, and becomes a moral crucible, a test of faith.” –Nick Pinkerton, Metrograph Journal

Thursday, October 29

Videophobia
Directed by Daisuke Miyazaki 
With Sumire Ashina, Tomona Hirota
Kani Releasing | Thriller | Japan | 2019 | 89 min

This paranoid techno-thriller about identity is set on the backstreets of an industrial and multicultural Osaka captured here in stark black-and-white. Ai (a superbly laconic Tomona Hirota) haunts the streets of Osaka dressed as a mascot. After going home with a stranger, she wakes up to find footage of their intimate encounter uploaded to a porn site. As all systems of recourse and remedy fail her and her sense of dislocation and alienation intensifies, Ai resorts to a strange solution.

“A bleak, rough-hewn nightmare… entirely realistic yet as frightening as a horror movie.” —FictionMachine

OVID EXCLUSIVE

Friday, October 30

Alraune
Directed by Henrik Galeen
Deaf Crocodile | Horror | Germany | 1927 | 121 min

A deranged Weimar-era erotic sci-fi/horror starring Brigitte Helm (Metropolis) as the unholy offspring of a genetics experiment conducted by her scientist “father” Paul Wegener, who implants the semen of a hanged man in the womb of a prostitute. As an adult, the lithe, sinuous Helm drives men to suicide and madness – including her own pseudo-father Wegener.

“One of the more emotionally complicated and even occasionally feminist silent films.” —All The Right Movies

The Student of Prague             
Directed by Henrik Galeen
With Conrad Veidt
Deaf Crocodile | Horror | Germany | 1926 | 133 min

Loosely based on “William Wilson”, a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, Conrad Veidt (The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Casablanca) stars as a hellraising student who sells his soul to the Devil, but Veidt hasn’t bargained on meeting his own evil doppelgänger who steps out of a mirror, Cocteau-like, and starts to take over his life. Score by Stephen Horne

Complete list of films premiering on OVID this month (in alphabetical order):

Abu Haraz, Maciej J. Drygas (2013)
Agatha’s Almanac, Amalie Atkins (2025)
Alraune, Henrik Galeen(1927) 
Batang West Side, Lav Diaz (2001)
Beijing Watermelon, Nobuhiko Obayashi (1989)
Black Rabbit, White Rabbit, Shahram Mokri (2025)
Dead Mountaineer’s Hotel, Grigori Kromanov (1979) 
Desert of Namibia, Yoko Yamanaka (2024) 
Fools’ Paradise (lost?), Alexandra Lexton (2026) 
Hear My Cry, Maciej Drygas (1991)
Krakatit, Otakar Vávra (1948)
My Heart is that Eternal Rose, Patrick Tam (1989)
One Day in People’s Poland, Maciej J. Drygas (2005)
Phantom Beirut, Ghassan Salhab (1998) 
State of Weightlessness, Maciej Drygas (1994) 
The Student of Prague, Henrik Galeen (1926) 
Toxic Waste: A Time Bomb Under Our Feet, Ghislaine Buffard (2026)
Treewashing: The Planting Illusion, François-Xavier Drouet (2026)
Videophobia, Daisuke Miyazaki (2019) 
Violated Letters, Maciej J. Drygas (2010)
Voice of Hope, Maciej J. Drygas (2002)