Amy Bench

Director and DP

Take Off

Texas Strong is an intimate portrait of Kimberly and Kai Shappley, a mother who has to confront her religious community while her 7-year-old transgender daughter navigates life at school— where she’s been banned from the girls’ bathroom.

Trans In America

This timely doc follows Texas State Senator Wendy Davis's filibuster in 2013, when she stood for 13 hours to fight an antiabortion law threatening women's access to lifesaving healthcare.

Shouting Down Midnight

Professional stunt woman Salome grapples with the choice between her devotion to a physically demanding, highly rewarding profession, and her potential for motherhood.

Stunt Fighter

MR. CUPCAKES is a stylish and unique comedy with a serious heart. David is a famous baker; his only problem is that he hasn't baked anything in his whole life. Would he be able to stand against everyone at the ultimate Bakeoff, in order to save the person he loves? Mr.

Mister Cupcakes

Pearl grew up in the salon her mother opened 30 years ago, and is now realizing the importance of the beauty industry, and of carrying on her mother's legacy.

House of Elegance

Art in the Twenty-First Century

Dell's Tavern is a Bar by night and a Church by day.

Falconer

A quiet contemplation of race, identity, fear, and acceptance in today's urban America.

The Ville

Naveen left India to chase his dreams in America. Three years and a recession later, his wife and son finally join him. FATAKRA ("Firecracker") tells the story of the sparks that fly on their first day together as dreams collide with reality.

Fatakra

Reel

The idea that nothing lasts forever rings especially true for a modern florist.

Petals & Stems

"Come and Take It" captures Jessica Jin's transformation into one of America's most irreverent anti-gun violence leaders, creating what some people are calling The Great Texas Dildo Revolt.

Come & Take It

A soldier returns from war determined to leave its horrors behind for a life of peace and quiet. But the past will not be forgotten. An act of unexpected violence results in the mysterious disappearance of his young son and his desperate search for answers will lead inexorably back to the war in his past.

War Stories

Henry goes to get his last things from his estranged wife. Things disappear.

Missing You

While navigating daily discrimination, a filmmaker who inhabits and loves her unusual body searches the world for another person like her, and explores what it takes to love oneself fiercely despite the pervasiveness of ableism

Is There Anybody Out There?

It tells the story of an isolated nudist community in Florida where residents find a place to feel accepted, deal with their past traumas, and jointly pursue forming a utopian society.

Naked Gardens

An LA-based street artist fights an unforgiving health care system while she battles the symptoms of progressive multiple sclerosis.

The Art of Rebellion

Suzanne Vega reinterprets two talks from Carson McCullers.

Lover, Beloved

Follows women who reshape almost every aspect of their lives with love.

Mama Bears

One night at her home in southeastern Congo, 14-year-old Mugeni awakes to the sounds of bombs. As her family scatters to the surrounding forests to save themselves, Mugeni finds herself completely alone. From there, she sets out on a remarkable solo journey across the globe, determined to reunite with her lost loved ones and lift up the Banyamulenge people.

More Than I Want to Remember

Renowned author, Tim O'Brien, wrestles with the nation's wars as he battles to finish one last book.

The War and Peace of Tim O'Brien

Frame & Reference

A behind-the-scenes documentary following Beto O'Rourke's breakaway campaign to unseat Ted Cruz in the U.S. Senate.

Running with Beto

Separated from her mother by smugglers at the border, a determined 12-year-old sets out across a desert with only a plastic sack for protection from the cold, survives starvation on the streets of Ciudad Juarez, and escapes kidnappers to find her mother and a place where they can be safe again.

A Line Birds Cannot See

A trucker who calls out on his CB radio waiting for a reply that never comes. A ghost that haunts the deserted highways. A whale that sings at a frequency no other whale can even hear.

The Phantom 52

Trans In America is a verité short documentary series, and an intimate portrait of three transgender individuals as they battle for their civil rights in the United States.

Trans in America

After her hands are severely damaged in an accident, an over-zealous hand model hatches an ill-conceived plan to get back in the extremity modeling game with her feet.

Lilly White

It's 1982, Marsh is 24 years old, and struggles with a tormenting secret. One random night, he crosses paths with Rivers, a stranger so striking that Marsh is instantly smitten. Marsh pursues Rivers until an opportunity presents itself for him to take the boldest risk of his life.

Bodies of Water

An experimental dance-animation hybrid film about the loneliness of solitary creation. It is an all out assault on the senses made by three solo artists working seperately in China, Maine and Texas.

Perhaps I Was T/Here

In Austin, Texas, two expectant mothers-one undocumented and one US citizen-must contend with increased ICE raids and mounting hostility towards immigrants under President Trump.

An Uncertain Future

The reunion of a woman and her estranged daughter is interrupted by a man with an unusual request.

Don't Ever Change

Opposites attract when a broke, bohemian playboy actor falls for a sweet natured, career driven entrepreneur with a sexy identical twin sister.

The Golden Rut

Sylvia returns to her Texas hometown for a friend's wedding. There she meets Esteban, an electrifying stranger. He dares her to join him on a road trip through the Deep South.

There Is a New World Somewhere

After his mother is released from prison, Arvind, 16, revisits old family wounds by writing a play from her perspective.

Arvind

An inside look at Buddhafield, a West Hollywood cult formed by a charismatic teacher in the 1980s that eventually imploded.

Holy Hell

An intimate look at life with PseudoBulbar Affect

Beyond Laughter and Tears: A Journey of Hope

A perpetual third wheel and awkward outsider, Joanna increasingly inserts herself into the relationship of her more charismatic roommate Isabel. The two women test each other's sexual and emotional boundaries in this surreal manifestation of jealous rivalry.

Bad at Dancing

Denise Prince's 16mm Castor and Pollux uses the mythological story of the twin children who become two stars (in the constellation Gemini) to talk about love in relation to our awareness of mortality and the scale of the meaning of life.

Castor and Pollux

A look into America's future and changing demographics.

America by the Numbers with Maria Hinojosa

Jon, a young wanna-be musician, discovers he's bitten off more than he can chew when he joins an eccentric pop band led by the mysterious and enigmatic Frank.

Frank

Loves Her Gun is a romantic tragedy about a young woman who flees violence in New York for the laid back environment in central Texas. Once she settles into Austin she falls into the local gun culture and some of her same worries come back to haunt her.

Loves Her Gun

A portrait of Greek-born Lucas Samaras, one of the most important American visual artists working today.

I Spend Time with Making: Lucas Samaras

Deputized is a feature length documentary film that examines a hate crime that resulted in the murder of Ecuadorian immigrant Marcelo Lucero. Filmed over three years, the film explores the local and national forces that came together to create an atmosphere of anti-immigrant hatred.

Deputized

Two teenage assassins accept what they think will be a quick-and-easy job, until an unexpected target throws them off their plan.

Violet & Daisy

Joe Fine moves his family from Brooklyn to New Orleans, where his dreams and extravagance far exceed his means.

Mighty Fine

The story of a Nazi-looted painting, Egon Schiele's 'Portrait of Wally,' that was discovered on the walls of the Museum of Modern Art in 1997, triggering a historic court case that pitted the Manhattan District Attorney, the United States Government and the heirs of a Viennese gallery owner against a major Austrian Museum and MoMA.

Portrait of Wally

A re-imagining of Richard Linklater's SLACKER.

Slacker 2011

The story of a family in Waco, Texas in 1956. The eldest son witnesses the loss of innocence and struggles with his parents' conflicting teachings.

The Tree of Life

A look inside the creative process of writers, creators and filmmakers.

On Story

The discovery of life on Mars places a robotic expedition and a manned mission in a race to the Red Planet. On the way we discover that love - biological, spiritual, and even mechanical - can flourish in all kinds of ways.

Mars

A young artist struggles to find her place in an increasingly globalized world, traveling from the plains of Texas to the jungles of Africa in order to bring her family together again.

In This Place

The superhero world has been privatized. Good Guys Inc. and Villains Inc. compete for birthday gigs and product lines. But one Good Guy staff member dreams of being a true superhero. How will she move from staff member to superhero? And more importantly, will she be able to overcome her secret past?

Good Guys, Inc.

In this museum the guests would touch the artifacts instead of looking at them. The creator of the museum is now gone, but the building remains as a physical extension of her, a virtual body which the narrator inhabits.

The Museum of Touch & Feel

Ray, a young female master assassin with dark past, is hired by a mysterious aging hitman, Will. When she kills an innocent person by mistake and botches the job, she become the target of Will's deadly boss and the Korean government.

Fighting with Anger

There is a time when we realize the underlying danger in things.

Be Brave

When three cowboys show up dead Tommy, a hard-drinking, retired bounty hunter whose ranch is on the brink for foreclosure, must saddle up one more time to put a stop to the bandits and collect the missing ransom.

Six Gun

A kitchen sink over-flows causing the room to flood. As the water rises, the room sprouts to life. Uses paper puppetry. Materials include book covers & wax.

Sprout

Liz Lemon, head writer of the sketch-comedy show "TGS with Tracy Jordan", must deal with an arrogant new boss and a crazy new star while trying to run a successful television show without losing her mind.

30 Rock

Hayes Carll - "The Magic Kid"

Full of longing for a return to the safety, the ease, the pretends of childhood, The Lollipop Girls Struggle on the Hard Earth reminds us that Fantasy organizes our experience of everyday reality and tells us who we are.

The Lollipop Girls Struggle on the Hard Earth

Through Our Eyes is an intimate and inspiring journey into the lives of American families, from the perspective of children themselves as they navigate formidable yet all-too-common challenges along with parents and siblings.

Through Our Eyes

Follows a Deaf activist and his formerly incarcerated daughter, as they build new bonds through the experiences they've had in the criminal justice system.