As a Filmmaking Farmer, a bountiful harvest is always welcome. Here’s Six More New Releases from New Day Films
A note from JuanMa Pagan Teitelbaum • Launch Lead @ New Day films
Seeing new plants grow is almost as satisfying as launching new filmmakers in the co-op. All of our filmmakers are topic experts and great candidates for our Film & Speaker program. Here’s to a fruitful Back-to-School and Back-to-Work season with six more releases from your friends at New Day Films.
Part 2 of “New Releases, 2026” features a collection of six compelling stories addressing critical social issues facing us today. Each film structurally unlocks stimulating conversation about health, healthcare and caregiving; American democracy; race relations, cultural identity; Holocaust history, Latino studies and immigration. And like all the titles in the New Day Films catalog, our new additions illuminate, inspire and challenge. Click on the titles below for trailers and more detailed descriptions. Check them out!
RARE: A Rare Disease Revolution
By Lainey Moseley, 85 min.
Due to the rare nature of certain health conditions, and thus limited potential profit margin, large pharmaceutical and biotech companies often turn a blind eye towards developing treatments for them. In response, a handful of families drive scientific breakthroughs and champion their children’s cause. RARE is the journey of superhero rare-disease parents fighting to save their kids. In doing so, they are both advancing scientific discovery and inspiring hope for countless others. A riveting and provocative film.
Top subject areas: Education; Disabilities; Health; Children,Youth and Families.
Homegrown
By Michael Premo and Rachel Falcone, 112 min.
What begins as activism quickly escalates, as three conservative men join a widening conflict over identity, power, and the future of American democracy. Filmed between 2018 and 2025, with chilling on-the-ground scenes of January 6, Homegrown provides rare insight into this moment in America and what led us here. This gripping and sometimes disturbing film follows a father-to-be, an Air Force veteran, and a charismatic activist fromTexas crisscrossing the country during a period of profound national fracture. Homegrown was chosen for a duPont-Columbia Award, one of the most prestigious honors in journalism.
Top subject areas: American Studies; US History; Men's Studies; Sociology; Peace and Conflict Studies.
The Borinqueneers
By Noemi Figueroa Soulet and Raquel Ortiz, 57 min., 78 min.
The Borinqueneers displays the untold story of the Puerto Rican 65th Infantry Regiment, the only all-Hispanic unit in U.S. Army history. Stories of courage, triumph and struggle are told through rare archival materials and compelling first-person interviews. Narrated by the actor Hector Elizondo, the film reveals how the regiment rendered meritorious service during both World Wars and the Korean War. But in the autumn of 1952, its fate suddenly changed when more than 100 of its soldiers were arrested.
Top subject areas: Latino/Latina Studies; US History; Peace and Conflict Studies; Law and Criminal Justice; Ethnic Studies.
A Grain of Truth
By Vivian Kleiman, 27 min.
The Legend of the Yellow Star says the escape of some 7,000 Jewish Danes to Sweden in 1943 was proof that ordinary people exhibited courage, risking their lives to resist fascism. In A Grain of Truth, Peabody-winning filmmaker Vivian Kleiman re-examines that Legend, and discovers a more complex story and a deeply uncomfortable truth: that the survival of Jewish Danes came at a steep price—one paid through economic and political collaboration.
Top subject areas: Jewish Studies; History; Peace and Conflict Studies; Sociology; Religion; Theology and Ethics
Loving John
By Robert Rooy, 76 min, 54 min.
John Godinet is an irrepressible Pacific Islander living with his husband Peter in rural Maryland. He has outrun abuse as a teenager and harsh discrimination in the army and as an adult. Now, he has a new adversary: ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease). With grace and candor, Loving John grapples with several pressing social issues, among them the ravages of ALS and degenerative disease; the burden of caregiving; LGBTQ+ and aging; disability; surviving trauma; and racial and cultural identity.
Top subject areas: Psychology and Social Work; Health; LGBTQ+; Disabilities; Asian-American and Pacific Islander Studies.
Prodigal Daughter
By Mabel Valdiviezo, 90 min., 60 min.
Prodigal Daughter follows filmmaker and former punk artist Mabel Valdiviezo, who escaped Peru’s Fujimori dictatorship and fled to the United States, leaving her family behind. After sixteen years of silence, she returns to Peru, confronting haunting childhood memories, her youth in war-torn Peru, fractured family ties, and her life as an undocumented immigrant artist and stripper in the United States. Buyers will receive both versions of the film.
Top subject areas: Latino/Latina Studies; Ethnic Studies; Immigration and Border Studies; Anthropology;Women's Studies; Mental Health; Sociology; Children, Youth and Families; International Relations and Global Issues; Arts.
Film introductions written by Rick Goldsmith