Five Howard students sat down on the gilded horses of whites-only carousel the summer of 1960. When the white community near Glen Echo Amusement Park joined the Black students en masse and set up picket lines, an unprecedented collaboration was born. The pickets attracted Nazis, congressman, and a press avalanche. Picketing together led to partying together and union organizers mentored student activists, ultimately producing ten 1961 Freedom Riders, including Stokely Carmichael, and a Supreme Court case. With never-before seen footage, and immersive storytelling by Emmy-award winning director Ilana Trachtman, four living protesters rescue this untold story, revealing the price, and the power, of heeding the impulse to activism. Ain’t No Back to a Merry-Go-Round includes voiceover by noted actors Jeffrey Wright, Mandy Patinkin, Bob Balaban, Lee Grant, Peter Gallagher, Dominique Thorne, Alysia Reiner and Tracie Thoms.

In PARIAH, a teenager in Brooklyn struggles to balance clashing identities, putting her friendships, family ties, and emotional well-being at risk as she searches for a way to understand her sexuality. For February's Queer As Cult, O Cinema proudly presents Dee Rees' powerful coming-of-age film during Black History Month to celebrate both the gay and black communities. ?

A timid man is swept off his feet when an enigmatic, impossibly handsome biker takes him on as his submissive.

With his senses-ravishing third feature, visionary director Bi Gan takes his deepest plunge yet into the realm of pure cinematic dreamscape.

How far would you go searching for something that may not exist? A 19th century treasure-hunter’s journal inspires a captivating journey to seek out and surf a mythical, never-ridden wave in some of the most remote and dangerous waters of the Atlantic Ocean.

“Emerald Fennell’s bodice-ripping treatment of a classic.”