“America’s religion is money… if you don’t have money, you’re just nothing – a used condom.” So proclaims one of the many denizens of the “Crossroads of the World” documented in Richard Sandler’s astounding, two-hour odyssey THE GODS OF TIMES SQUARE.

A visual spectacle, THE GODS OF TIMES SQUARE is a dizzying tour down the late-20th Century Deuce, with vertiginous, kaleidoscopic B-roll… as chaotic and exciting as any late-night dissent into the district: shots of condemned buildings adorned with Calvin Klein ads and shuttered, once glorious movie palaces featuring Jenny Holzer’s dystopian haiku on their marquees. Sandler, who spent decades capturing NYC streets via his black & white still images, embraces the inhabitants of this forsaken zone and asks deeply empathetic questions with an earnest curiosity about and concern for the human condition. Says one pseudo-prophet, “God has directed us to meet here.”

And we meet born-again zealots of all denominations: gospel-singing buskers, unhoused shamans, wannabe priests, makeshift rabbis, phony evangelicals, and an alcoholic, self-described “porno addict.” (“I love Lucifer’s kinkiness.”) Most heartbreaking is “Jim,” who’s convinced that he is Jesus incarnate and, in 1994, will marry Madonna (the pop icon, not the mother of God), release a triple-platinum grunge album, then “enter into international affairs.”

Shot over six years during the most significant transition of power and property in the neighborhood’s history, THE GODS OF TIMES SQUARE features a second-act eulogy for Frank Hakim and his restaurant Grand Luncheonette, located adjacent to the Selwyn Theatre’s lobby, which he was forced to close after 58 years in operation. Frank’s wife laments, “There is no room on the same block for Walt Disney and us.”

Profoundly elegiac, THE GODS OF TIMES SQUARE affirms the breadth and mystery of humanity – urban or otherwise. At one point, Richard and a bystander conclude, while watching a man defecating in the gutter outside of the Howard Johnson’s, that “everybody’s equal in shit.”

This restoration, made possible by Jake Perlin and The Safdie Brothers, commemorates an undeniably urgent and vital moment in documentary filmmaking and New York history. Says Josh Safdie of Richard Sandler’s masterpiece:

“Once upon a time, town squares were comment sections, where people brave enough to shout their opinions did it face to face.  There is no stronger belief than one’s faith, and what used to be Times Square was a town square on steroids.  As the 20th century came to an end, we entered the corporatized Y2K age.  Spirituality seemed an essential grounding force, something to unify us.  But whose God is supreme? What is God? What is God’s place in the digital age? When Disney invaded Times Square, it went up against the smut.  It was a magnet for all things good and bad.  It was hell with attractions.  I still secretly wish to be yelled at whenever I enter Times Square…”

While reading a novel by Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf on the bus, Ali Sabzian strikes up a conversation with a pretty girl, Mahrokh Ahankhah. When she tells him her family admires Makhmalbaf’s work, Ali pretends to be the filmmaker to impress her. Becoming friendly with the Ahankhahs, Ali tells them he is preparing a new movie, but when they uncover his true identity, he is arrested for fraud. This film reenacts the true story of the incident, with Ali and the family playing themselves.

African-American documentary filmmaker Marlon Riggs was working on this final film as he died from AIDS-related complications in 1994; he addresses the camera from his hospital bed in several scenes. The film directly addresses sexism and homophobia within the black community, with snippets of misogynistic and anti-gay slurs from popular hip-hop songs juxtaposed with interviews with African-American intellectuals and political theorists, including Cornel West, bell hooks and Angela Davis.

Starring: Lili Taylor, Christopher Walken, Annabella Sciorra, Edie Falco

A vampiric doctoral student tries to follow the philosophy of a nocturnal comrade and control her thirst for blood.

Starring: María Mercedes Coroy, Sabrina De La Hoz, Margarita Kenéfic, Julio Diaz

Alma is murdered with her children during a military attack in Guatemala, but when the general who ordered the genocide is found not guilty 30 years later, Alma returns to the world of the living to torment the man.

Starring: Noé Hernández, María Evoli, Diego Gamaliel

After wandering a ruined city for years, two siblings enter a building and find a man who makes them a dangerous offer.

Starring: Alexis Díaz de Villegas, Jorge Molina, Andros Perugorría, Andrea Duro, Jazz Vilá, Eliecer Ramírez

When the dead rise and attack the living, Juan starts a zombie-killing business, until he has to save his small band from being eaten.

An up-close cinematic walkabout through the life of Gary Young, the original (and highly unlikely) drummer of indie rock royalty Pavement. His booze and drugs-fueled antics (on-stage handstands, gifting vegetables to fans) and haphazard production methods (accidentally helping launch the lo-fi aesthetic) were both a driving force of the band’s early rise and the cause of his eventual crash landing.

Leaving a wake of joy and/or destruction at every turn, Gary teeters the thin line between free-form self-expression and chaotic self-destruction. Thirty years on with scoliosis, blood clots, and a shriveled liver, Gary is still drumming with no regrets. Note: no puppets were harmed in the making of this film.

Starring: Mays Mustafa, Mohammed Al Ammari, Roger Assaf, Hanane Hajj Ali, Sophia Moussa Fitch, Ahmad Kaabour

U.S. premiere

Young Najwa and the musician Mansour cross the Lebanese border and reach Beirut. They follow smugglers to join a woman on the other side of the sea. The old lighthouse keeper tries to repair his neighborhood’s electricity.