Zoo

Not long after a Seattle man was dropped off at a hospital with a perforated colon, word spread through the region: his death was due to intercourse with a horse. The man's strange demise provided talk-show gabbers including Rush Limbaugh with plenty of sensational material, but Robinson Devor, making his documentary debut after directing two acclaimed feature films, takes the opposite approach. His Zoo is a visionary, feature-length, nonfiction poem that uses re-enactments based on testimony from the man's friends, the owner of the farm that hosted "zoophile" parties, a veterinarian that adopted the horse and a policeman who was on the scene. Devor's Rashomonic approach makes Zoo a dazzling and disorienting portrait of a tiny subculture that is all the more unsettling for being almost entirely non-graphic. Simultaneously adventurous in form and classical in its themes, this is an American tragedy for a new millennium. (JS)

Plays with Joe No Love (dir: Chris Wicha; 10 min.) — Joe is 14. Outspoken and hyper-smart, he sees what's happening to the other kids at his middle school and wants no part of it. Joe doesn't believe in love, and this is his platform. Excerpted from the forthcoming This American Life TV show.