Now Instant and the Los Angeles Festival of Movies present PART-TIME, a collection of new moving image works drawn from the worlds of fine art, experimental film, and narrative cinema that impel the structural capacities of the form. 2025’s iteration of PART-TIME brings together artist/filmmakers Sara Cwynar, Valentin Noujaïm, Miranda Pennell, and Elisabeth Subrin in a suite of works that investigate—and push through—the political potency of enchantment.

Filmed in Beirut on September 22, 2024, just hours before bombing escalated throughout the country, Manal Issa presents a haunting interview with the acclaimed Lebanese French actress Manal Issa. Distilled from hours of long-distance conversations between Elisabeth in the U.S. and Manal in Lebanon over the past year, the film intimately considers the role of the actor during the unfolding global conflict. Refusing to be seen on camera, Issa reflects on questions once posed to the late French actress Maria Schneider (best known for her traumatic experience in the 1972 film Last Tango In Paris), who was a prescient critic of sexism in the film industry. In Manal Issa, an apparitional Issa takes the critique much further.

A confrontation with a disturbing photograph on social media triggers questions about what it means to be an onlooker.

During the summer, 16-year-old Najib spends his days gaming until his mother, Asma, informs him of their old neighbor's passing. Intrigued, Najib takes the keys to the neighbor's apartment, uncovering an unexpected world within.

A meditation on sleeplessness and its relationship to the perennially unfulfilled desire for luxury consumption.