Talisa Friedman

Roland Rykard, a moderately successful painter, has died. When his two adult sons return to Albuquerque for his memorial, they are confronted with the childhood tragedy they’ve been outrunning for decades. Jean, Roland’s widow, decides she can no longer care for her dependent youngest child, Lulu, forcing the question: who is responsible for her care? Steeped in the mysticism and ghosts of New Mexico, The Land of Enchantment explores what we owe our family, our art, and ourselves.

Three freshmen with conflicting visions for their college experience bond, clash and betray each other as they navigate their new-found independence and what it means to have power in this world.

Len and Jules Feinstein are your standard progressive, not-particularly-religious DC-area Jews. So when their eldest child Eliza brings her Black boyfriend Everett home for Yom Kippur break fast, there’s no issue. Sure, the dog attacks him (“I’ve only seen him bark like that at the mailman”) and the quantity of African artifacts around the house feel a little appropriative, but it’s nothing too alarming. The biggest “problem” is that the family seems skeptical of the film that Eliza and Everett are collaborating on...but maybe they just don’t get it.

Tensions ramp up over the next few family gatherings. Abby, the youngest child, still can’t find a job; middle son Noah has an Asian-American girlfriend; Len’s sister might be embarrassingly racist. Amidst the minefield of these minor family dramas, however, a real tragedy begins to unfold that turns the lives of the Feinsteins on their heads. In the subsequent months, each family member finds themselves navigating a newly-fraught existence—none more so than Eliza, who begins to question every construct in her life and cling to the religion she once had all but abandoned.