USA • 1 hour 20 minutes Directed by Rustin Thompson
Bittersweet love letter to small town movie theaters in the American West. Beautiful visuals and enchanting music underscore the stories of the struggles of independent cinemas. If you love going to the movies, don't miss it.
USA • 1 hour 17 minutes Directed by Ebony Blanding
Siblings who’ve drifted apart are brought together in an effort to prevent the eviction of their mother from their family home due to her obsessive hoarding. As they deal with the physical mess, they are forced to confront their own issues on a journey of reconciliation and healing.
After the Ponderosa buffet closes, an older regular, George (Bill Camp), tries to become a surrogate father figure to Zeke, the aimless son of a single mother who works at the restaurant. As Zeke searches for a sense of self against a backdrop of generational expectations and half-formed ideological notions of masculinity, George is drawn into his own distorted attempt at self-recognition.
USA • 1 hour 30 minutes Directed by William David Caballero
After a series of successful short films, director William David Caballero has evolved his storytelling techniques and crafted a unique debut feature that doubles as an ode to his own family. Centered around his own Puerto Rican parents’ struggles with loss and acceptance, this hybrid animated documentary is unlike anything else you will see this year. Deeply personal stories are rarely told with such imagination, and TheyDream is a shining example of creating as an act of healing.
Filmed right here in Birmingham, Last Shot follows 12-year-old basketball player Caden Isaacs as he navigates an unexpected and sudden tragedy. Forced to move to a different city to live with his previously absent, workaholic mother, Caden learns that his actions have consequences as he tries to fit in with a new basketball team while Lexi juggles family and work responsibilities.
As three elite female bodybuilders pursue their dream of a Ms. Olympia title, they confront the difficult realities of a male-dominated sport. Balancing physical demands with relationships, careers, and motherhood, they each question what sacrifices are worth it and how much space to take up in a world that tries to keep women small.
An older man with dementia befriends a grieving young woman as their lives intersect in unexpected ways. While both are overwhelmed with relationships past and present, their lives in upstate New York reflect each others’ struggles with loss, ennui, and acceptance. Through the hypnotic visual texture found in Video8 footage and starring members of his own family, this ambient meditation on life and its universal anxieties sees director Aidan Cronin arriving at his debut feature with an original filmmaking language all his own.
FRA • 1 hour 11 minutes Directed by Jean-Jacques Cunnac
A lost New York artist visits Selma, Alabama searching for himself and inspiration. He explains his experiences, explorations, and the history to his son while he visits the town for the Jubilee highlighting the contrasts of the city’s past and history to current daily life.
USA • 1 hour 20 minutes Directed by Michael LaHaie
"Hey everybody, it's Bob and David!" From Mr. Show to movie and TV stardom, witness two legendary comedians risk their lives, careers, and friendship to hike one of the New Seven Wonders of the World. Will they survive? Will they achieve clarity? Will they argue over bedding? Yonder lies adventure!
USA • 1 hour 35 minutes Directed by Russell Goldman
Julia grapples with her wavering sobriety and unemployment when the first unordered package arrives. It’s her lipstick – which she knows she didn’t order – in the package that marks the start of the mysterious deliveries that bombard her new rental home. In her hyperfixated search for the sender, Julia spirals in and out of her paranoia.
USA • 1 hour 5 minutes Directed by Jacob Koestler and Michael McDermit
Latin Clowns Evolution chronicles an annual weeklong convention where Latino clowns gather in South Los Angeles. The documentary seamlessly juxtaposes their joyful performances with stories of immigration, sacrifice, and resilience. As they learn new tricks and share deeply personal backstories, these artists remind us that spreading joy and laughter is a radical healing force.
USA • 1 hour 7 minutes Directed by Amy Scott and Dena Fisher
Carpenter Shelley Halstead trains a group of three young, Black women in construction skills by rehabbing vacant and abandoned houses in West Baltimore, challenging generations of racism and sexism in housing. When tensions arise within the diverse group of young women she's teaching to build and a suspicious fire destroys one of her buildings, Shelley is forced to rethink her vision of community.
Jessica Chriesman - Director of Education and Outreach
USA • 1 hour 30 minutes Directed by Shalon Buskirk and Drew Swedberg
A parent and a poet convene to build a vulnerable vignette about grief, remembrance, and the future of their ever-changing environment. Linking the topics of gun violence and housing injustice, they highlight the impacts of displacement and the desire for communal stabilization.
USA • 1 hour 45 minutes Directed by Caron Creighton
Award-winning director Caron Creighton gives an inspiring look into Oakland, California’s largest unhoused encampment. The film follows John and LaMonté, two of the encampment’s residents, as they work to organize their neighbors against the state and local governments’ efforts to displace their community.
PRT • 1 hour 20 minutes Directed by Vicente Alves do Ó
The prismatic colors of Portugal in 1982 contrast the tensions that are the pulse of this film. 10-year-old Vasco is caught between childhood's wonders and adulthood's miseries. His mother is struggling to stay afloat, social pressures keep him from knowing his father, and he simply wants to understand it all.
USA • 1 hour 37 minutes Directed by Micah Van Hove
In the outskirts of the Amazon, Chino spends his days hunting down anacondas. When an American journalist hires him for a mysterious job, his life on the river goes downstream.
USA • 1 hour 35 minutes Directed by Viacheslav Rakovskyi and Jeremy Chilnick
A film that shows love and kindness in action for animals displaced by the Ukrainian War with Russia. It starts with one soldier heading to war asking his friends to take in his 37 goats. They do and their home quickly becomes a refuge for hundreds of animals in need. Their home opens up to include cows, sheep, pigs, peacocks, even a crocodile and a sweet donkey.
The Marion County Record in Marion, Kansas was raided by the police in 2023 for very dubious reasons. "Seized" examines the events of that day along with the fallout, including personal tragedy. It's a story of small town politics resulting in an international look at press freedom and journalistic ethics.
USA • 1 hour 35 minutes Directed by Bowie Alexander and Matthew Syrett
Tender, urgent, and hopeful, Admission Possible follows seven New York City high school seniors applying to college as first generation students. Guided by their determined and caring college admissions counselor, they grapple with the complex cultural, social, and political factors influencing higher education today. Debates over testing, legacies, and family loyalty muddy the waters of their decisions.
USA • 1 hour 25 minutes Directed by Jennifer Kroot
The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence are known for inserting bawdy humor and zany satire into unique queer activism. Explore this entertaining closeup on their San Francisco origins and following a riveting set of campy nuns during an over-the-top Easter in the Park 2023 celebration set against a beautiful sunny afternoon backdrop in Dolores Park.
How powerful is childhood imagination? Costa Karlalis’ Frogtown draws us into a world where myth is reality. Set in a small Southern town, this feature reminds us about the art of collective dreaming. In this film, you’ll see complex family dynamics along with a reverence for the mystery of the natural world. Suspend your disbelief and amplify the amphibian!
New York City has about five million pigeons and eight people who really truly love them. Some race their pigeons. Others rescue sick and hurt ones, while a few just think pigeons are beautiful, even though most people call them dirty. This movie shows why they care so much.
USA • 1 hour 30 minutes Directed by Doron Max Hagay
Meaningful story about self discovery and learning to stand up for yourself. It also explores the complexity of friendships, especially questioning if they are genuine. The ending is thought provoking and leaves you wondering if Michelle finally recognizes the truth about her so-called friendship with Kelly.
USA • 1 hour 39 minutes Directed by Daniel Christian
Through the lens of prolific photographer O. N. Pruitt, Possum Town introduces us to Columbus, MS during the Jim Crow era. Nearly a century later, the citizens of Columbus' lives are juxtaposed against the images of the past and the perspectives of today as we are guided through Pruitt’s photographic archive. This film invites us to engage with history, its preservation and its influence on the present.
Jessica Chriesman - Director of Education and Outreach
USA • 1 hour 28 minutes Directed by Jonathan Nastasi and Vivian Sorenson
Come along with Nick Offerman as he visits farms, gardens, and fisheries across the United States to engage with those who work daily to keep fresh food on our tables. With an affable spirit and an intelligent eye, the benefits and innovations of independent farming are contrasted with the inherent perils of mass-produced, ultra-processed foods in a palatable, easy-to-digest manner, serving as a call to action as well as an appreciation of the best versions of the salad or burger on your dinner plate.
AUS • 1 hour 30 minutes Directed by Mia'Kate Russell
Set in the sweltering Australian summer of 1986, Mia’Kate Russell’s survival thriller debut feature follows Penny and her best friends celebrating university acceptance at a remote beach house. The ‘no dick event’ spirals into a blood-soaked nightmare when an uninvited cousin, Kat, and a crew of dangerous men crash the party.
A story about what freedom could look like--beyond the vote. 145 relational organizers mobilize millions of Black voters in Eastern North Carolina, reclaiming "woke" as a call to action to build lasting community power.
USA • 1 hour 35 minutes Directed by John Spottswood Moore
Go back in time to when Austin, Texas was weird and its public access television in the 1980s was even weirder in the best ways possible. When We Were Live is a collection of the actual footage that helped give a voice to a colorful assortment of Austinites.
In a remote desert town called Moon Crest, Cliff, a young man struggling with his love life, takes an unexpected turn when he encounters his estranged birth mother, whose hidden past draws him into an unexpected adventure, challenging his hopes for connection, identity, and love.
Director Jeremy Xido does the near-impossible by constructing an autobiographical film with a detective story about his own upbringing while delving deep into the last gasp inside Detroit’s working class of the 1960s and ‘70s. An honest conversation 20 years later about family and race develops as he digs deep after returning home to a community gripped with conflict, silence and clouds of mystery.
Embie, an aspiring concert photographer, embarks on a tour with an intergalactic band that challenges his own perceptions of success and responsibility. An animated micro-feature five years in the making, Trevor Mastro has independently crafted and produced a personal, one-of-a-kind psychedelic experience (with an excellent soundtrack) that you are unlikely to forget.
CAN • 1 hour 30 minutes Directed by Kenya-Jade Pinto
One journalist. One man seeking a better life. One tragedy. Experience the hidden connections between surveillance technology and migration, greedy corporations and corrupt governments exploiting the lives of vulnerable people. These events reflect a wider pattern of exploitation and tragedy in a system focused on profit rather than on protecting asylum seekers. As borders tighten and technology becomes more invasive, human rights are eroded, and compassion fades. This film aims to expose this profit-driven system, but a question remains: What will it take for the world to see migrants' humanity?
USA • 1 hour 35 minutes Directed by Eric Alexander Foss and Brandon Pickering
Two enthusiastic dreamers with practically no cash set out on what’s sure to be a brilliant venture. James, fueled by his ever-present ambition, bets his entire house on Francis’ indie film—because who needs stability when you could be a cinematic legend? But of course, such reckless pursuits tend to blow up in your face, reminding us that sometimes, having endless ambition is just a fancy way of shooting yourself in the foot.
