Film Descriptions:
Link and QR code for Full Festival Program:
The Mohican Religion - USA - 2026- By Grand Sachem Aupaumut 1791. There is no mention of an afterlife. Their goal was to please the Great Good Spirit so they would live long and be happy. (11mins)
Gathering Herring Eggs - Japan - 2026 - Herring signals the arrival of spring by turning the ocean milky in Sitka, Southeast Alaska. (24mins)
Cherry Cottage - USA - 2014 - From Native Americans to Hippies; a story of America as told by a single house. This 74 minute documentary tells a story of the United States through the story of Cherry Cottage. (74mins)
Freeheld - USA - 2007 - The story of Laurel Hester in her fight against the Ocean County, New Jersey Board of Chosen Freeholders to give her earned pension benefits to her partner, Stacie. (40mins)
Golden French Fries - Iran - 2025 - The story is about a child who is obsessed with French fries. (2mins)
Dobrina - Germany/Singapore - 2025 - Lotte Reiniger meets Sergio Leone in this animated short, where desire burns as bright as the desert sun. (5mins.)
The Forest of Souls - France - 2024 - Mathilde is a young accoustician. Fascinated by the power of sounds, she wants to invent a new way of travelling through time and find the souls of the departed. (5mins)
I am a Cow! - Iran - 2026 - The story follows a cow who is in love with primrose flowers. (3mins)
Little Benjamin’s Dream - Brazil - 2026 - Born in a Brazil still under the shadow of slavery, a Black boy finds within the enchantment of a traveling circus the path to reinvent his destiny and become one of the country’s greatest clown (14mins)
Lost Car - USA - 2026 - Ever forget where you parked your car? (4mins)
A Fleeting Fugue - USA - 2025 - A songwriter desperately tries to hold on to a new melody as they navigate through the sounds of the big city. (6mins)
The Curious Incident of Everett Wilder - USA - 2025 - The story of a boy in 1952 who encounters a jackalope at his birthday party. (15mins)
Bridge - My Little Friends - Japan - 2024 - Jin, the cat, made a promise to Mugi, who is deeply sad about losing her beloved dog, Shiro. Can Jin heal Mugi's sadness? With the help of nearby pigeons and squirrels, Jin's great plan is now underway. (10mins)
Vivian - USA - 2026 - A little girl throws a funeral for her pet fish. (13mins)
A Little Goldfish - Iran - 2025 - Amid the crowd of Tehran’s bazaar, a little girl sees the world as joyful, beautiful, and full of color — but for her mother, it is bitter, cold, and dark. (15mins)
Dreaming Past These Walls - USA - 2026 - Some time after losing her closest friend, Jane encounters a familiar face on a walk one day, and finds an unexpected connection. (8mins)
Miss Arlene - USA - 2026 - After a bullied diabetic boy befriends a quirky elderly baker, their unlikely friendship blossoms in the kitchen. (27mins)
Between Two Words - Iran - 2025 - About a daughter facing the absence of her father. Through shifting landscapes and quiet gestures, the film explores grief, memory, and resilience. (21mins)
218 - Iran - 2026 - Two brothers face a series of events that forever change the way they see the world around them—and each other. (13mins)
Admission Possible - USA - 2026 - Follows seven high-achieving, first-generation college applicants from a single NYC public high school as they strive to secure a future once unimaginable for their immigrant families. (90mins)
Ball Lightning - USA - 2025 - The true story of a refugee who fled the personal and social effects of Soviet run East Germany after the end of WWII and immigrated to the United States in the 1960s. (12mins)
Oh, The Places You’ll Go - For Caregivers - USA - 2026 - An authentic and soulful exploration of the challenges and joys of caregiving -- via an original poem set to animation. (4mins)
I Wanted to Hear Your Voice - USA - 2025 - After eight years of caring for his mother with severe dementia, a son struggles through their daily care routine. (12mins)
Are You Even Gay? - USA - 2026 - A lonely gay black man summons his soulmate through a DIY seance, only to manifest a straight white man from the 1970s. (22mins)
In Self Embrace - Iran - 2026 - On August 16, 2021, as the Taliban seize control across Afghanistan, Mahtab, a deaf trans woman, arrives at a hospital in Iran for her long-awaited gender-affirming surgery. Her partner, Matin, is torn between staying or returning to Afghanistan. (22mins)
Ghungroo (Ankle Bells) - Pakistan - 2024 - Bilal faces relentless bullying at school and rejection from family for their love of dance and feminine expression. (11mins)
Vintage Journey - USA - 2025 - While attending a family reunion, siblings are prompted to search a storage shed on their legacy ranch, where they discover long lost secrets and the true source of fortune. (7mins)
Where the Sun Shines Bright - China - 2026 - An 18-year-old boy finds his own story reflected in the lives of four children in the same village—parallel journeys of left-behind childhood shaped by resilience and the fragile brightness of growing up. (67mins)
Beans - USA - 2026 - Two creatures eat beans around the campfire while one takes an introspective look at life. (6mins)
A Slimy Deal - USA - 2026 - Martin is an entrepreneur searching the cosmos for alien discoveries to sell to his investors. (8mins)
The Funeral - USA - 2026 - After a robbery goes wrong, a criminal brings his mortally wounded accomplice to his final resting place. (3mins)
The Left Leader - Iran - 2026 - A woman takes a taxi to the airport every day to meet her son, who is a passenger on a Ukrainian plane. (10mins)
A Book by Their Cover - USA - 2024 - A tween girl identifying their orientation, educating herself with a book, and how the town reacts. (29mins)
Anu (Mercy) - Nigeria - 2025 - Sunkanmi has been bullied his entire life and has never fought back. Something terrible happens to him in boarding school that causes him to snap. With the help of an older female student, he seeks revenge. (108mins)
Unspoken - Poland - 2024 - A portrait of 26-year-old Matthew - who stutters and wants to realize his childhood dream to become a Polish champion in acrobatics. (60mins)
Homegirls in Outer Space - USA - 2025 - Two Black women from South Central Los Angeles who form an improv duo, Homegirls in Outer Space, and compete for a residency at the Westside Comedy Theater, where more than forty improv teams audition for just twelve spots. (12mins)
Kaprekar’s Constant - USA - 2026 - A poetic equation from a spider while he convinces a butterfly of the inevitable pattern of life. (4mins)
Bedbug - USA - 2026 - A couple goes to bed as an insect infestation looms in their apartment, only to realize it may already be too late. (13mins)
Pink Slip - USA - 2026 - In 2025, a CEO of a film production company decides to lay off many of its staff to cut costs and make room for the use and investment of artificial intelligence. (5mins)
Love on the Silver Screen - USA - 2025 - A man goes to the movies and finds love in the most unconventional way. (6mins)
Joy Ride - USA - 2026 - It’s 3:07pm, June 20, 1973, and a blue Lincoln Continental is barreling down a narrow Maryland backroad at 50 miles per hour, and the two left to their own devices, are the leader of the Communist party and the President of the United States. (11mins)
Safari Disco Club - USA - 2026 - A frivolous French travel "influencer" takes her audience on an exclusive safari adventure, but is more interested in expounding on French exceptionalism. (39 mins)
Zombie Winos - USA - 2025 - During a zombie apocalypse a wine connoisseur discovers a love of alcohol can be greater than a love to eat humans. (6mins)
Who’s There? - USA - 2024 - When a single father hears his daughter come home late, he begins to question if the voice he’s hearing is really hers... or something else. (11mins)
The Black Rope - Iran - 2026 - Three friends running an illegal marijuana farm come up with a risky plan to recover the money they are owed: break into their buyer’s house and steal his cocaine while they know he is away. (15mins)
Kala Pani - Pakistan - 2026 - An individual trapped inside a system larger than himself, asking a difficult question: when the truth comes at the cost of everything you have built, how far are you willing to go to stand for what is right? (120mins)
Zona Cesarini - Iran/Italy - 2025 - Mina, a 40- a deaf woman, lives with her young son in a modest apartment but while cleaning her window, she spots something terrifying: Ivan, her 25-year-old neighbor across the courtyard, is preparing to hang himself. (11mins)
The Thrift Store Dress - Canada - 2026 - A young girl’s unexpected gift of a second-hand dress and the lifelong friendship and love that grow from it, ultimately spanning six decades and two continents. (81mins)
Gamechangers: Ashlyn Harris - USA - 2026 - This documentary follows one of soccer’s most celebrated, outspoken stars: Ashlyn Harris - her climb to athletic glory, and her post-retirement motherhood and advocacy for LGBTQ rights and women athletes. (51mins)
Cartepesta: Carnival of Fano - The Movie - Italy - 2025 - Italy’s oldest Carnival - memories, footages, and imagery rooted over the centuries in one city: Fano. A tradition, that of papier-mâché, and its float masters who, generation after generation, have been able to blend creativity, engineering and manual skills to build the traveling stages called floats. (90mins)
Color Separation - USA - 2026- Filmmaker - Diane Nerwen - Found and shot footage to reflect on my father’s creative work, his decline in health and the disorientation of losing a parent. (6mins)
Composing Motion - USA - 2026 - Thirteen art students were asked to collaborate on an abstract animation that translates Dave Keifer's song "Mushroom Angel" into moving image. (6mins)
It was Sunday - USA - 2024 - Cinepoem blending original instrumental music with original on-screen poetry. (6mins)
Aisle 13 - USA - 2026 - Odd things are happening at the hardware store causing Luis, the “New Guy,” to wonder if the place might be haunted. (21mins)
One Man’s Trash - USA - 2026 - Roz quietly struggles with the direction her life has taken when a chance encounter with an unusual muse presents an unexpected path. (15mins)
Tormenting the Hen - USA - 2017 - Mind-bending paranoia overtakes Monica when she joins her fiancé Claire on an artists' retreat in the middle of nowhere.