Festivals & Events
Festivals & Events
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Perfectly Imperfect: A Missive From LAFM 2026
It’s impossible not to glamorize Los Angeles. Or at least this is how I feel every time I visit. The towering palms, seaside breeze, and temperate weather make everything easy to romanticize. This is an impulse that New Yorkers don’t regularly succumb to, what with incessant mass transit delays, post-blizzard poop pile-ups (we can only hope that these dumps were produced by dogs), and whatever environmental ill has been causing the wind to manifest as a city-wide vortex. After experiencing one of the harshest winters in recent memory, donning a light jacket and mini skirt to attend LAFM’s opening night […]
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Los Angeles: The Movie-Watching Capital of the World
Moviegoing in Los Angeles has never been better, at least not in the 13 years I’ve lived in the city. When covering Slamdance’s move from Park City to LA last year, I listed a host of these either new or newly expanded theatrical offerings. In the year since, American Cinematheque, the undisputed king of repertory cinema in the city (at least in terms of scale), has acquired the historic Village theater in Westwood, with plans to re-open it next year. And Kristen Stewart’s recent purchase of the Highland Theatre is particularly exciting, especially considering that it’s located only one mile […]
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“This Rupture of Utopian Horizons”: Irati Gorostidi Agirretxe on Aro berria
Aro berria, the first feature from Spanish Basque filmmaker Irati Gorostidi Agirretxe, is focused on the revolutionary potential of two spaces: a factory floor and a tent. In the former space, Gorostidi restages the working-class unrest of the late 1970s during Spain’s transition to democracy, opening the film with workers in a San Sebastian water meter plant forming a human snake, their comrades silently putting their tools down and joining in a collective mass. When the more radical workers—many of them young people—fail to sway the plant towards continued action, a number of them leave San Sebastian for the Arco […]
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Back Already? The Maryland Film Festival Settles Into Its New Spring Dates
Only five months after its 2025 edition, the Maryland Film Festival hosted its 27th installment from April 8-12. The Parkway Theater on the corner of North & Charles is set to be a permanent home for Baltimore’s longest-running independent film festival, which will now be held annually in the spring. The shakeup caused by the festival going on hiatus in 2023—which caused former MdFF programmer Eric Allen Hatch to launch his own festival, New/Next, which now runs regularly in the fall—is finally starting to settle, leaving Baltimore with two marquee festivals for independent cinema. The 26th MdFF, despite the competition for regional […]
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Genesis House and The Gotham Launch a Fellowship for NYC Short Filmmakers
Genesis House, the Meatpacking District flagship for Korean luxury vehicles and fine dining, and The Gotham Film & Media Institute, Filmmaker’s publisher, announce today the launch of their joint fellowship. This new initiative will support three New York City–based narrative short filmmakers during their films’ final stages of production and/or distribution. The Genesis House x The Gotham Shorts Fellowship will provide a sizable $10,000 grant alongside mentorship sessions, access to exclusive Genesis House programming, and the opportunity to screen for industry professionals during Gotham Week’s 2026 edition. “This fellowship brings together Genesis House’s position as a cultural hub for creative […]
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“Personal Storytelling, Experimentation, and a DIY Spirit”: A Look Inside LAFM 2026
Returning for its third annual edition, the Los Angeles Festival of Movies boasts a lineup of critical darlings from other festivals, newly-restored global cinema, and even the odd world premiere. Co-founded by Sarah Winshall, producer behind indie gems like I Saw the TV Glow and Good One, and Micah Gottlieb, artistic director of the programming non-profit Mezzanine, LAFM was created in part to respond to a dearth of indie film exhibition in the metropolis. From April 9 through 12, L.A.’s east side will serve as a watering hole for filmgoers in a city that, while integral to the filmmaking ecosystem at large, has been […]
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Eight Feature Recommendations from ND/NF 2026, From an IFFR Winner to Charli XCX’s Indie Debut
New Directors/New Films, the annual showcase for emerging filmmakers co-presented by Film at Lincoln Center and the Museum of Modern Art, runs from April 8 to 19. Now in its 55th edition, ND/NF can boast of having screened the early films of generations of globally renowned directors, from Wim Wenders, Theo Angelopoulos, Steven Spielberg, James Benning, and Chantal Akerman in its first several years, to Yorgos Lanthimos, Laura Poitras, Kleber Mendonça Filho, Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, and RaMell Ross more recently. Most of the festival’s selections arrive by way of fests such as Berlin, Busan, Cannes, Sundance, Locarno and Venice, and as […]
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Exclusive Clip: Rosanne Pel on Her New Directors/New Films Closing Night Title Donkey Days
The 55th edition of New Directors/New Films, the annual showcase of rising cinematic talent co-presented by Film at Lincoln Center and MoMA, will run April 8-19. Opening the festival is Adrian Chiarella’s queer horror film Leviticus, and other standouts include John Early’s brilliant bulimia comedy Maddie’s Secret, Kevin Walker and Jack Auen’s hypnotic hybrid Chronovisor, and Giulio Bertelli’s Agon, winner of the FIPRESCI Prize at Venice Critics’ Week. Ahead of this year’s festival, Filmmaker is happy to debut a short clip courtesy of filmmaker Rosanne Pel, whose feature Donkey Days has been selected as this year’s closing night film. “I […]
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They Will Kill You Took the Blood, Sweat and Tears of Kirill Sokolov, Zazie Beetz, and Myha’la
It’s the closing night of the 2026 SXSW Film Festival and They Will Kill You director Kirill Sokolov is taking to the stage of the Paramount Theatre in Austin. He has multiple pages in hand listing out all of his collaborators he wants to thank. Where most filmmakers give a few brief remarks, possibly crack a joke or two, and then make a quick exit stage left, Sokolov, who previously made the films Why Don’t You Just Die! and No Looking Back in Russia, is running down as many people as he can possibly get through. This is all taking […]
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Watch Six Short Films from Filmfort 2026
Filmmaker is happy to continue its annual partnership with the Filmfort Film Festival by exclusively hosting six short films from the 2026 edition, which kicks off today. Occurring simultaneously during the Treefort Music Fest in Boise, Idaho, Filmfort highlights emerging indie fare. On the feature film front, this includes The Scout, directed by Paula González-Nasser—who appeared on our 25 New Faces of Film last year— and Joybubbles, Rachel J. Morrison’s Sundance-premiering doc. The following shorts will be available to watch on the site through midnight on March 29, when the festival wraps. Find the embedded films and their synopses below. […]
