


THURSDAY 6:00 KICKOFF PARTY
Thursday, August 21, 2025
6:00 PM - 10:00 PM
Center615 Main Street Gallery
Box office pickup: Stop by the kickoff party to pick up your tickets for the weekend, and skip the will call line at the fest!
7:00 PM — UNTAMED: A DEFY RETROSPECTIVE
8:00 PM — VOYAGE: A LIVE VISUAL ALBUM
Help us kick off our 10th year of Defy with our first-ever Festival Kickoff Party on Thursday, August 21st, at the Center615 Main Street Gallery, featuring a retrospective film screening with some of our fave films from the past ten years, followed by a special performance by friend-of-the-Fest Sarah Saturday (Gardening, Not Architecture) of her multimedia musical Voyage: A Live Visual Album, featuring several short films directed by Defy's own Dycee Wildman.
Your Defy Pass gets you into the Kickoff Party for free. General Admission tickets are $15.
Thursday, August 21, 2025
6:00 PM - 10:00 PM
Center615 Main Street Gallery
Box office pickup: Stop by the kickoff party to pick up your tickets for the weekend, and skip the will call line at the fest!
7:00 PM — UNTAMED: A DEFY RETROSPECTIVE
8:00 PM — VOYAGE: A LIVE VISUAL ALBUM
Help us kick off our 10th year of Defy with our first-ever Festival Kickoff Party on Thursday, August 21st, at the Center615 Main Street Gallery, featuring a retrospective film screening with some of our fave films from the past ten years, followed by a special performance by friend-of-the-Fest Sarah Saturday (Gardening, Not Architecture) of her multimedia musical Voyage: A Live Visual Album, featuring several short films directed by Defy's own Dycee Wildman.
Your Defy Pass gets you into the Kickoff Party for free. General Admission tickets are $15.
Thursday, August 21, 2025
6:00 PM - 10:00 PM
Center615 Main Street Gallery
Box office pickup: Stop by the kickoff party to pick up your tickets for the weekend, and skip the will call line at the fest!
7:00 PM — UNTAMED: A DEFY RETROSPECTIVE
8:00 PM — VOYAGE: A LIVE VISUAL ALBUM
Help us kick off our 10th year of Defy with our first-ever Festival Kickoff Party on Thursday, August 21st, at the Center615 Main Street Gallery, featuring a retrospective film screening with some of our fave films from the past ten years, followed by a special performance by friend-of-the-Fest Sarah Saturday (Gardening, Not Architecture) of her multimedia musical Voyage: A Live Visual Album, featuring several short films directed by Defy's own Dycee Wildman.
Your Defy Pass gets you into the Kickoff Party for free. General Admission tickets are $15.
FILMS IN THIS PROGRAM (ALPHABETICAL ORDER):
Director: Kirsten Johnson
Country of Origin: Canada
Defy Year: 2016
Synopsis: A woman wakes up covered in toys. Is she hungover? Depressed? Can she get up? Live action and stop-motion animation fuse together in this mad ride exploring self-doubt, delusion, misplaced inner voices and embroidery floss.
Director: Clay Steakley
Country of Origin: United States
Defy Year: 2022
Synopsis: The Fire Cycle is a multidisciplinary artwork consisting of films, poetry, music, and visual art. It's a call to stop, to breathe, to return to elemental things and the ritual of the year. This short film accompanies both a poem and song titled "A Reading From the Book of Regenesis," which sets the stage for The Fire Cycle—a regenerative cycle in which large fires cause changes in weather that can lead to other fires, elsewhere. In the process, they bring life and take it away.
Director: Josh Whiteman
Country of Origin: United States
Defy Year: 2023
Synopsis: The filmmaker's mother describes stories of his lustful youth over the phone, causing them to reflect on his current love life at the age of 30.
Director: Artemis Evlogimenou
Country of Origin: Cyprus
Defy Year: 2023
Synopsis: Dark Comedy Experimental Short starring Konstantina Skalionta. Our immersion into the surrealist world of emotions, brings to light how constructs of reality can be affected by our detachment from: nature, ourselves and others, when dealing with loneliness and depression.
Director: Marjorie Lhomme
Country of Origin: France
Defy Year: 2024
Synopsis: Paris-Bruxelles is a road movie that starts out as a holiday. But a different kind of adventure is in store. Today, 8-year-old Loulou is driving to Belgium with her family for the euthanasia of her grandmother, Blanche.
Director: Karsten Dahlem
Country of Origin: Germany
Defy Year: 2017
Synopsis: When gang leader Ole (11) and his buddies Marco (10) and Milan (12) nicked twelve year old Davie's school bag, Ole would never in his wildest dreams have imagined that a short time later he would appear on stage with Davie at a school karaoke contest dressed as a princess with makeup on... neither could his friends.