FRIDAY 8:45 // SUNSHINE GIRLS (with opening short film: SARDINE)

$15.00
sold out

Friday, August 22, 2025
8:45 PM - 10:30* PM
Main Theatre

World Premiere

Nashville filmmaker Madeleine Hicks debuts her first feature as a feminist sci-fi satire… and fully commits. Equal parts bold, strange, and sharply funny, this film is a dark mirror of the moment, reflecting the struggle to live a life of value in a world that feels increasingly bleak.

*Run time includes 15+ minute filmmaker Q&A after screening

Friday, August 22, 2025
8:45 PM - 10:30* PM
Main Theatre

World Premiere

Nashville filmmaker Madeleine Hicks debuts her first feature as a feminist sci-fi satire… and fully commits. Equal parts bold, strange, and sharply funny, this film is a dark mirror of the moment, reflecting the struggle to live a life of value in a world that feels increasingly bleak.

*Run time includes 15+ minute filmmaker Q&A after screening

Want to attend multiple screenings at Defy? The Weekend and Day Passes are the biggest bang for your buck!

A limited number of individual tickets will be available online for each screening the week of the festival.

FILMS IN THIS PROGRAM:

Featured
SARDINE
SARDINE

Director: Andrea Dratch

Country of Origin: United States

Synopsis: Chained to the grind of assembly-line life and crushed beneath society’s expectations, Henrietta is done playing tame. Her spirit snarls for release, and something raw begins to rise—a feral force long buried. As the cage of conformity tightens, she sheds the skin of civility and unleashes the wild within. This isn’t just a transformation—it’s a revolt. A primal reclaiming of power, identity, and the freedom to be unapologetically untamed.

Sunshine Girls
Sunshine Girls

Director: Madeleine Hicks

Country of Origin: United States

WORLD PREMIERE

Synopsis: SUNSHINE GIRLS follows the story of Elaine, a timid woman nearing her 30th birthday who must make the difficult choice between motherhood and medically induced photosynthesis. After prolonged environmental destruction, Elaine’s world is experiencing a dangerous shortage of oxygen. Science has created a solution to this problem: a “minimally invasive” medical procedure that allows women’s reproductive systems to host photosynthesis and cellular respiration, ultimately enabling them to give birth to air. For the first time in her life, amongst the ragtag troupe of oxygen-producing misfits called the Sunshine Girls, Elaine finally begins to grow into the woman she has always wanted to be...but not everything is always as bright and sunny as it seems. Darkly comedic and endlessly absurd, SUNSHINE GIRLS is an eccentric and thrilling exploration of womanhood and mother nature.