I Was There
Director: Kamila Kuc
Country of Origin: Poland, UK, USA
Premiere: Tennessee
Synopsis: A haunting exploration of familial bonds, intergenerational memory, and the enduring impact of shared narratives. Filmmaker Kamila Kuc steps into the emotional stream of inherited family history as the lines between documentary, testimony, and fiction blur. (A special thank you to DELERE PRESS BOOK, If Loss Were a a Currency https://www.delerepress.com/books/iflosswereacurrency)
It’s a Wonderful Night of the Living Dead
Director: John Bell, Dan Bell
Country of Origin: United States
Premiere: Tennessee
Synopsis: It’s a not-so-wonderful life for George Bailey when a horde of flesh-eating ghouls come to town on Christmas Eve. Through the use of traditional rotoscoping and compositing techniques, It’s a Wonderful Life and Night of the Living Dead (both in the public domain) have been woven together to create this twisted love letter to the original films.
Lady Puritan
Director: Gustine Füdickar, Justin Streichman
Country of Origin: United States
Synopsis: As dream life bleeds into waking reality, a woman haunted by her Puritan ancestor must confront the terror buried deep within her bloodline.
Through ritual and violent trial of the body, she fractures the veil between worlds and is thrown into a fight for her life.
Lady Puritan is a surreal psychological meditation on ancestral trauma and the intimate horror of what we are born carrying. Set against the shadow of American Puritanism, the film explores the tension between repression and embodied desire.
Mangittatuarjuk (The Gnawer of Rocks)
Director: Louise Flaherty
Country of Origin: Canada
Premiere: Tennessee
Synopsis: Two young women, out for a walk on the tundra, follow a trail of colourful stones left on the ground -- but it leads them to danger. They become trapped in the lair of the Mangittatuarjuk, the Gnawer of Rocks. The young women are terrified when they realize what the monster has been doing. The women and their village must use the teachings of their elders to defeat the monster.
Trailer | Website
MurderBird
Director: Barrett Lesly Shuler
Country of Origin: United States
Premiere: Tennessee
Synopsis: In an attempt to save his relationship a man buys his girlfriend a rare exotic bird for her birthday. After the couple develops a deep emotional bond with the bird, its true colors begin to emerge.
Trailer password: mb | Website
Museum of Regret
Director: Skye Braband
Country of Origin: United States
Premiere: Tennessee
Synopsis: A television repairman makes a repair.
Next In Line
Director: Danny Dolan
Country of Origin: United States
Premiere: Tennessee
Synopsis: After losing out on the job of a lifetime, a jaded choreographer's escape to the desert is hijacked by an unhinged and malicious rival.
NO SWIMMING
Director: Andrea Dratch, Andy Carrasco
Country of Origin: United States
Premiere: World
Synopsis: Echo - curious and vibrant - and Silence - unconscious and subjugated - embody the living and dying essences of one soul. In exploring the rules placed around living in a physical body, they strip away layer upon layer of conditioned expectations, revealing what a momentous yet worthwhile undertaking living - really living - is. Embracing the unity of these twin halves allows the soul to discard the constraints of a systemically fearful society and swim down to the limitless unknown, the deep end of life itself.
The Oldest
Director: Cathlin McCullough
Country of Origin: United States
Premiere: Tennessee
Synopsis: 12-year-old Kate longs to escape her lonely reality as the oldest of 5 under the shadow of her father's addiction in this coming-of-age story set in late 80s rural Iowa. “The Oldest” focuses on the inner life of a girl forced to grow up too fast and highlights the gulf of difference between the heaviness of home life and the freedom of just being a kid.
On the Way Out of Time
Director: Steven Palassis
Country of Origin: United States
Premiere: World
Synopsis: A glimpse into the hypervigilant mind.
Painting Cathedral Rock
Director: Mel Day
Country of Origin: Canada
Premiere: Tennessee
Synopsis: Painting Cathedral Rock, is a meditative experimental work in which painting, performance, and film converge to explore landscape, ritual, colonialism, and the fragile boundaries between spectacle, spirituality, and perception.
Party Invitation
Director: Chelsea Hall
Country of Origin: United States
Premiere: World
Synopsis: An introvert struggling with how to connect with others composes an unusual invitation to an elaborate house party but then has second thoughts.
Patch
Director: Meg Cook
Country of Origin: United States
Premiere: Tennessee
Synopsis: Patch draws inspiration from textiles, translating woven patterns into animated movement. Using cut paper, it explores pattern, movement, and play, echoing the tactile qualities of textile-making. The animation unfolds like a living fabric—shapes shifting, interlocking, and unraveling in continuous transformation.
Preparing for the Worst
Director: Taylor Parris Benjamin & Megan Jensen
Country of Origin: United States & Czech Republic
Premiere: Tennessee
Synopsis: Freja’s prepared a perfect meal for a first date, but when the boy she’s invited over starts to act strange, things take a dark turn.
Primetime Mr. President
Director: Saif Alsaegh
Country of Origin: United States & Czech Republic
Premiere: Tennessee
Synopsis: Only a few weeks after the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, former President George W. Bush gave a televised speech on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln declaring that his country had prevailed. Primetime Mr. President analyzes the speech, dubbed as “Mission Accomplished,” through the lens of what Iraqis had endured and would endure as a result of the war and its aftermath, from horrible insurgency, civil and sectarian wars, political corruption, and the overarching sense of death and despair.
THE SCHISM & THE BUTTERFLY
Director: Joseph Taglieri
Country of Origin: United States
Premiere: World
Synopsis: What happens when social norms decay? When the machinery of power turns neighbors into enemies? YARA is a young woman who believes in equality for all. When a fascist LEADER is informed of her godlike powers, he seeks to make her a weapon of the state. He poisons her MOTHER in a bid to force the child to access her powers. When Yara attempts to resurrect her mother, she actually summons a life force using her mother’s corpse to warn her she must fight for justice.
Something Wrong
Director: Paola Termine
Country of Origin: France
Synopsis: Blanche refuses to let her mother sell the piano. This piano belonged to her sick sister. While her mother seems to act as if nothing happened, Blanche tries her best to keep Anna's memory alive.