Official Selections

A young mouse, lonely for a friend, takes up a board game with the wind.

2026 / United States / 4:25 Minutes

DIRECTOR: Gordon LePage
WRITER: Gordon LePage

Arash is a professional wrestler with dreams of representing his country and winning gold medals. The country is in turmoil and its people are suffering. Arash must decide between using his platform to stand up to tyranny, or put his head down and remain silent.

2025 / Canada & Iran / 25 Minutes

DIRECTOR: Amir Zargara
PRODUCERS: Amir Zargara, Mehdi Bajestani
WRITER: Amir Zargara
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Jelan Maxwell
EDITOR: Iman Tahsin
COMPOSER: K B
SOUND EDITOR & MIXER: Amir Mohabbati

A Life Illuminated follows pioneering marine biologist Dr. Edith Widder’s lifelong quest to use the language of light to communicate with the most mysterious creatures in the deep sea. Now, she heads off on her greatest journey yet into the deepest depths of our ocean world to understand our biggest questions about bioluminescence and what it can tell us about the future of life on Earth. Produced by the Oscar-nominated team behind Fire Of Love and directed by award-winning filmmaker Tasha Van Zandt.

2025 / United States / 1 Hour, 29 Minutes

DIRECTOR: Tasha Van Zandt
WRITER: Tasha Van Zandt

In the Old West, a weary cowboy faces a mysterious duelist, only to find the showdown forces him to confront the ghost of who he once was and the man he’s become.

2025 / Canada / 3:58 Minutes

DIRECTOR: Peter Ricq
WRITER: Peter Ricq
PRODUCERS: Peter Ricq, Arden Ross, Alexander Calvert, David Angelski

Before text messaging, before email, before the telephone, before the telegraph — there was the Pony Express. This legendary chapter of American history has captured hearts and imaginations around the world. Every June, hundreds of riders retrace the historic route in a nonstop ten-day relay, carrying mail nearly 2,000 miles from Missouri to California. Before the Wire follows the adventure through the Wyoming high country, bringing to life the enduring spirit and remarkable history of the Pony Express.

2026 / United States / 25:34 Minutes

PRODUCERS: BJ Klophaus, Steve McKnight
FILMING: BJ Klophaus, Steve McKnight
EDITING & GRAPHICS: BJ Klophaus

“I’ll bring Shiro to you. I promise!” Jin, the cat, made this promise to Mugi, who is deeply sad about losing her beloved dog, Shiro.

Jin loves Mugi very much and, after hearing the story of the “Rainbow Bridge” from his owner Aki, he decides to take Mugi to meet Shiro at the Rainbow Bridge! Can Jin heal Mugi’s sadness? With the help of nearby pigeons and squirrels, Jin’s great plan is now underway!

Japan / 9:30 Minutes

DIRECTOR: Kazuyuki Ishihara
WRITER: Takahiro Nagano
PRODUCER: Makoto Mizusawa

When a zombie outbreak descends upon a sleepy Midwestern town, a naïve high school nerd must trek across the haunted rural wasteland in order to save his cheerleader crush from joining the undead.

2026 / United States / 11:46 Minutes

DIRECTORS: Wyatt Woods, Cameron Haring
WRITER: Wyatt Woods
PRODUCERS: Aaron Connor, Evan Lieberman
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Leigha Dossa
PRODUCTION DESIGN: Cameron Knotek-Black
EDITOR: Sam Grossman

In the Bolivian Andes, the glaciers are vanishing — and with them, the water that sustains the communities below. Death of a Glacier follows a team of climate scientists and the residents of the Zongo Valley as they confront the retreat of ice that has crowned these mountains for millennia. For the families living at the foot of Huayna Potosí, the glacier is drinking water, electricity, livelihood, and memory. For the scientists, it is a record — one that now shows the ice has shrunk past its smallest size in nearly twelve thousand years.

Told largely in Spanish by the people closest to the loss, the film moves from why glaciers matter, to what the science reveals, to the harder question of what remains possible. It refuses both denial and despair, insisting that what we still do counts.

2026 / United States / 16:46 Minutes

DIRECTOR: Ethan Parrish
WRITER: Ethan Parrish
PRODUCERS: Ethan Parrish, Shaun Marcott

This little story is based on actual experience where the girl is so taken in by the spectacular birds that they are welcomed with open arms. Her Staffy is forbidden from doing what obviously needs to be done and the Peacock population grows dramatically. With time the girl eventually changes her position to that of the Staffy who knew all along that the garden should be out of bounds to peacocks.

2025 / South Africa / 6:56 Minutes

DIRECTOR: Linsday Van Blerk
WRITER: Linsday Van Blerk
PRODUCERS: Dave Evnmey, Mpho Makhalemele, Linsday Van Blerk

Ángel is a newly arrived immigrant who is experiencing his first winter in Chicago. The film follows his realization of what it may mean to be away from home for a very long time.

2025 / United States / 4:27 Minutes

DIRECTOR: Schantelle Alonzo

From the Academy Award winning team behind “Curfew.” Still reeling from an incredible loss, a father (Shakey Graves) and daughter cling to a bedtime routine keeping them safe in a town where an unfathomable horror visits its inhabitants night after night.

2025 / United States / 16:04 Minutes

DIRECTOR: Brenden Hubbard
WRITER: Brian Barnes
PRODUCERS: Mylissa Fitzsimmons, Parth Marathe, Damon Russell, Brenden Hubbard, Bennett Krishock, Shawn Christensen, Bryan Matthews

Horses and Highwater is about the Western way of life: community, conservation, and collaboration. TU’s ongoing restoration efforts at Tincup Creek exemplify all of these traits, as we worked closely with Caribou-Targhee National Forest – by hand, foot, hoof, and helicopter – to bring these restoration projects to life in the Salt River watershed.

United States / 10:32 Minutes

DIRECTOR: Paul Lavold
PRODUCER: Tanner Belknap
PUBLIC RELATIONS: Nick Gann

As the last lighthouse keeper in America approaches retirement, Dr. Sally Snowman reflects on how to say goodbye to her spiritual and emotional connection to Boston Light, the oldest light station in the country. Sally’s deep bond with her tiny island crosses time and space. This immersive portrait of Sally’s last days at Boston Light may be the last document of the art of light keeping.

2025 / United States / 13:33 Minutes

DIRECTOR: A.B. Zax

After eight years of caring for his mother with severe dementia, a son struggles through their daily care routine. Recorded voicemails serve to show the progression of the disease, underscoring the frustration, isolation and burnout that comes with intensive caregiving.

2025 / United States / 12 Minutes

DIRECTOR: James Pellerito
WRITER: James Pellerito
PRODUCER: David Barba
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Rodrigo Sandoval Vega Gil

The cold winter is hard on Lena and her animals. Firewood is expensive – and Lena only has turnip jam left to sell. But help sometimes comes from where you least expect it…

2025 / Croatia, Germany / 5:13 Minutes

DIRECTOR: Elena Walf
WRITERS: Elena Walf, Simon Thummet, Barbara Kuznetsova
PRODUCERS: Thomas Meyer-Herrmann, Miljana Dragicevic

A poetic and transformative journey of a young man’s physical, mental, and spiritual struggle to return to his son through the criminal justice system and the layers of colonization it represents. Created by animating spray-painted murals frame-by-frame, Cree artist Jesse Gouchey painted each frame on large outdoor surfaces over a period of seven years in numerous locations across Alberta and BC. Johnny Crow’s struggle speaks to the resilience of modern day warriors surviving and resisting bureaucratic battles of written laws vs oral traditions, and is contrasted by a haunting poem written and performed by spoken word artist Mitcholos Touchie. Turtle Island agreements were to share, and nobody was conquered. Today’s resistance seeks to expose and correct treaty trickery, the dishonourable paper wars that are won and lost with the flick of a stock market digit.

United States / 7:15 Minutes

DIRECTOR: Xstine Cook, Jesse Gouchey
PRODUCERS: Xstine Cook
WRITERS: Xstine Cook, Jesse Gouchey, Mitcholos Touchie
ANIMATOR: Jesse Gouchey
MUSIC: Daniel Geary, Celina Kalluk, Pura Fé, Bull Horn Singers
EDITOR: Neil Evenson | Camera: Jesse Gouchey, Veronica Reeves

This film highlights the Native American lifeways in the area around Encampment, Wyoming.

2026 / United States / 12:04 Minutes

DIRECTOR: Bob Noll
WRITER: Candy Moulton
PRODUCER: Candy Moulton

Listen is a story of language. It is about resilience and instilling hope in future generations to learn their language, specifically on the Navajo Nation. Currently, there are fewer fluent speakers of Díne Bizaad (the Navajo Language) on the reservation. Despite this, there is hope thanks to a local radio station that broadcasts entirely in Díne Bizaad to thousands of listeners all the time. Notably, the director’s journey in the film highlights the resilience of the language, as it encounters revitalization efforts on the Navajo Nation—an inspiration to protect the language of your people and express your identity through it.

2025 / United States / 16 Minutes

DIRECTOR: Malakye Tsosie
WRITER: Malakye Tsosie
PRODUCER: Kaitlyn Sanchez
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Drew Bouchard
CAMERA TEAM: Ellie Hoffey, Xavier Jordan, Malakye Tsosie
COLORIST: Christopher Riggs
SOUND MIXING & MASTERING: Christopher Riggs

Milakóta Yeló is a short, Lakota-led documentary that follows a traditional Lakota grandmother on the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation. Rooted in language, land, and lived experience, the film becomes a quiet reflection on identity, memory, and the enduring presence of Lakota life and matriarchal power.

2026 / United States / 18 Minutes

DIRECTOR: Seth Brings Plenty
PRODUCER: Paola Monseratt
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Seth Brings Plenty

Munchies is a fun, fast-paced crime comedy that follows an estranged high school clique as they reunite for a summer girl’s night where Lennon, Tessa, Ronnie, and Mack get high together like old times. Their sleepover takes a hilariously dark turn when junk food cravings land them in the middle of a botched convenience store robbery. Despite becoming hostages, the girls are still stoned as f*ck. They must squash their giggles and outsmart the robber to escape alive.

2025 / United States / 11:10 Minutes

DIRECTOR: Brittany Alexia Young
WRITER: Brittany Alexia Young
PRODUCER: Jaelyn Ellis

After a DNA test uncovers his father’s adoption, a proud Italian American from Providence, Rhode Island grapples with the revelation that he’s not actually Italian, and never has been. With the foundation of his identity destroyed, and his familial bonds broken, he begins to spiral.

2025 / United States / 14:27 Minutes

DIRECTOR: Joe Picozzi
WRITER: Joe Picozzi
PRODUCERS: Lauren Germani, Alex Berard, Joe Picozzi
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Carlos Cardona
EDITOR: Joe Picozzi

An Arab-American mother drowns in postpartum as a night nurse unsettles her and war floods her screens. Her private paranoia bleeds into the violence beyond her walls- blurring nightmare and reality… But is the madness in her mind or the world around her?

2026 / United States / 15:56 Minutes

DIRECTOR: Rana Roy
WRITER: Rana Roy
PRODUCER: Adia Ivey
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Julia Maixer
PRODUCTION DESIGNER: Janhvi Gupta
EDITOR: Joan Mao
SOUND DESIGN/SOUND MIXER: John Warrin
COMPOSER: Lennard Zander

Ever more partisan and divisive, democracy is imperiled throughout our nation. But have these Americans found a fix to what ails us?

PEOPLE vs. POLITICS profiles grassroots leaders around the country dedicated to reforming the uniquely partisan and polarizing nature of U.S. elections

Varying in personal background and political orientation, these reformers face similar challenges in placing citizen initiatives on the 2024 ballots in Nevada, Idaho, Colorado, Montana, Alaska & Washington, D.C. They also share a common goal: enhancing people’s power through opening primaries and creating ranked-choice (or instant-runoff) general elections, where winners must earn a true majority.

From DC street fairs to Native Alaskan festivals, at house parties, town halls and debates, the film captures the enthusiasm behind these initiatives and the blowback from those in power.

That’s People vs. Politics.

2026 / United States / 1 Hour, 37 Minutes

DIRECTOR: Robert M. Pease, Carol A. Wingard
WRITER: Robert M. Pease
PRODUCER: Robert M. Pease, Carol A. Wingard, Mary Claire Kogler, Julia Hoppock
EDITORS: Sven Pape, Dustin Hughes

Follows Joan, an audio engineer who lives a solitary life, struggling to determine whether the horrors she encounters are real and caused by past actions of her father, or if they are manifestations of her own troubled mind.

2026 / United States / 1 Hour, 38 Minutes

DIRECTOR: Henry Chaisson
WRITER: Henry Chaisson
PRODUCER: Josh Lobo, Bruno Corbin, Gillian Cooper, Alex Dandino

Restoring the Headwaters follows the story of wildlife biologists and stream ecologists as they take on the urgent challenge of repairing a stream headcut in the fragile sage-steppe ecosystem of the Big Hole Valley in Montana. What begins as an eroding scar in the landscape becomes a threat to drain wetlands, degrade critical sage-grouse habitat and disrupt water flowing downstream. Through collaboration, grit, and innovative restoration, this short documentary reveals how working lands and wildlife can thrive together and why protecting water at its source is essential for the resilience of rivers, communities, and all ecosystems downstream.

2026 / United States / 15 Minutes

DIRECTOR: Tom Attwater

In the wilds of Montana, a mountaineering artist embarks on the last summer of a decade-long project to draw all the named glaciers in the state. He reminisces about past seasons spent in the wilderness making art and bearing witness to his awe-inspiring subjects. With a highly anticipated gallery show looming, he also ponders if he will truly be able to finish the project.

2025 / United States / 26:20 Minutes

DIRECTOR: Jordan Hoffmaster
PRODUCERS: Richard Forbes, Jordan Hoffmaster
ASSISTANT PRODUCERS: Kay Ownbey, Noah Jackson
CINEMATOGRAPHERS: Richard Forbes, Jordan Hoffmaster, Noah Jackson, Isaac Rowland, Colin Ruggiero

This short doc was made by Southern Ute high school kids as they were taught professional filmmaking techniques, and then talked to a wide variety of members of their community as they learn more about their original Ute language that is disappearing more and more every day.

2025 / United States / 7:44 Minutes

DIRECTORS: Bruce Borowsky, Joey Lopez
WRITER: Mike Scalisi
PRODUCER: Bruce Borowsky
EDITOR: Mike Scalisi

At his wedding reception, the anxious groom can no longer ignore the growing lump in his throat. Buckling under family pressure and the high expectations of his bride, he must dig deep and find the courage to give the speech of his life.

2025 / United Kingdom / 9:45 Minutes

DIRECTOR: Nathan Leigh Horocks
WRITER: Nathan Leigh Horocks
PRODUCERS: Josh Barnes, Clare Lawrence

In this heartwarming short documentary, The Baker’s Hotline, a dedicated team of passionate bakers work the King Arthur Flour call center, offering expert advice and answering perplexing baking questions from an eclectic array of callers, revealing the transformative power of baking and the unexpected long lasting connections it fosters.

2025 / United States / 12 Minutes

DIRECTORS: Emily Schuman, Dave Schuman
PRODUCER: Emily Schuman
STORY PRODUCER: Cecila Aniskovich
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Joe Plummer

A darkly comedic thriller following a master mixologist and popular YouTube personality whose polished public persona hides a dangerous secret. Starring Leandro DiMonriva, creator and host of one of the world’s largest bartending YouTube channels (The Educated Bartender), alongside Nicole Kang (You, Batwoman, Orange Is the New Black), Christopher Cass (As the World Turns, ER), and Carlos Moreno Jr. (Coco, Transformers, 9-1-1).

2025 / United States / 9 Minutes

DIRECTORS: Jerry Michael Shandy, Benjamin Scantlin
WRITER: Jerry Michael Shandy
PRODUCERS: Jerry Michael Shandy, Benjamin Scantlin, Leandro DiMonriva, Marius Haugan

My 100-year-old Hungarian grandfather, a Holocaust survivor, never wants to do anything except jigsaw puzzles.

Seeking to bridge the silence that has defined our relationship, I journey to Hungary to photograph locations from his past and transform them into puzzles we can solve together.

When I arrive at my grandfather’s childhood home—a castle now repurposed as a boarding school—I’m unprepared for how the locals receive me: “Has the baroness come to reclaim the castle?”

What began as a simple quest to connect with my grandfather transforms into a complex exploration of identity, belonging, and the stubborn untidiness of historical memory.

2025 / United States / 25 Minutes

DIRECTOR: Ora DeKornfeld
PRODUCERS: Noemi Szakonyi, Mate Vincze, Zsofia Paczolay

After 5 million years of existence, the Colorado River now fights to survive. This once thriving life source to millions of people and wildlife, is now on the brink of collapse, as human consumption, booming industry, and climate change threaten to dry up its already depleted reservoirs forever. In a moment of reckoning, an unlikely ensemble of people dependent on the River must defend their way of life against modern pressures and unjust laws, all while coming to terms with the choices we’ve made that have led to this disaster and the uncertain future ahead. But this ancient river has always had a life of its own, and there are still some who will stand up and give it a voice. For if the river can regenerate, maybe so can we.

2026 / United States / 1 Hour, 28 Minutes

DIRECTOR: Mara Gasbarro Tasker
PRODUCERS: Michael Steiner, Paula DuPré Pesmen, Camilla Mazzaferro
EDITOR: Monique Zavistovski
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Brandon Somerhalder

THE WORMS is a siren-song warning viewers against the consumption of horrific space worms from the internet, while simultaneously luring them into their splashy and saturate fever-dream advertisement.

2026 / United States / 5:58 Minutes

DIRECTOR: William Cowser
WRITER: Rio LeFevre
PUPPETS: Kailey Nourian
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Ryan Ross
EDITOR: Parker Rawlins

An American folk song featuring a bird, a cat, a dog, a duck, a cow… and a giraffe?

2026 / United States / 2:58 Minutes

DIRECTOR: Zach McCune