Starring: Fumi Hirano, Toshio Furukawa, Akira Kamiya, Kazuko Sugiyama, Saeko Shimazu, Mayumi Tanaka, Shigeru Chiba
Before storming the globe with sci-fi blockbuster Ghost in the Shell, director Mamoru Oshii started off in the anime industry as chief director of romantic comedy series Urusei Yatsura, an adaptation of writer Rumiko Takahashi’s popular manga about a high school boy and his hot alien girlfriend.
Oshii thrived in the role, but the director longed for greater creative heights than a silly teenage romcom. When the chance finally came to direct the series’ second feature with complete creative control, Oshii ran wild. More Tarkovsky than Takahashi, Beautiful Dreamer marked a massive shift for the series, a loopy, visually formal meditation on time and consciousness that sets the series’ characters adrift in a dream that won’t end.
When it hit theaters in 1984, reception was chilly (fans sent Oshii razor blades in the mail), and Oshii lost his gig at the helm of the series. The movie lingered, though, and as it eventually made its way over to Western markets on home video, Beautiful Dreamer became quite a cult sensation. Today, fans reference the film as the high point for the series, and it frequently draws comparisons to Miyazaki’s Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind as a breakthrough for anime as a legitimate cinematic form.
Starring: Drew Connick
NoBudge Presents Teddy, Out of Tune (59 min), a hybrid documentary/fiction film about a nomadic musician who drives 2,000 miles north to Canada with a piano strapped to the back of his truck on an emotional mission to spread his mother’s ashes. Originally completed in 2020, the film was sidelined by the Covid pandemic before resurfacing in 2026 with a new Blu-ray and a series of special screenings. Director Daniel Freeman and lead actor Drew Connick will be in attendance for a Q&A.
Screening before the feature:
The Last Best Thing (22 min)
Following her friend’s unexpected death, a young woman travels to the mountains to deliver the news to her reclusive brother. Director Blake Hunter in attendance for a Q&A.
Turn on the Bright Lights (17 min)
Seeking refuge from their anxieties and menial problems that haunt them at home, two girls from Miami take a last minute surfing trip to Nicaragua. Juanita Umaña in attendance for a Q&A.
Starring: Shameik Moore, Tony Revolori, Kiersey Clemons, A$AP Rocky, Blake Anderson, Bruce Beatty
High-school senior Malcolm (Shameik Moore) and his friends Jib (Tony Revolori) and Diggy (Kiersey Clemons) bond over ’90s hip-hop culture, their studies and playing music in their own punk band. A chance encounter with a drug dealer named Dom lands Malcolm and company at the dealer’s nightclub birthday party; when the scene turns violent, they flee — with the Ecstasy that Dom secretly hid in Malcolm’s backpack. A wild adventure ensues as the youths try to evade armed thugs who want the stash.
A boxing match in Brooklyn; life in postwar Bosnia and Herzegovina; the daily routine of a Nigerian midwife; an intimate family moment at home: these scenes and others are woven into Cameraperson, a tapestry of footage captured over the twenty-five-year career of documentary cinematographer Kirsten Johnson. Through a series of episodic juxtapositions, Johnson explores the relationships between image makers and their subjects, the tension between the objectivity and intervention of the camera, and the complex interaction of unfiltered reality and crafted narrative. A work that combines documentary, autobiography, and ethical inquiry, Cameraperson is both a moving glimpse into one filmmaker’s personal journey and a thoughtful examination of what it means to train a camera on the world.
Starring: Nicholas Galitzine, Jared Leto, Camila Mendes, Idris Elba, Morena Baccarin, Alison Brie, Kristen Wiig, Charlotte Riley, James Purefoy
After being separated for 15 years, the Sword of Power leads Prince Adam (Nicholas Galitzine) back to Eternia where he discovers his home shattered under the fiendish rule of Skeletor (Jared Leto). To save his family and his world, Adam must join forces with his closest allies, Teela (Camila Mendes) and Duncan/Man-At-Arms (Idris Elba), and embrace his true destiny as He-Man — the most powerful man in the universe.
Starring: Emily Blunt, Josh O’Connor, Eve Hewson, Colman Domingo, Wyatt Russell, Colin Firth
If you found out we weren’t alone, if someone showed you, proved it to you, would that frighten you? This summer, the truth belongs to seven billion people. We are coming close to… Disclosure Day.
Starring: Michael Johnston, Inde Navarrette, Cooper Tomlinson, Megan Lawless, Andy Richter
After breaking the mysterious “One Wish Willow” to win his crush’s heart, a hopeless romantic finds himself getting exactly what he asked for but soon discovers that some desires come at a dark, sinister price.
Starring: Alia Shawkat, Callum Turner, Chloë Sevigny, Tim Heidecker, Jane Levy
The FOFIF presents 2025 Sundance U.S. Grand Jury Prize Winning Atropia for our special Women’s Month screening. To make an additional $10 donation to The Future of Film is Female (a non-profit org), select the “Event + Donation” ticket on the checkout screen
When an aspiring actress in a military role-playing facility falls in love with a soldier cast as an insurgent, their unsimulated emotions threaten to derail the performance.
Welcome to Atropia: an invented city constructed to exercise Western imaginations and soldiers. Mostly home to war games rendered in dazzling 4D (smells included), Atropia is just close enough to Los Angeles to double as a film set — and just far enough away that the performers who live on-site to bring the bustling faux-Iraqi streets to life are not exactly flourishing in their acting careers. This mirage of a place is a bizarre, liminal construction of writer-director Hailey Gates, whose incisive satire and clever wit are on full display. Co-stars Alia Shawkat and Callum Turner are joined by Chloë Sevigny, Tim Heidecker, and more in this completely original, surprisingly romantic, and sharply amusing directorial debut.—Ash Hoyle
Non Films x Nitehawk Cinemas present DarkRoom Screen & Salon
DarkRoom Screening & Salon returns once again to Nitehawk Prospect Park! Join us for a secret monthly mixtape of short films from across the globe, including some NY premieres. Q&As with visiting filmmakers, free zines, and a salon to follow in the Trees Lounge Bar. ONE NIGHT ONLY.
Featuring films by:
Ali Alizadeh
Kate diRienzi
Winston Hacking
Reuben Hamlyn
Emily May Jampel
Matt McKenzie
Wendy Cong Zhao
Produced and curated by Non Films. Artwork by Elizabeth Yoo.
Subscribe to Non Films’ Newsletter for additional info. Non Films is a handmade DIY studio in NYC.
Starring: Gösta Ekman, Emil Jannings, Camilla Horn, Wilhelm Dieterle, Frida Richard, Yvette Guilbert
In celebration of the film’s 100th anniversary, Brooklyn Horror Film Festival and The Flushing Remonstrance present F.W. Murnau’s Faust with live accompaniment.
Murnau’s colossal adaptation of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s tragic play ranks alongside Fritz Lang’s Metropolis as the greatest achievement of the German silent cinema. Gösta Ekman stars as the titular alchemist who, struggling with his faith amid a devastating plague, is offered the power to cure and the gift of youth…in exchange for his soul. As the diabolical Mephisto, Emil Jannings (The Last Laugh) delivers a performance of operatic scale and intensity, by turns charming, comical, and horrific.
“A great fresco painted with lights and shadows… Never before or since was there such an exultant flight of the cinema spirit.” – Herman G. Weinberg, Cinemages
The Flushing Remonstrance, NYC’s premier group devoted to live film accompaniment, bring Faust to life with their all-new live score.
