Starring: Nicolas Cage, John Cusack, John Malkovich, Steve Buscemi, Ving Rhames, Mykelti Williamson, Danny Trejo, Dave Chappelle, Monica Potter

Just-paroled army ranger Cameron Poe (Nicolas Cage) is headed back to his wife (Monica Potter), but must fly home aboard a prison transport flight dubbed “Jailbird” with some of the worst criminals living. Along with Diamond Dog (Ving Rhames) and Baby-O (Mykelti Williamson), genius serial killer Cyrus “The Virus” Grissom (John Malkovich) unleashes a violent escape plot in mid-flight. Secretly working with U.S. Marshall Vince Larkin (John Cusack), Poe tries to foil Grissom’s plan.

Starring: Jodie Foster, Forest Whitaker, Dwight Yoakam, Jared Leto, Kristen Stewart, Ann Magnuson

Trapped in their New York brownstone’s panic room, a hidden chamber built as a sanctuary in the event of break-ins, newly divorced Meg Altman (Jodie Foster) and her young daughter Sarah (Kristen Stewart) play a deadly game of cat-and-mouse with three intruders – Burnham (Forest Whitaker), Raoul (Dwight Yoakam) and Junior (Jared Leto) – during a brutal home invasion. But the room itself is the focal point because what the intruders really want is inside it.

Starring: Jackie Chan, Brigitte Lin, Maggie Cheung, Bill Tung

A kung-fu policeman (Jackie Chan) must protect a female witness (Brigitte Lin) from a Hong Kong drug lord for whom she used to work.

NoBudge is happy to present new work from a group of emerging indie filmmakers mostly based in New York. These eleven short films reflect a wide-ranging sampling of some of our preferred genres: character studies, animated films, realistic portraits, and absurd comedies. Seven of the films are NYC or Brooklyn premieres, and all directors will be in attendance for a post-film Q&A and Afterparty.

NoBudge is an online platform spotlighting the best in low-budget indie filmmaking. “One of the best places to sample what’s happening in low-budget cinema worldwide,” says Glenn Kenny of The New York Times. Its mission is to provide a supportive home for emerging indie filmmakers working with limited resources and without major industry connections, and to be a trusted discovery platform.

The movies:

The Pressure of Sweetness
New York Premiere
Director Jinho Myung present.
Unsure of the status and feelings of their complicated relationship, two undergraduates discuss their moments of intimacy.
(10 min)

In Our Secret Penthouse
New York Premiere
Director Max Tullio present.
After spending the day playing video games and hanging out, unexpected tension bubbles up between Derek and Blake as they go through a stolen issue of Penthouse magazine.
(5 min)

4622 Stillwater Circle
New York Premiere
Director Kati Rehbeck present.
Sadie spends a summer afternoon around her hometown in Wisconsin, while an old flame tries to find a new spot in her life.
(11 min)

Small Hours
New York Premiere
Director Charlie Weber present.
Inspired by the photo book format, this short documentary focuses on summer seasonal workers on a small island.
(7 min)

Ciervo
Director Pilar Garcia-Fernandezsesma present.
A young girl struggles to understand her uneasy balance between independence and submission.
(10 min)

Our Mine
Director Shayna Strype present.
A handful of greedy businessmen exploit a mountain’s riches in this ecofeminist tragicomedy.
(10 min)

Mary Mary Quite Contrary
New York Premiere
Director Rachel Moton present.
When aliens land in America looking for a female virgin to abduct, a sexually repressed young woman desperately attempts to lose her virginity.
(7 min)

Scary Car
Filmmakers Simple Town present.
Four friends do a ceremony in a car. It goes badly.
(14 min)

Good Samaritans
Directors Jeremy Levick and Johnny Frohman present.
A friendly neighbor returns a package to its proper owner.
(5 min)

Play This at My Funeral
New York Premiere
Director Ray Smiling present.
Three NYC vignettes revolving around music. Or, the songs you’d play at your funeral and only a few people would know why.
(8 min)

Squeegee
New York Premiere
Director Morgan Krantz present.
High-powered executive meets high-rise window-washer for an erotic rendezvous on opposite sides of her skyscraper window.
(11 min)

Starring: James Spader, Angela Bassett, Robert Forster, Lou Diamond Phillips

Sponsored by MUBI; co-hosted by filmmaker and writer Steve Macfarlane

Supernova has found meme-era infamy thanks to its vintage theatrical trailer, which laid a classic Don “In A World” LaFontaine voiceover over “Fly” by Sugar Ray. The movie itself was unceremoniously dumped into theaters, credited to somebody named “Thomas Lee” – in reality, an amalgamation of directors who had suffered Supernova’s turbulent production saga. A now-legendary series of re-shoots and re-edits began with the firing of Australian filmmaker Geoffrey Wright (pre-production), the quitting of his replacement Walter Hill (who shot and edited a near-complete cut), who was then followed by horror director Jack Sholder, who was later fired. In the end, MGM called in board member Francis Ford Coppola to salvage the wreckage in post-production… yet somehow, Thomas Lee’s feature debut is even weirder than the trailer suggests.

While the original concept was a creepy, cerebral thriller in the tradition of Alien, only the gift/curse of hindsight makes it possible to see Supernova for what it really is: an Event Horizon ripoff that doubles as a sex comedy/erotic thriller in deep space, an insane distress signal blasted out by the pre-collapse studio system. Like Don said: “If you can’t stand the heat… Get out of the universe.”

Keep track of the erotic thriller tropes with your Nitehawk Diaries Bingo card!

Nitehawk audience gets a special offer of a custom trial with MUBI. Learn more at mubi.com/nitehawk.

Starring: Kel Mitchell, Kenan Thompson, Sinbad, Abe Vigoda, Shar Jackson

Teen misfits (Kel Mitchell, Kenan Thompson) at a modest burger joint face competition from a hamburger emporium across the street.

Starring: A. Michael Baldwin, Bill Thornbury, Reggie Bannister, Angus Scrimm

The residents of a small town have begun dying under strange circumstances, leading young Mike (Michael Baldwin) to investigate. After discovering that the Tall Man (Angus Scrimm), the town’s mortician, is killing and reanimating the dead as misshapen zombies, Mike seeks help from his older brother, Jody (Bill Thornbury), and local ice cream man Reggie (Reggie Bannister). Working together, they try to lure out and kill the Tall Man, all the while avoiding his minions and a deadly silver sphere.

Starring: Rosie Perez, Javier Bardem, Harley Cross, Aimee Graham, James Gandolfini, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins

An amoral couple (Rosie Perez, Javier Bardem) practice voodoo and commit a series of violent, bloody crimes on their way to Las Vegas.

Starring: Sharon Mitchell, Tigr

Alternately distressing, instructive, contestable and fascinating, Juliet Bashore’s quasi-documentary plunge into the 1980s porn industry takes an unsparing look at issues of misogyny, drug abuse, and exploitation via the story of two women–the naïve newcomer Tigr and her partner, the magnetic, imperious porn veteran Sharon Mitchell–caught in a toxic romance.

By turns mesmerizing and unsettling, Kamikaze Hearts is both a fascinating record of pre-gentrification San Francisco’s X-rated underground and an intense, searing love story. The film offers a disturbing glimpse of the modification of bodies, feelings, and lives.

Starring: Florence Pugh, Harry Styles, Chris Pine, Olivia Wilde, Gemma Chan, KiKi Layne

Alice (Florence Pugh) and Jack (Harry Styles) are lucky to be living in Victory, the experimental company town housing the men who work for the top-secret Victory Project and their families. Life is perfect, with every resident’s needs met by the company. All they ask in return is unquestioning commitment to the Victory cause. But when cracks in their idyllic life begin to appear, exposing flashes of something much more sinister lurking beneath the attractive façade, Alice can’t help questioning what they’re doing in Victory, and why. Just how much is Alice willing to lose to expose what’s really going on in paradise?