In partnership Nitehawk Cinema, The Gotham is proud to present its second annual Shorts-to-Features Showcase. Eighteen short films will be shown in their entirety for Film Lovers, Filmmakers and Industry. The slate includes work from actress Margaret Cho producing Seoul Switch, Emily McCann Lesser (How to Shoot a Ghost) presenting If I Die in America, Tory Lenosky (Resurrection) presenting In The Flesh (Project Market Title:V is for Victoria), and the 2024 Sundance winner The Masterpiece (Project Market Title: The Third Kind) by director Àlex Lora.
Each of the blocks will be followed by a brief Q&A with the filmmakers
Seoul Switch, Comedy – 13 mins
When an insecure Korean American boy meets an overconfident K-pop idol who looks just like him, they decide to switch identities.
Bittersweet (Project Market Title:Bayou Dreams), Young Adult – 6 mins
BITTERSWEET is an immersive, non-linear look at a timeless love that is cut short by maternal mortality.
Fortune, Southern Gothic – 27 mins
In this Southern Gothic tale of greed, a blue-collar timber yard foreman miraculously wins a massive lottery jackpot.
If I Die In America, Drama – 15 mins
A young man fights for a chance to grieve his husband after his Muslim in-laws demand the body be sent back to the Middle East mere hours after the untimely death.
Ricky Killed A Guy, Drama -12 mins
After serving 20 years for an accidental murder, Ricky is released to live at his cousin Milo’s trailer.
Masterpiece (Project Market Title:The Third Kind), Sci-Fi – 20 mins
In a mist-shrouded mansion, a disabled caretaker bonds with a nonverbal child, only to realize he may be a new kind of human.
NYC premiere
Hyper: The Stevie Hyper D Story is the definitive tale of the UK’s original junglist soldier. A massive stage presence and a musical pioneer, Stevie Hyper D supercharged UK rave culture into one of the most significant global musical movements of the last 30 years. Stevie’s nephew Darrell Austin goes on a highly personal and emotionally-charged journey to uncover the legacy of the one and only bad boy MC Stevie Hyper D.
Starring: Daniel Day-Lewis, Gordon Warnecke, Saeed Jaffrey, Roshan Seth, Shirley Anne Field
Join us for our fifth annual Film Feast and enjoy the 40th anniversary of a queer classic paired with a thematically curated multi-course meal!
Set in the Pakistani community of London, MY BEAUTIFUL LAUNDRETTE follows the fortunes of handsome young Omar (Gordon Warnecke), who takes over a run-down laundrette given to him by his rich uncle. Together with his street-punk friend Johnny (Daniel Day-Lewis), they transform it into a popular, neon-lit palace as their emotions bubble alongside the spin cycles.
Against a backdrop of social and racial tension in Thatcher-era London, Omar and Johnny’s budding relationship blossoms into love with tenderness and passion.
Featuring an Academy Award–nominated screenplay by Hanif Kureishi and deft direction by Stephen Frears, MY BEAUTIFUL LAUNDRETTE remains both timeless and groundbreaking.
We will do our best to accommodate dietary restrictions. You will be prompted to share any restrictions or allergies at checkout. Please contact boxoffice@newfest.org with any questions.
Starring: Catherine Cohen, Aristotle Athari, Chloe Cherry, Ruby McCollister, Jon Rudnitsky, Ikechukwu Ufomadu
Valerie and Doug (Cat Cohen & Aristotle Athari) are a long-time couple in their 30s who live in a teeny tiny New York City apartment, where they are frequently annoyed by their loud downstairs neighbors, a younger couple (Chloe Cherry & Jon Rudnitsky) who fight all the time and, oh yeah, sing karaoke constantly…
Valerie and Doug hate them, but at the same time are totally obsessed with understanding the couple’s volatile dynamic. After months of being tortured, they give up their apartment and move to the suburbs, looking forward to resuming their lives and focusing on careers and friendships. But first, a little revenge.
One of the neighbors, Mary, is an actress, so with the help of a theater-minded friend named Wendy (played by Ruby McCollister), Val and Doug decide to put on a fake play to humiliate her. However, the two soon get sucked into the process of producing theater and start to believe that becoming artists is their true calling.
The French Italian is a talky, New York comedy: light, colorful, and fast-moving. The cast is stacked with favorites from the NYC comedy scene, including Cat Cohen, Aristotle Athari, Chloe Cherry, Ruby McCollister, Jon Rudnitsky, Larry Owens and more.
Starring: Carole Lombard, Randolph Scott, Vivienne Osborne, H.B. Warner
Our spooky season selection features screwball queen Carole Lombard in an uncharacteristically tenebrous role as a grieving heiress who becomes possessed by the vengeful spirit of an executed murderess!
When death row killer Ruth Rogen (Vivienne Osborne) agrees to donate her body to a scientist interested in the afterlife, her svengali ex-lover sets his sights on the wealthy Roma Courtney (Lombard), inadvertently turning her into the perfect vehicle for Ruth’s restless soul. From the highwire director of White Zombie, this underseen pre-code horror ranks among the era’s most bizarre one-hour fright shows!
Starring: Björk, Bryndis Petra Bragadóttir, Valdimar Örn Flygenring, Guðrún Gísladóttir, Geirlaug Sunna Þormar
Join the Future of Film is Female for a celebration of witchcraft with the 4k restoration of THE JUNIPER TREE. To make an additional $10 donation to The Future of Film is Female, select the “Event + Donation” ticket on the checkout screen.
“Set in medieval Iceland, director Nietzchka Keene’s film has, until now, been known mostly as a celebrity curio; it’s Icelandic superstar Björk’s first on-screen performance, shot in 1986 when she was a fresh-faced twenty-one-year-old, mere months before she and a group of friends started The Sugarcubes. As Margit, Björk plays a young girl whose mother has been executed for witchcraft and now must forge a new life with her older sister, Katia (Bryndis Petra Bragadottir). Katia quickly takes control of the pair’s destiny, casting a spell to find herself a husband, Johan (Valdimar Örn Flygenring). But Johan’s son, Jonas (Geirlaug Sunna Þormar), is suspicious of Katia’s intents and fights her presence viciously while simultaneously finding himself drawn to Margit.
“Björk’s Margit is, fittingly, a visionary; her performance demonstrates the early stages of Björk’s now-familiar yet still-otherworldly charm. She gazes deeply into the fire to see what an increasingly desperate Katia cannot: the guiding spirit of their mother. Maternal relationships are the phantom backbone of the film. Jonas is young and still acutely grieving the death of his own mother; he warns Katia, ‘My mother will make you go,’ a premonition Katia takes to heart. But these are two divergent kinds of grief; while Jonas has his mother’s grave to tend to, Margit and Katia have no idea where their mother is buried. Absent such a material marker, Margit begins to see visions of her mother near their new home, following her. The spirit cannot speak, but Margit can hear her messages loud and clear.” —Dana Reinoos, BOMB Magazine
Starring: Kinga Preis, Marta Mazurek, Michalina Olszanska
The Future of Film is Female and Bloodletter Magazine present a 10th anniversary screening of THE LURE and short film THE SLEEPING BEAUTY. Followed by a Q&A with THE LURE director Agnieszka Smoczynska. To make an additional $10 donation to The Future of Film is Female, select the “Event + Donation” ticket on the checkout screen. To read the newly released Issue Five: Rage of Bloodletter Magazine, visit bloodlettermag.com
In this bold, genre-defying horror-musical mashup — the playful and confident debut of Polish director Agnieszka Smoczynska — a pair of carnivorous mermaid sisters are drawn ashore in an alternate ’80s Poland to explore the wonders and temptations of life on land. Their tantalizing siren songs and otherworldly aura make them overnight sensations as nightclub singers in the half-glam, half-decrepit fantasy world of Smoczynska’s imagining. In a visceral twist on Hans Christian Andersen’s original Little Mermaid tale, one sister falls for a human, and as the bonds of sisterhood are tested, the lines between love and survival get blurred. A savage coming-of-age fairytale with a catchy new-wave soundtrack, lavishly grimy sets, and outrageous musical numbers, THE LURE explores its themes of sexuality, exploitation, and the compromises of adulthood with energy and originality.
THE SLEEPING BEAUTY
Mattie Do / 2025 / 20 min / English, Lao, French with English subtitles
The wife of a colonial governor confronts devastation after her aristocratic son removes a slumbering woman from an ancient temple in the jungles of Laos – only to bring home a curse that refuses to die.
Starring: Juliette Binoche, Denis Lavant
4K restoration
Leos Carax’s delirious saga of l’amour fou burns with an intoxicating stylistic freedom as it traces the highs and lows of the passionate relationship that develops between a homeless artist (Juliette Binoche) who is losing her sight and a troubled, alcoholic street performer (Denis Lavant) living on Paris’s famed Pont-Neuf bridge. Capturing their romantic abandon with a giddy expressionist energy—especially in a wild dance sequence set against an explosion of fireworks— this whirlwind love story is an exhilarating journey through a relationship that confirmed Carax’s status as one of the leading lights of the post–New Wave French cinema.
