Starring: Ben Whishaw, Rebecca Hall
In 1974, acclaimed photographer Peter Hujar describes the routines and rituals that define an artist’s life to his friend, the writer Linda Rosenkrantz, capturing a single day’s activities in touching and funny detail: from interactions with cultural icons of the day, including Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs and Susan Sontag, to the texture and energy of downtown New York in its heyday. Ben Whishaw and Rebecca Hall star in the elegant and intimate new piece from filmmaker Ira Sachs (Passages) — a dazzling showcase for the two performers at its centre — that is both a masterful portrait of a time & place and a captivating film about the way art emerges from the intimate details of everyday life.
Starring: Prashanth Kamalakanthan, Niko, Tayarisha Poe, Alexios Shaw, Artemis Shaw, Katerina Shaw, Robert Shaw, Mons Vi
Kallia and Ram are at their wits’ end with their sleepless baby when they realize Kallia’s Greek mother is on a secret mission to exorcise the family from the evil eye. Trapped between the pressures of new age parenting, old world superstitions, and meddling in-laws, they fight to hold onto their dreams. Filmmakers Shaw and Kamalakanthan turn the lens on themselves and their loved ones—including their actual baby and parents—in this fearless, intimate comedy.
A Cinema Conservancy Release
Join The FOFIF for Standing Above the Clouds, the debut feature documentary by one FOFIF filmmaker, Jalena Keane-Lee, who will be there for a Q&A! 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.
Standing Above the Clouds highlights the movement to protect Mauna Kea through the intergenerational stories of women in three Native Hawaiian families as they stand for the sacred mountain. The film follows teacher and community organizer Pua Case and her two daughters — artist-activists Hāwane Rios and Kapulei Flores — who have been called to stop the telescope since 2010. Their lives quickly become consumed with frontline actions and court proceedings and immersed in ceremonies and cultural practices. As they face opposition and arrests, they are joined by a community who have dedicated their lives to protecting Mauna Kea.
Starring: J.J. Rodgers, Lori Morrissey, Micky Levy, Lynne Baker, Ali Elk
“A live-action cartoon funhouse spiraling out of control.”
A group of college students chasing a sorority initiation stumble into a hallucinatory mix of low-budget, butt-biting vampires, unexplained time jumps, and increasingly ridiculous supernatural situations. What could have easily been a standard late-’90s sexy campus romp instead mutates into a kinetic, self-aware horror spoof. It stacks crude jokes, whiplash editing, and chaotic genre detours at such a relentless pace that it plays less like a conventional shot-on-video vampire film and more like a live-action cartoon funhouse spiraling out of control.
Les Sekely’s Vampire Time Travelers is also an absurdist precursor to the deliberately chaotic anti-comedy and disruptive editing later perfected by The Eric Andre Show and Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!, and operates on the idea that psychically overloading the viewer is ultimately the joke. Its anything-goes structure, meta humor, and total disregard for narrative stability place it firmly in the lineage of the surreal DIY comedy that would eventually be refined for a generation of Adult Swim viewers, making it one of the most unique SOV horror films ever committed to tape.
Ash Ward’s short My Whore Roommate is a Vampire will screen before the feature
Starring: Burt Ward, Tyrone Wade, Roxanne Coyne, Mark Sawyer
“A perfectly blended, cut-price collision of The Hidden, I Come in Peace and The Terminator.”
A meteor loaded with the stolen souls of a savage alien race crashes to Earth, triggering a battle against human extinction. From the distant world of Praximus 13, an elite warrior named Trace is sent to destroy the meteor before his ruthless rival Gorak can unleash its evil power on humanity. Hunted by the FBI and locked in combat with his vicious alien nemesis, Trace teams up with a fearless earth woman in a no-holds-barred battle of technology and martial arts mayhem.
Directed by veteran SOV genre master Ron Ford (V-World Matrix, Tiki, Deadly Scavengers), Alien Force is a perfectly blended, cut-price collision of The Hidden, I Come in Peace and The Terminator, and explodes with wall-to-wall sci-fi action—nonstop karate brawls, scrappy early CGI eye candy, and unforgettable dialogue delivered with absolute conviction. Punching far above its tiny budget, the film spills over with raw energy, ambition, and genuine heart, proving that attitude and momentum always matter more than money in the shot-on-video realm.
Starring: Scott Davis, Blue Thompson, Barbara Dow, Brad McCormick
“A cross between Deliverance and Dawn of the Dead.”
When a toxic chemical spill tears open the ozone above rural Texas, backwoods locals mutate into drooling, slime-choked ghouls with an insatiable appetite for flesh. Environmental science student Arlene and hitchhiker Kevin stumble into the madness as small-town life collapses into a grotesque carnival of green vomit, yellow pus, and blood-soaked carnage.
Director Matt Devlen’s infamous Super-8 splatter oddity—sister film to Bret McCormick’s The Abomination (1988)—remains a true DIY regional relic, long overshadowed by its limited VHS release in the late ’80s via Muther Video. Overflowing with dubbed dialogue, surreal padding, Americana weirdness and gallons of inventive practical gore, the results are both unforgettable and stomach-churning.
Starring: Marwen Soltana, Youssef Soltana, Deena Abdelwahed, Lassaad Jamoussi, Aymen Omrani, Montassar Ayari, Ghalia Benali, Baya Medhaffar
To make an additional $10 donation to Mawjoudin, a Tunisian NGO fighting for justice, equality and respect for bodily and sexual rights, select the “Event + Donation” ticket on the checkout screen.
As I Open My Eyes depicts the clash between culture and family as seen through the eyes of a young Tunisian woman balancing the traditional expectations of her family with her creative life as the singer in a politically charged rock band. Director Leyla Bouzid’s musical feature debut offers a nuanced portrait of the individual implications of the incipient Arab Spring.
For over 100 years, Hank’s Saloon existed, under various names and owners, as a beloved local Brooklyn dive bar.
In 2018, after nearly a decade of speculation and financial uncertainty, the rickety little building on the corner of Third Avenue and Atlantic announced that they would finally be closing their doors for good.
This feature documentary follows Hank’s—along with its colorful staff and rotating cast of oddball patrons—through its stressful and celebratory final months. It also takes a deep-dive into the fascinating history of the building, from its roots as a working-class Irish bar, through its various roles as Prohibition-era speakeasy, Indigenous ironworker hangout, and safe haven in an era of danger and decay, up to its final state as a quintessential “old man bar” turned legendary indie music venue, all pitted against the backdrop of a rapidly changing New York.
