Category: 2026 Official Selections

2026 Official Selection: Short Film – Drama

During the Black Panther movement, a pregnant Afeni Shakur battles 189 felony charges, forced to defend herself in a trial that could cost her freedom and her unborn child’s future

Screening date & tickets — to be announced

• Director(s): Dominique R. Draper
• Writer(s): Dominique R. Draper
• Producer(s): Dominique R. Draper, Qingyi Song, Brana Monet, David Ahaiwe Dixon
• Key Cast: Journey Carter, Mitchell Edwards
• Editor(s): UTKARSH KUMAR
• Cinematographer(s): Brana Monet & Sika Stanton
• Production Designer(s): CAMILA RODRÍGUEZ
• Sound Designer(s): JIAQI "ARABELLA" BAI
• Composer(s): Tristan Jones

Language: English

Runtime: 15m

Country: United States

Synopsis: From her jail cell, eight months pregnant, Afeni Shakur writes a letter to her unborn son, Tupac, reflecting on her transformation from Alice Faye Williams into a Black Panther leader. As government surveillance and betrayal threaten the movement, Afeni and twenty fellow Panthers face 189 felony charges in the historic Panther 21 trial. With her freedom and unborn child’s future at stake, Afeni chooses to defend herself in court against a system determined to silence her.

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2026 Official Selection: Short Film – Drama

A raw exploration of neurodiversity, family dysfunction, and the Hollywood gaze on disability.

Program 04 – Impactful Spotlight · Fri, Dec 4, 2026 · 9:20 PM

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• Director(s): Peter Kangas
• Writer(s): Peter Kangas, Josiah Polhemus
• Producer(s): Peter Kangas, Josiah Polhemus, Taylor Rust, Elissa Down
• Key Cast: Brendan Looney, Leo Burnett, Josiah Polhemus
• Editor(s): Matthew R. Smith
• Cinematographer(s): Frank Paul Perez
• Sound Designer(s): Owen Peterson
• Composer(s): Katherine Beggs

Language: English

Runtime: 15m

Country: United States

Los Angeles Premiere

Synopsis: Paul, a young autistic man, struggles to process his father’s terminal cancer diagnosis while haunted by Ever Green—a character from a Hollywood autism film he despises. Through therapy sessions and painful memories, Paul confronts his grief, his strained relationship with his father, and society’s stereotypical portrayals of autism. A raw exploration of neurodiversity, family dysfunction, and the Hollywood gaze on disability.

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2026 Official Selection: Featurette – Documentary

An LAPD officer fired toward partygoers at a South Central block party. Then detectives used a shadow warrant to investigate a shooting victim.

Program 21 – Cutting Edge Spotlight · Sun, Dec 6, 2026 · 5:15 PM

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• Director(s): Jayrol San Jose, Ben Camacho
• Producer(s): Ben Camacho, Jayrol San Jose
• Editor(s): Jayrol San Jose
• Cinematographer(s): Jayrol San Jose

Language: English

Runtime: 21m

Country: United States

Synopsis: On June 3, 2020, LAPD Officer Nathaniel Beck, assigned to the Community Safety Partnership, fired five shots toward partygoers at a South Central block party. One bullet hit a man in the face. LAPD never disclosed Beck’s CSP assignment. Detectives then used a search warrant to investigate a shooting victim and never returned it to the court, leaving no public record. The Blue Hand, by Ben Camacho and Jayrol San Jose, follows what happened after the gunfire stopped.

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2026 Official Selection: Short Film – Drama

As the dream of emigration slowly unsettles the foundation of a young couple’s life, their little daughter sets out to mend things in her own way.

Program 12 – Pivotal Spotlight · Sat, Dec 5, 2026 · 8:00 PM

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• Director(s): Niloufar Mehrshad Abdollahi
• Writer(s): Niloufar Mehrshad Abdollahi
• Producer(s): Niloufar Abdollahi
• Key Cast: Navid Salahi, Samaneh Shoaei, Ava Bakhshi
• Editor(s): Mahmoudreza Enshaei
• Cinematographer(s): Ali Saman
• Production Designer(s): Mehdi Arafati
• Sound Designer(s): Mehdi Arafati
• Composer(s): N/A

Language: Persian

Runtime: 12m

Country: Iran

Los Angeles Premiere

Synopsis: A young couple is on the brink of emigration, hoping to build a better future for their little daughter. But when an unexpected delay disrupts the process, and Nazy — now pregnant — can no longer travel, tensions rise. Reza, unwilling to let go of their dream, proposes a devastating solution. Caught in a painful dilemma, Nazi is unaware that their daughter, Ava, has quietly made her own decision to resolve the crisis.

2026 Official Selection: Short Film – Animation

Program 17 – Dynamic Spotlight · Sun, Dec 6, 2026 · 2:00 PM

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• Director(s): Miguel León
• Writer(s): Miguel León
• Producer(s): Claudia Osejo
• Editor(s): Manuela Osejo
• Cinematographer(s): Alexander Lossa
• Sound Designer(s): Tariq Burney, Claudia Jiménez
• Composer(s): Juan Rojas Perez

Language: Spanish

Runtime: 15m

Country: Colombia

Los Angeles Premiere

Synopsis: Gilberto, an older Baker man by tradition, has to close his bakery due to a worldwide quarantine. He lives with his granddaughter Matea, an uninterested girl who is immersed in her cell phone. During the quarantine they remain locked up, living a distant relationship and waiting for everything to return to normal. One day a new bakery arrives in the neighborhood, equipped with high technology and with robots capable of baking bread without human interference. Gilberto must

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2026 Official Selection: Screenplay – Screenplay – Feature Film

Screenplay Awards Ceremony · Sun, Dec 6, 2026 · 2:00 PM

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Fate is always on call.

• Writer(s): Mark Jonathan Landau, Ali Reza Tafreshi

Country: Not Specified

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The Person You Were Before is a semi-autobiographical medical drama with sci-fi elements that acts partially as an exposé of the daily life of healthcare workers. The broken healthcare system molds the psyche of those who engage in it, both patient and practitioner, until the result is something unrecognizable to themselves. When confronted with an increasingly surreal atmosphere, their thirst for knowledge comes at the price of having to face their own mortality.

2026 Official Selection: Screenplay – Screenplay – Feature Film

Screenplay Awards Ceremony · Sun, Dec 6, 2026 · 2:00 PM

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When broke gig worker Emily wins a residency with tradwife influencer Rosa, she discovers that, behind the apron, her flawless hostess is a vampire seeking a willing successor.

• Writer(s): Michele R. Wells

Language: English

Country: Not Specified

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Drowning in debt and with a looming eviction, gig worker Emily wins a coveted residency with tradwife influencer Rosa. Rosa’s homestead is even more unbelievable than it seems online @TheWhitePicketFence, and Emily happily devotes herself to learning what makes Rosa so successful with her millions of daily viewers. But she soon learns the empire she is inheriting comes with a curse that binds its mistress to the homestead…and a thirst she cannot ignore.

2026 Official Selection: Short Film – Arthouse/Experimental

Who controls who?

Program 16 – Powerful Spotlight · Sun, Dec 6, 2026 · 2:00 PM

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• Director(s): Gustavo Ramos
• Producer(s): Gustavo Ramos
• Key Cast: Gustavo Ramos
• Editor(s): Gustavo Ramos
• Cinematographer(s): Gustavo Ramos
• Sound Designer(s): Gustavo Ramos
• Composer(s): Gustavo Ramos

Runtime: 3m

Country: Brazil

Los Angeles Premiere

Synopsis: The reactive relations of attraction and repulsion of the object and the body are expanded when a subtle edition effect is created, in which the space itself appears to participate in the movement of not only the object, but also the connected body and its reactions. The body is confused with the object and the object is confused with the body. In this environment where all the elements come to life, who controls who?

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2026 Official Selection: Feature Film – Horror

When two self-destructive best friends have to flee town, they find shelter in a roadside antique mall, but the owner isn’t as sweet as she seems.

Program 10 – Oddities · Sat, Dec 5, 2026 · 7:20 PM

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• Director(s): Tyler Savage
• Writer(s): Tyler Savage
• Producer(s): David Broad, Noah Lang, Javier Gonzalez, Max Neace
• Key Cast: Adrienne Barbeau, Xander Berkeley, Lovie Simone, Lilimar
• Editor(s): Stephen Boyer
• Cinematographer(s): Antonio Cisneros
• Production Designer(s): Amber Unkle
• Sound Designer(s): Nick Bohun
• Composer(s): Cody Carpenter

Language: English

Runtime: 1h 31m

Country: United States

Los Angeles Premiere

Synopsis: When two self-destructive best friends accidentally kill their drug dealer, they have to flee town. Stopping at a roadside antique shop, they quickly discover that the older woman running the place isn’t as sweet as she seems. It’s out of the frying pan and into the fire as they fight for survival while the criminals they were running away from descend on the property…

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2026 Official Selection: Short Film – Documentary

A visual and sound collage of 9/11 from the voices of the people who were at Ground Zero that day.

Program 12 – Pivotal Spotlight · Sat, Dec 5, 2026 · 8:00 PM

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• Director(s): Matthew Ferraro
• Writer(s): Matthew Ferraro
• Producer(s): John Osborne, Ramy Katrib
• Editor(s): Nicole Bell
• Cinematographer(s): Animator – Nicole Bell
• Sound Designer(s): Mark Curry, Matthew Ferraro, Stefan Henrix, Michael Engesser
• Composer(s): Matthew Ferraro

Language: English

Runtime: 14m

Country: United States

Synopsis: 13 Seconds is a short documentary film that uses animation, live action, and a vocal mosaic of literally hundreds of recorded testimonials never heard before from people who were in and around Ground Zero that fateful day of 9/11. A brilliant piece of orchestral journalism, it is the collective voice of hundreds of New Yorkers, and follows their harrowing experiences and shows how they survived the trauma of such a tragic event. A visual collage of sound and music.

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