Films

Biotech breakthroughs edge ever closer to making extended human lifespans a reality. This enlightening documentary surveys this thriving landscape while examining the quality of a long life through the poignant stories of a tight-knit group of Maine residents.

Filmed over 25 years, this prize-winning documentary casts a tender and fearless eye over the lives of two inseparable cousins, Guillermina and Belinda, as they grow up in the rural Argentine Pampas.

When eight-year-old Josephine witnesses an attack in Golden Gate Park, it shatters her sense of safety. Driven by terrific performances, what ensues is riveting storytelling as she and her parents navigate the unfathomable.

Fifteen years after her landmark documentary Miss Representation, Jennifer Siebel Newsom returns to confront the ways social media, AI, and online misogyny are weaponized against girls, threatening the future of the next generation of female leaders.

In this ‘spoke-binding’ documentary, Daniel Clarke explores the rise of the popular bicycle brand and the iconic American brand’s subsequent, baffling collapse.

A mother’s grief becomes a fight for justice when Lorena Gutiérrez takes her daughter’s story to Mexico’s highest halls of power, refusing to let Fátima’s memory disappear.

MVFF partners with CalArts, UC Santa Cruz, UCLA, California College of the Arts, and CSU Long Beach for a stellar showcase of animated work directed by female and nonbinary filmmakers. This selection features films reflecting family, friendship, life, death, and cultural identity.

MVFF partners with CalArts, UC Santa Cruz, UCLA and CSU Long Beach for a second showcase of animated work directed by female and nonbinary filmmakers. Films include kid-friendly topics like animals, family, friendship, big dreams, and outer space. Appropriate for grades 1-5 (ages 6-10)

"If music could talk, which means whatever your mind can bring.” This collection of documentary short films invite a sense of curiosity and quest, seeking to grasp human thought, motive, and expression. In Nita Blum and Jonathan Pickett’s A NEW INFERNO (US 2026, 16 min), paramedics race to save the lives of heatstroke victims using a radical new treatment. With an experimental sensibility, Karla Condado’s MIRIAM (Mexico 2025, 19 min) copes with grief as the filmmaker reads personal letters to her aunt who was a victim of femicide. Along the picturesque coastline of Brittany, France, bright orange novelty Garfield phones wash ashore in Zack Grant’s eccentric SILLY LITTLE PLASTIC CAT (France/US 2026 12 min). In SWING SWISH SWAY (US 2026, 7 min), TT Takemoto's colorful and tangible reconstruction of history is inspired by Filipina-American Rose Bamberger, founder of Daughters of Bilitis, San Francisco’s own first lesbian activist group. Free-spirited and expressive, Charlie Eguia’s HAPPINESS FOR A HERDER (US/Mongolia 2026, 16 min) follows a group of nomadic herder families in Mongolia. —Diana Sánchez Maciel

“But go easy Step lightly Stay free.” As we grow older, we tend to abandon all inherent free spirit and audacity. This collection of short documentary films brings those feelings flooding back, allowing us to live vicariously through these bold, intrepid, and resilient characters. In THE RIGHT FIT (US 2025, 12 min), Max Mollring and Nicolas Collins introduce the owner of a one-of-a-kind small business in San Rafael. Intimate and observational, Hao Zhou's AT THE STAGE WHEN (China 2026, 15 min) follows a young urban couple experiencing societal pressure around parenthood. Composed of black-and-white 35mm photographs, A TOWN CALLED NEEDVILLE (US/Canada 2026, 5 min) traces filmmaker Audrey Lane's inpatient stay at an all-women’s mental health facility in Texas. A collaboration between Ukrainian painter Alla Hurenko and directors Natalie Shirinian and Elizabeth Baudouin, ROOM OF THE ABSOLUTE (US, Ukraine 2026, 18 min) is a time capsule and portrait of resilience in the face of relentless destruction in Ukraine. It is 1980 in Yuba City, California, in Reaa Puri’s HARVEST PARTY AT CAMP TWO (US 2026, 16 min), and a group of Young Punjabi Sikh farmworkers throw the biggest party their small town has ever seen. —Diana Sánchez Maciel

The promising life of an Olympic-bound gymnast is cut short, but her presence lives on through an enduring mother-daughter bond reaching beyond the physical world—exploring the mysteries of cellular memory, spirit, and our connections across life and death.

Bay Area poet, educator, and community activist Amber Allen-Peirson turns the camera on her own life in this deeply moving quest for belonging that blends personal archival footage and vérité moments with a bold poetic narration.

When eight-year-old Josephine witnesses an attack in Golden Gate Park, it shatters her sense of safety. Driven by terrific performances, what ensues is riveting storytelling as she and her parents navigate the unfathomable.

It is 1980 in Yuba City, California in Reaa Puri’s Harvest Party At Camp Two, and a group of Young Punjabi Sikh farmworkers throw the biggest party their small town has ever seen.

Memories of one man’s literal and figurative trip to Chiapas accompanied by his brother and a bag of magic mushrooms soaked in honey.

The lovely journey of a coin rolling and bouncing from one edge of San Francisco to the other.

In The Right Fit, Max Mollring and Nicolas Collins introduce the owner of a one-of-a-kind small business in San Rafael.

A young man challenges himself to swim across a freezing river, only to discover the error of his ways when he gets to the opposite shore.

TT Takemoto's colorful and tangible reconstruction of history is inspired by Filipina-American Rose Bamberger, founder of Daughters of Bilitis, San Francisco’s own first lesbian activist group.