Films

On the morning of Eid, the detention of two longtime residents sparks an unexpected response from a Glasgow neighborhood, setting the stage for a historic day of resistance. 
-MICHELLE SVENSON

An unlikely setting for a groundswell of talent and creativity, Cameroon’s overcrowded New Bell Prison reveals incarcerated artists whose extraordinary music, dance, and performance may just offer a chance at redemption.

Deep in the breathtaking rainforests of Indonesia, an existential battle rages: vegetable oil production versus the planet’s future. This visually stunning, emotionally unsettling documentary captures the passion and purpose of native people battling multinational corporations to save their home.

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.

“Big business, it don't like you, it don't like the things you do. You got no money, so you got no power.”   In this selection of short-form films, protagonists assert their power and try to rewrite the narrative against powerful forces they face.  In Maia Wikler’s documentary WILD EAST (Canada/US 2026, 36 min), environmental activist Gabi Paun risks his life to expose illegal logging in Romania’s ancient forests, taking on timber mafias and IKEA while revealing the hidden cost of the world’s appetite for cheap furniture. In the fictional FLESH IMPACT (US 2026, 17 min), director Maggie Gyllenhaal assembles a notable cast (Ellen Burstyn, Dakota Johnson, Peter Sarsgaard) to tell a revisionist history of Marilyn Monroe, who faces down studio pressure to assert her voice and influence, in a speculation on a career that might have been.  Then in FREE JOAN LITTLE (US 2025, 38 min), award-winning filmmaker Yoruba Richen excavates a groundbreaking true-life 1975 case that galvanized Black Power activists, feminists, and prison reformers around one young Black woman’s historic fight for justice and the right to defend herself against sexual violence.  Be sure not to miss this memorable, eclectic trio of legends and their stories. —Michelle Svenson

MVFF tributee Sam Rockwell won an Oscar® for his role as a hotheaded, dimwitted cop battling Frances McDormand’s raging, inconsolable mother in Martin McDonagh’s black comic, renegade masterpiece.

Former lawyer and veteran documentarian Dawn Porter revisits the case of the Harlem Park Three, whose wrongful convictions as teenagers led to 36 years behind bars and exposed profound failures within the American justice system.

Award-winning filmmaker Yoruba Richen excavates a groundbreaking true-life 1975 case that galvanized Black Power activists, feminists, and prison reformers around one young Black woman’s historic fight for justice and the right to defend herself against sexual violence.