Independent Showcase

Willem Dafoe made his unforgettable movie debut as the leader of a '50s biker gang lost in a world of black leather, bad girls, and sudden violence in the independent hit that marked the arrival of Kathryn Bigelow, one of modern cinema’s essential directors. Rockabilly icon Robert Gordon co-stars in this evocative drama co-written and co-directed by Bigelow (NEAR DA...Read More

Kelly Reichardt’s darkly funny debut feature, brought the writer/director back to the setting of her adolescence, the suburban landscape of southern Florida, where she grew up with her detective father and narcotics agent mother. Shot on 16mm, the story follows the misadventures of disaffected house-wife "Cozy", played by Lisa Bowman, and the aimless layabout "Lee",...Read More

Christopher Petit's debut feature Radio On is the rare road movie from England. Since its 1979 release, it's become a cult classic. Robert (David Beames), the film's enigmatic protagonist, embarks on a road trip from London to Bristol, to investigate the recent death of his brother. A remarkable collection of art rock, punk and new wave--David Bowie, Devo, Kraftwerk...Read More

Inspector Ike, New York City’s greatest police detective, finds himself in a high-stakes game of cat-and-mouse after the conniving understudy of an avant-garde theater group knocks off the star actor. A “lost TV movie” from the 1970’s, INSPECTOR IKE mixes visual gags, slapstick, gross food, and heartfelt emotion. Think COLUMBO meets THE NAKED GUN, featuring a rogue'...Read More

An old scavenger living on the fringes of a near-future society exploits a ghostly companion’s ability to traverse time, hoping to prevent his mother’s suffering from a terminal illness. Laotian director Mattie Do’s sci-fi thriller premiered at the Venice Film Festival in 2019.

Luciano is a wandering outcast in a remote, late 19th-century Italian village. His life becomes undone by alcohol, forbidden love, and a bitter conflict with the prince of the region over the right of passage through an ancient gateway. When the quarrel escalates, Luciano is exiled to the distant Argentine province of Tierra del Fuego where, with the help of ruthles...Read More

Written, produced, and directed by Emmy Award-winning documentarian, Horace B. Jenkins, and crafted by an entirely African American cast and crew, CANE RIVER is a racially-charged love story in Natchitoches Parish, a “free community of color” in Louisiana. A budding, forbidden romance lays bare the tensions between two black communities, both descended from slaves b...Read More

NIGHT FLIGHT PLUS STREAMING PREMIERE: Rosanna Arquette and David Bowie star in this romantic caper from director Richard Shepard! Lucy (Rosanna Arquette, Pulp Fiction) is an underpaid waitress at "Dali", a terminally hip New York City restaurant, who's seriously in need of cash. Dali's new, mysterious, charming (and very in debt) bartender, Monte (David Bowie, The ...Read More

Elaine, a beautiful young witch, is determined to find a man to love her. In her gothic Victorian apartment she makes spells and potions, and then picks up men and seduces them. However, her spells work too well, leaving her with a string of hapless victims. When she finally meets the man of her dreams, her desperation to be loved will drive her to the brink of insa...Read More

Winner of the Grand Jury Prize and the Screenwriting Award at the 1994 Sundance Film Festival, WHAT HAPPENED WAS... is Tom Noonan's directorial debut; a darkly humorous take on dating dread. Featuring powerhouse performances by Noonan and Karen Sillas as two lonely hearts spending one claustrophobic Friday night together in an imposing apartment, the film exposes wi...Read More

In the award-winning Bagdad Cafe, Jasmin (Marianne Sägebrecht) discovers an oasis of friendship and community in the desert in the form of the titular café and its proprietor Brenda (CCH Pounder). A quirky and touching comedy-drama with tremendously heartfelt performances from Sägebrecht, Pounder, and Jack Palance, Bagdad Cafe remains one of the standout independent...Read More

In her US film debut, Academy Award© winner Tilda Swinton stars as a bi-sexual lawyer on the edge of professional breakthrough, personal breakdown, and sexual awakening. An erotic psychological drama that dives into the whirlpool of gender and sexuality as it plays out in the world of power and the male gaze. Shocking when it was first released in 1995, it is now de...Read More

Birdie is a fragile and introverted teenager with a dark imagination. At an imposing, nearly-empty convent perched on the edge of a frozen lake, Birdie is unceremoniously placed into the care of the nuns where she develops unusual obsessions that will mark her as either a saint or a heretic.

Spirit Lake is unusually deep. No diver has ever managed to find the bottom, though many have tried. When Dr. Amelia Brooks disappears during a deep-water dive, her three daughters travel home to settle her affairs. But when the half sisters jokingly summon a local ghost, their relationship begins to unravel and they find themselves drawn deeper into the mysteries of the lake.

A bare-boned independent drama with brief but meaningful touches of gentle comedy, Actual People is a poignant triumph, a simple but effective voyage into the mind of a young woman trying to find herself in a world that has somehow become hostile to those who refuse to find a place within its preconceived standards. As a debut, and a film in general, Zauhar’s work h...Read More

After suffering a traumatic incident, Molly (Cecilia Milocco) moves into a new apartment to begin her path to recovery, but it’s not long after her arrival that a series of persistent knocks and screams begin to wake her up at night. Molly’s new life begins to unravel as the screams intensify and no one else in the building believes or is willing to help her.

Marnie is 23, and drifts through "Funny Ha Ha," Andrew Bujalski's critically acclaimed debut feature, in search of romance and employment. The film's conversations sound improvised and the narrative rhythms appear loose and ambling as it paints a deft group portrait of recent college graduates-Marnie’s friends, co-workers and would-be lovers. But this scruffiness is...Read More

An instant critic’s darling upon its release in 2006, Mutual Appreciation is at once an utterly timeless and distinctly mid-aughts portrait of the ebb and flow of twenty-something life in New York City. Richly observed and deeply humanist, the film follows Alan (Justin Rice), an aspiring musician, who crash-lands in town following the breakup of his band in Boston, ...Read More

Broke and desperate filmmaker Adolpho Rollo (Steve Buscemi) is a Manhattan wannabe in love with the mysterious woman next door, Angelica Peña (Jennifer Beals). He puts out an ad offering to sell his 'fabulous' movie script for $500, and gets a response from Joe (Seymour Cassel), who gives him a thousand and says he'll raise the 250,000 to make the picture. The probl...Read More

Doom and gloom are on the way. The Y2K apocalypse can't be stopped. Abbie's older brother issues him the ultimate challenge before it goes down: beat the infamous level 256 in Pac-Man and no getting up from the couch until he does so. Abbie’s survival story begins here; inside a rotting living room with no food or water, and a revolving door of numb-nut friends and ...Read More

ANIMALS tells the story of a young couple that exist somewhere between homelessness and the fantasy life they imagine for themselves. Though they masterfully con and steal in an attempt to stay one step ahead of their addiction, they are ultimately forced to face the reality of their situation.

A bizarre retro comedy shot entirely on VHS, VHYes takes us back to a simpler time, when twelve year-old Ralph mistakenly records home videos and his favorite late night shows over his parents’ wedding tape. The result is a nostalgic wave of home shopping clips, censored pornography, and nefarious true-crime tales that threaten to unkindly rewind Ralph’s reality.

While the rest of America slept, DIY filmmaker/musician Giuseppe Andrews (a one-time teen actor in Independence Day and Detroit Rock City) has made over 30 experimental features with titles like Doily’s Summer of Freak Occurrences, Trailer Town and Utopia Blues. Set in some demented alternate universe (i.e. Ventura, California), they are populated by real-life alcoh...Read More

Directed by Giuseppe Andrews. the subject of Giuseppe Makes A Movie, in 2007. Two guys with badass haircuts are stuck in a lavish motel room and are broke, desperate, and slowly going insane. In fact, after watching a kangaroo fight on television, they make a pact to kill themselves at checkout time.

October, 2008. Young nun Colleen (Addison Timlin) is avoiding all contact from her family, until an email from her mother (Ally Sheedy) announces, Your brother is home. On returning to her childhood home in Asheville, NC, she finds her old room exactly how she left it: painted black and covered in goth/metal posters. Her parents are happy enough to see her, but unea...Read More

Following his acclaimed debut Ham on Rye, Tyler Taormina’s hypnotic follow-up is a midnight mosaic that reveals a suburban town steeped in alienation. It’s the middle of the night, but things are far from quiet; as the camera peers into the late-night happenings of various residents, we witness a number of them quietly escape into the dark... on rollerblades. Drawin...Read More

Videofilia (and Other Viral Syndromes) begins with a teenage misfit spending her first days out of school slacking, experimenting with drugs and cyberspace. She meets Junior online. He’s an aspiring amateur porn dealer, who's into conspiracy theories and is convinced that the Mayan Apocalypse is happening. Once they meet in the 'real world,' a series of bizarre even...Read More

Empty Metal follows five groups of characters, each emblematic of a different extreme political ideology, as they attempt insurrection against the status quo: a queer noise band is coerced into a dangerous assassination plot by a family of militant Native Americans who are aided by a Rastafarian computer hacker who is old friends with a Buddhist hermit whose son is ...Read More

Vacation! is an existential beach party movie about life, death, sex and drugs. When four college friends reunite for a girls’ week at the beach, it’s all bikinis, piña coladas and dance parties at first. But the fun soon fades away… After procuring a psychotropic drug from a sketchy surfer dude, the girls take a very strange trip into the abyss.

Hellaware gently satirizes the world of high-brow art through the eyes of a wannabe photographer who becomes consumed by the bright lights of mainstream success. Jaded by the “incestuous, New York, socialite shit” that sells at prominent art galleries, Nate (Keith Poulson) embarks on a quest for a more authentic brand of contemporary art. When a coked-up YouTube sea...Read More

Pater Noster and the Mission of Light tells the story of Max, a young record store clerk who stumbles upon a rare vinyl LP and is drawn into the world of a 1970s hippie commune. An invitation to the remnants of the outlandish cult and their unholy spawn leads to grave and grisly circumstances for Max and her friends. The film's producers, led by cult director Chr...Read More

"Compelling. Furiously combative." - Variety Married couple Jim and Lucy run a commune in the early 90's for sober living out of their suburban New Jersey home. The motley members eat, bathe and work together selling homemade "health tea" out of their van. Although there's constant bickering and plenty of fires to be put out, Jim and Lucy have managed to establish ...Read More

For many, Peter Anton's house embodies an end-of-life nightmare: the utility companies long ago shut off the heat and electricity, the floorboards are rotting, and the detritus of a chaotic life is precariously stacked to the ceiling. But for the filmmakers Dan Rybicky and Aaron Wickenden, Anton's home is a treasure trove, a startling collection of unseen and fascin...Read More