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Punk Rock Rages On in Danny Garcia's 50th Anniversary Celebration

2026-06-10T08:04:39.330-07:00

The British punk rock band 999 formed in December, 1976, the same month that the Sex Pistols famously launched the movement into a new stratosphere via a foul-mouthed interview with Billy Grundy, host of local Thames TV show Today.

Since that time, 999 have experienced just two lineup changes to their original roster and as such are the hardiest stars of new feature documentary Vive Le Punk, directed by longtime chronicler of the form Danny Garcia. The other bands anchoring the film, which have all gone through various interruptions and much larger reconfigurations, are Sham 69, The Boys and The Ruts (a.k.a. The Ruts D.C.).

"This is not the same old tale about the Sex Pistols, The Clash and The Damned," explains Garcia. "This is about four bands that are still going strong, 50 years after the punk explosion of 1976-77."

The film will world premiere July 4th at the London Film School and then actively screen across the U.K. and the U.S. later in the month. Garcia's credits include the 2012 feature documentary The Rise and Fall of The Clash and the 2022 short film Sid: The Final Curtain, about Sid Vicious's final performance in New York City.

On the hit parade front, The D.C. Ruts are best known for the Top 10 1979 "Babylon's Burning;" Sham 69 had a number of Top 20 songs including "Hurry Up Harry" and "If the Kids Are United;" The Boys are in some ways more remembered for several cover versions they inspired in the 1990s; and 999 are considered a seminal influence on other bands.

Also appearing in Vive Le Punk are author-DJ Chris Sullivan, Charlier Harper of the U.K. Subs, poet Dr. John Cooper Clarke, Gaye Advert of The Adverts and entrepreneur Joe Corré. The expression borrowed for the film's title first gained traction in the 1970s thanks to Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood's London boutique SEX.

Rolling Stones Musical Director Set to Ring In Gregg Allman Documentary

2026-06-08T09:17:45.997-07:00

The pedigree of the new feature documentary Gregg Allman: The Music of My Soul is rock solid.

The film was put together by the Allman Brothers's former manager Michael Lehman. It's directed by James Keach, the longtime actor who has made waves previously in this format, most notably with his 2014 Glen Campbell documentary.

And when the film preview-screens June 11th in Macon, Georgia, Chuck Leavell, the Rolling Stones musical director and the band's perennial concert tour keyboardist, will be there to welcome it to the pantheon. Leavell, now 74, also toured with the Allman Brothers in the 1970s after Duane's passing.

"Chuck is such a respected guy," Lehman told Georgia Public Broadcasting. "It's down to, you know, [drummer] Jaimoe, is the sole surviving original member and really Chuck, who was there in the beginning."

"As we were finalizing our plans for the Macon premiere, we asked if he would attend and he graciously said, 'yes,' and that he would share a couple of stories, as well as play a couple of songs," he added. "So it's going to be a really special night."

The sold-out event at Macon's Piedmont Grand Opera House is one of two showings scheduled this week ahead of the documentary's limited June 17th theatrical release. The other, the world premiere, takes place June 9th at the Gramercy Theatre in New York City and will feature an acoustic performance by Gregg's son Devon Allman and his Allman Betts Band mate Duane Betts.

There will also be a special opening-day screening June 17th at the Savannah College of Art and Design, reflecting a city that Allman called home for many years. The documentary includes never-before-seen concert performances and clips from an interview at Macon's 1842 Inn conducted with Gregg in 2014 just a few years before his death.

The 96-minute portrait is also the inaugural release from new U.S. independent film production and distribution company Subtext. The venture was launched at the beginning of 2026 by the veteran industry trio of Brian Levy, Teddy Liouliakis and Danielle DiGiacomo.

[Gregg Allman: The Music of My Soul - Official website]

Glasgow Celebrates the Warmth, Humor and Defiance of Its Twinned Ukrainian City

2026-06-06T09:42:30.806-07:00

For decades, Glasgow, Scotland was officially twinned with the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don. But after suspending that link in protest of the Ukraine war, the city shifted the partnership over to the Ukrainian port city of Mykolaiv.

On June 12th, as part of the first day of the expansive Refugee Festival Scotland, a short documentary about life in Mykolaiv will premiere in Glasgow. Directed by local filmmaker Robbie Fraser in collaboration with photojournalist David Pratt and Ukrainian producer Olya Danyukova, the slice-of-life film was shot on location primarily in December of 2025 but also includes footage from other previous visits to the city.

"Glasgow and Mykolaiv have shipbuilding in common, but also very much a shared sense of humor," Fraser told Scotland's The Herald newspaper. "There is a sad irony to the city too; it was a shipbuilding powerhouse of the USSR, yet some of the very ships built in Mykolaiv have been used to attack Ukraine since 2022."

"Mykolaiv, like much of Ukraine, has been through hell these past years," he added, "but its people remain unbowed and undaunted. Like Glaswegians, Mykolaivians have a gallus streak, and I for one have found it a privilege to get to know some of them."

Refugee Festival Scotland, launched in 2000, has grown from a one-day Glasgow happening to a nationwide extravaganza encompassing more than 150 events. It's timed to lead up to Refugee Day (June 20th) and unfurl alongside the U.K.'s arts and culture festival Refugee Week (June 15th-20th).

On X, Pratt shared a number of striking black and white images taken in Mykolaiv during the filming of the 20-minute documentary, such as this one of a former-concert-orchestra-musician-turned-busker. Pratt and Frasier have made a number of other documentaries together, including the 2023 TV entry Pictures From Ukraine.

[David Pratt: website]

Police Detective Shepherds New Look at Eliot Ness and the 'Torso Murders'

2026-06-04T07:28:19.854-07:00

It's one of the first known instances of serial killing in the United States. From 1934 to 1938, at least 13 victims were murdered and decapitated along Cleveland's "Kingsbury Run" riverbed by a killer who was never formally identified or charged.

This Saturday, June 6th, Kingsbury Run, a feature-length drama written and directed by East Liverpool, Ohio police detective Jon Price, will have its premiere in Cleveland at the Capitol Theatre. It follows a 2003 documentary about the case, The Fourteenth Victim, and a 2018 independent feature titled The Kingsbury Run.

What makes the case so compelling is that Eliot Ness arrived on the scene as Cleveland's new Safety Director shortly after the crime spree began, to clean up America's so-called "most dangerous city." He was successful on other fronts, but when it came to the "Torso Murders," although Ness eventually zeroed in on a prime suspect, anonymously labeled Dr. X, no arrests or trial ever came about.

'Ness had a suspect who he believed was undoubtedly the killer," states the Cleveland Police Museum's case file. 'This suspect continued to taunt Ness for years after the killings had stopped.'

'Most likely, Dr. X was Francis E. Sweeney, an intelligent, skilled and very troubled surgeon who lived near Kingsbury Run,' the file continues. 'Despite a week-long interrogation by Ness and other high-level investigators, Sweeney never confessed. However, immediately after Sweeney committed himself to a sanitorium, the murders stopped.'

Price and his producer Brian Jones were previously involved with short films, but this is their first feature-length effort. In recent years, non-profit the DNA Doe Project has been working with the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner's Office to try and identify some of the unknown "Torso Murders" victims.

Former Navy SEAL diver Angelo Oddo, who also helped with Kingsbury Run's art direction, leads the film as Detective Merlyo, while Jim Osso, a retired Ohio corrections officer, portrays Ness. Michael Carrino meanwhile is Dr. Edward Francis Sweeney. Some of the movie was shot at East Liverpool's historic Thompson House, completed in 1876.

[Facebook: Kingsbury Run]

New Jersey Winery Uncorks a Flourish of 1776 History

2026-06-02T07:57:46.064-07:00

Talk about a perfect way to ring in the 250th anniversary of the United States.

Earlier this year, in partnership with the Camden County Historical Society, the owner of Saddlehill Cellars, a 70-acre winery in Voorhees, New Jersey, was able to confirm that his property was once owned by the family of Timothy Matlack Jr., the man who handwrote the official parchment of the Declaration of Independence. To celebrate that fact and mark the country's 250th anniversary, owner Bill Green created a 15-minute AI short The Scribe, the Sword and the Shield: Three Revolutionary Lives.

Saddlehill Cellars

"When I bought this property, the local legend was that George Washington gifted the land to one of his soldiers," Green explained. "It turns out that story was wrong - but what we actually found was bigger."

"The real history connects three Revolutionary families on one piece of ground," he continued. "The scribe who wrote the Declaration, the soldier who guarded Washington and the geographical shield that watched over the region from the ridge."

Prior to AI, there's no way a guy like Green could have recreated realistic-looking Revolutionary-era scenes. But for better or worse, the new technology now allows that and the resulting short will screen for the press June 25th and no doubt become a staple of the winery thereafter.

The AI-generated scribe

"The documented connection between this land, the Matlack family and the writing of the Declaration of Independence is a story every resident of Voorhees should know," added mayor Michael Mignogna. "I am proud that this piece of our town's history is being preserved and celebrated."

The Matlack family acquired around 1500 acres of what is now Camden County beginning in 1701. Later, the land passed through the Wilkins family and ultimately to John Stafford, a member of Washington's elite personal Life Guard, who established what is now Saddlehill.

[Saddlehill Cellars]

U.K. Lifeboat Tragedy Gets Docudrama Film Treatment

2026-05-31T08:22:28.383-07:00

Imagine a scenario where 27 volunteer rescuers were killed at sea but all the people they were aiming to retrieve survived. That is the real-life toll of an 1886 incident off the coast of Liverpool now being revisited on film.

Using funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, non-profit Liverpool theater company Stage Door Theatre Trust is currently at work on 27 Souls: The Last Launch, a one-hour docudrama that combines dramatic reenactments, interviews and documentary footage to tell the story of the rescue mission for the German three-mast schooner Mexico. The movie aims to premiere locally in December, right around the 140th anniversary of the December 9th, 1886 tragedy.

Hosted and narrated by British TV actor David Lonsdale (Coronation Street, Heartbeat), The Last Launch recounts how three Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) vessels headed out off the Lancashire Coast in stormy seas to rescue the crew of Mexico. In all, 27 working class men from St. Anne's and Southport would perish, marking the worst human disaster in RNLI history.

From the locations to the cast, it's a community effort for this production, through and through. For example, portraying the captain of the German vessel and also writing the docudrama's score is 64-year-old Wigan musician Alan Gregory, who's never acted before. In a funny twist, Gergory will also this coming August try to establish a new Guinness World Record for continuous piano playing.

One of the most dramatic aspects of the film and incident is the numerical imbalance of it all. There were only 12 crew members on the German ship Mexico. During the west coast rescue attempt, 14 of 16 volunteers on Southport Lifeboat Eliza Fernley drowned along with all 13 of the volunteers on the St. Anne's Lifeboat Laura Janet. Another Lifeboat, the Charles Biggs from Lytham, finally rescued the stranded sailors and initially was unaware of the troubles experienced by their colleagues.

Emma Vaudrey, founder of the Stage Door Theatre Trust, is spearheading not just a one-hour docudrama but a whole range of other elements as well. In partnership with local RNLI stations and many other organizations, these will include a future traveling exhibition and a new living archive of the Mexico disaster.

Host-narrator David Lonsdale filming on location

[Instagram: Stage Door Theatre Trust]

A 66-Year-Old Cyclist Tackles a 100-Year-Old Highway

2026-05-29T07:53:58.375-07:00

It's the centennial anniversary of historic U.S. Route 66. And starting Tuesday, June 2nd, 66-year-old Irish endurance cycling champion Joe Barr will be cycling from Santa Monica to Chicago non-stop, with a small documentary crew in tow.

The eventual film will also highlight what the highway means to individuals and businesses along the way, and for that portion, over the past ten days, co-directors Leslie Eades and Matt Wagner have been traveling in reverse from Chicago to gather B-roll, interviews and other footage. Patrick Mullan is the third co-director, alongside producer Margaret McMullan

Barr is no stranger to these sorts of treks. He has twice completed the Race Across America (RAMM) and in 2019, won the 50+ age category for that event. His partner Jillian Mooney, a performance nutritionist, will also be featured in the film along with crew chief Marc Poland, a former aerospace engineering executive and himself a cycling world record holder.

One of the coolest aspects of this project is that folks can follow along live via the Web as Barr tackles 2,488 miles in 8 days. The link for that data is here.

'For Joe Barr, this journey started two years ago when the spark of this world record attempt was born,' the documentary team shared on Instagram. 'For our crew today, it meant soaking in the nostalgia of the Shamrock Court Motel, the Cuba murals, Hooker’s Cut and the Devil’s Elbow Bridge.'

'We embraced the quirky side at Uranus Fudge Factory, ate at the Route 66 Diner and stopped at Supertam on 66,' they continued. 'We interviewed owner Chris Briley about the spirit of the road, Joe’s upcoming ride, and had to fuel up on some Superman ice cream. We wrapped up the day chasing the sunset through Kansas to see Galena’s Cars gas station and the Rainbow Bridge. Then, the nighttime production began: uploading terabytes of footage, confirming more interviews, and taking a quiet moment to journal before we head into Oklahoma and Texas.'

More recently, Barr won the 2023 Ulta-Cycling World Championship in the 50+ age category. He is also a two-time winner of the Race Around Ireland. As part of fundraising for the project, backers will have a chance to win the Route 66 bike.

Immediately following this newest cross-country U.S. ride, Barr will turn 67 on June 13th. It's definitely no coincidence that the filmmakers timed the ride so he could be the namesake age of the history highway.

[Instagram: Joe Barr Route 66 Project]

Music Video Director Shines a Light on Altadena Wildfire

2026-05-27T09:01:20.829-07:00

Ethan Lader has accumulated a wide array of credits over the years as a commercial and music video director. Disney, Google, Ford; Bruno Mars, Mariah Carey, Whiz Kalifa.

But his latest project is something very different. Set to premiere at a sold-out screening in Miami Beach May 30th as part of the 30th annual American Black Film Festival, Altadena: Rising from the Ashes is a feature documentary about the impacts of the devastating January 7th, 2025 Altadena wildfire (a.k.a. the Eaton fire), as told through the lens of four stories.

The film features the rap song "Rise Again," written and performed in the ashes of Altadena by The Hundred music's Phillip Pollerana and fellow neighborhood recovering resident Zaire Calvin. Provocative lyrics include, 'With fireballs that look like Steph Curry step backs' and 'The National Guard is the new Red Line, treating us like kids at bedtime.'

There is also music from cellist Kevin Buck, another impacted Altadena resident. The film additionally touches on the culpability of Southern California Edison Company and the post-calamity trend known as "disaster recovery gentrification."

It's been a busy time for Lader. Along with making this new documentary, he and his wife Nancy Rodriguez Lader also collaborated as writers on the 2025 short drama Tadpole, which Lader directed. Lader, an Emerson College graduate (Class of 2002), previewed the short at the beginning of the year with fellow students at a special event on the school's Los Angeles campus.

Coincidentally, the phrase "rising from the ashes" was also used by a KNX Radio L.A. reporter for her recent six-part podcast about the Altadena fire. In the series, Nataly Tavidian retraces the aftermath of losing the house she grew up in.

[Ethan Lader: Internet Music Video Database]

DiCaprio Father-Son Documentary Premieres in New York

2026-05-26T07:59:04.646-07:00

It's hard not to view the 100-minute feature documentary Nine Little Indians as an organic outgrowth of Leonardo DiCaprio's 2023 drama Killers of the Flower Moon.

Executive produced by DiCaprio (along with Tony Robbins) and featuring his father George as a producer, the film tells the story of rampant historical abuse at Indian boarding schools in North America through the eyes of nine sisters who endured that fate at the St. Paul's Indian Mission School in Marty, South Dakota. The film world premieres May 27th at Lincoln Center in New York.

The film intertwines the legal battle of the Charbonneau sisters against the Catholic Diocese of Sioux Falls with the forensic science practices of Dr. Marsha Small, who has developed a grim expertise for sounding out and finding unmarked graves of Native American children. The Lincoln Center premiere will feature a post-screening Q&A with Small and one of the sisters, Yvonne Charbonneau, along with George DiCaprio, Lakota historian Darrell Red Cloud and the film's director Shannon Kring.

“We cracked 7.5 million total views on the trailer in two weeks and a day," Kring told South Dakota News Watch. "Viral, for a documentary, is considered 500,000 views. If that doesn’t speak to the interest in this topic, I don’t know what does. We have no help, we have no marketing budget. This is happening organically."

A second 9:30 p.m. encore screening was added to the May 27th Lincoln Center event after the 6:30 p.m. world premiere screening sold out. Kring plans to screen the documentary at various South Dakota locations later this summer.

[Instagram: Shannon Kring]

Distracted Driving Drama Competes for Sony Prize

2026-05-24T08:27:08.587-07:00

Perhaps the most notable aspect of the Sony Future Filmmakers Awards, now it its fourth year, is that there is zero entry fee. A true rarity in today's landscape.

For the 2026 edition, which will crown winners June 11th on the Sony lot in Los Angeles, more than 8,400 entries from 162 countries were received. Prizes will be announced in the categories of Fiction, Non-Fiction, Animation and Student. (There are 10 nominees in each of the first two categories and five each in the latter two.)

Ahead of the event, U.S. filmmaker Maria Wilson was separately tipped with a Sustainability prize for her documentary Bear Guardians, about the Phnom Tamao Wildlife Rescue Center in Cambodia, while Nigerian artist Yama Lamido topped the Future Format category with Creating Without Permission. Judges for the 2026 edition are British director Justin Chadwick, American writer-director Will Gluck, Pascal Pictures president Rachel O'Connor and Sony Pictures Animation co-director Adam Rosette.

Among the five nominees in the Student category is the 12-minute South African drama Ongeluk (Accident), shot by 24-year-old Talita Brits in one single continuous take and told mostly using the Afrikaans language. The film tells the story of Melanie, a young woman whose typical normal day goes horribly wrong when she drops her phone in the car while driving and takes her eyes off the road for a few moments, with tragic results.

"The one take was extremely difficult to pull off," Brits, currently an Honors student at the Open Window school in Centurion, told local program BizNews TV. "One problem was that no one who is working on the film can obviously be seen on camera. And the camera turns around a lot, you have a 360 view of what's going on with Melanie."

"While we were filming this, it's actually quite funny," she continued. "Me and two other people were running around the car the whole time, trying to not be in frame."

The Sony Future Filmmakers Awards takes care of all travel and accommodation expenses and wraps the red carpet awards ceremony around four days of workshops and learning. Attendees will also tap into a range of cash prizes and gifted Sony filmmaking equipment.

[Sony Future Filmmaker Awards]

Bigfoot Podcast Spawns Throwback Bigfoot Short

2026-05-22T07:45:01.924-07:00

In Louisiana Cajun French, Ta-Tai Maudit loosely translates as “Cursed Monster.”

That's also the title of a new concept short film written and directed by Patrick Bennett, co-host of the "Filmsquatch" podcast. The movie, set in the 1970s in the Atchafalaya Swamp of south Louisiana, is set to screen May 30th at the 9th annual Calcasieu Parish Short Film Festival at the Brimstone Museum in Sulphur.

Ta-Tai Maudit was shot all across the Pelican state and features a soundtrack by New Orleans-based musician Maxwell A. Darling. If all goes well, the Filmsquatch gang hopes to eventually expand the short into a full-length feature, which stars local actors Mitch Laing as Chance, Sherina Leggett as Julie and Brad Smalling as the Ta-Tai Maudit. (Bennett and podcast-co-host Kendall "The Crazy Cajun" Fontenot also have cameos.)

Filmsquatch is into its fourth season, which launched at the beginning of the year. One of the films highlighted by the podcast in its latest season is the 2025 Welsh Bigfoot film Foxhollow, on an episode that also includes an interview with writer-director-star Tom Hughes.

Upping the Bigfoot fun at the Brimstone Museum May 30th, Ta-Tai Maudit will be presented as part of a Bigfoot themed block sponsored by the podcast. The other entries screening are the popular YouTube series Bigfoot and Jeff and 2025 short film The Not So Great Outdoorsmen.

The original Brimstone Museum, launched in 1915, was demolished in 2020 after catastrophic damage from Hurricanes Laura and Delta. The May 30th event, which is free, is being held in the Brimstone Museum Annex.

[Filmsquatch: Bigfoot film listings]

Berlin Film Students Track Down Thief of Their Animated Short

2026-05-20T08:42:01.830-07:00

All across Australia this weekend, moviegoers will be treated to screenings of a wacky new feature documentary titled The Talented Mr. F.

The film is about a pair of German film students, Julius Drost and Moritz Henneberg, who, after toiling for years on their animated 2023 short about a robot, found out when submitting to a film festival in Bulgaria that the short had been copied, retitled and reclaimed by an American. Instead of Butty, the film was now called T130 and credited to an American film student named Samuel Felinton.

The documentary is screening as part of of Australia's German Film Festival 2026, a three-week extravaganza encompassing all the country's major cities. For example, in Sydney, The Talented Mr. F is set to screen May 22nd, 25th and 26th at different venues.

After considering litigation, Drost and Henneberg realized that it would be cost-prohibitive. So instead, they decided to enlist a director, Igor Plischke, and document their travels to West Virginia to confront Felinton. They also worked with U.S.-based filmmaker W. Ian Ross.

"Ross is from New York," Drost explained to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. "He knew how to get to Morgantown, had connections and knew where to get technical stuff. Turns out, he was an important guy not only on the production side, but also in how we handled the situation."

At the 2026 Grimme-Preis German television awards in April, Drost, Henneberg and a third collaborator Nikita Fedosik were honored with a special prize for The Talented Mr. F. Their film runs 78 minutes.

[Julius Drost: portfolio]

Wheelchair Rugby Documentary Wins Multiple Audience Awards

2026-05-18T09:03:23.856-07:00

After winning audience awards at film festivals in Annapolis, Maryland and Houston, Texas, Sum Function is set for a hometown premiere in Rockford, Illinois May 30th.

The feature-length documentary profiles the nation's only all-veteran wheelchair rugby team, which grew out of the non-profit Oscar Mike Foundation. The organization, which takes its name from military jargon for "on the move," was created on Veteran's Day 2011 by Marine veteran Noah Currier.

Currier, now 44, sadly did not incur his injuries while deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq post-9/11. Rather, it was a car accident that injured him three days after he returned home. A truck driver fell asleep at the wheel and mangled Currier's car, turning him into a quadriplegic.

Currier, who co-directed the documentary with Nick Cavalier, is thrilled to be able to showcase the efforts of Oscar Mike in this manner. "As troubling as the statistics are around our demographic, we’ve never lost a single one of our Oscar Mike veterans to suicide," he told the Rock River Current. "It’s not that we’re the solution, but I think that a non-clinical approach to these things is sometimes not recognized how valuable that actually is."

It should be a rousing affair on May 30th, in part because the capacity at the Hard Rock Casino Rockford auditorium where Sum Function is red carpet showing is a whopping 1,800. Following the screening, there will be a 30-minute Q&A with the filmmakers and members of the Oscar Mike "Militia" wheelchair rugby team.

Noah Currier

[Sum Function: official website]

A Long Gap Between Award-Winning Screenplay and Short Film

2026-05-16T07:19:42.813-07:00

Way back in 2010, via the second annual Canadian Short Screenplay Competition (CSSC), British writer Neil Graham won top prize for his script Something Pointless.

Fifteen years later, the movie was finally brought to life in Wales during a shoot in May, 2025. The short film stars Game of Thrones alumnus Owen Teale as an elderly man who befriends a bullied boy played by Leo Harris.

Earlier this spring, the film world premiered at the 56th annual USA Film Festival in Dallas and is poetically set to screen later this month at the 79th annual Yorkton Film Festival in Saskatchewan. It is at the Yorkton event that the 2010 screenplay prize was presented.

"This film has been a labor of love," revealed producer David Cormican, who established the CSSC event. "It's rooted in a remarkable screenplay that has patiently waited nearly fifteen years to reach the screen. We believe audiences are going to feel it deeply."

Coincidentally, after a long hiatus beginning in 2013, the Canadian Short Screenplay Competition was also revived in 2025 at exactly the same time as Something Pointless was shooting in the U.K. The event is set to roll out again later this month in Yorkton, with six short film screenplays competing for the same top prize.

Something Pointless will also have a very grandiose screening May 22nd at the International Sound and Film Music Festival in Croatia, in an outdoor arena. The movie was directed by Asa Bailey and features a pair of executive producers, Shawn Christensen and Damon Russell, who won the 2012 Academy Award for Best Live Action Short for their film Curfew, which somewhat similarly is about an uncle caring for his niece.

In 1997, Teale won a Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a production of A Doll's House, alongside Janet McTeer, who also won the Tony that year for Best Actress. More recently, in 2022, Teale snagged a Welsh BAFTA Award.

"This is a film that embraces pure, unapologetic sentimentality," stated Bailey. "It's a rare opportunity to portray what it means to be human without frills or fads - just heartfelt storytelling rooted in the textures and truths of a real community."

Documentary Revisits Fatal Balloon Expedition to North Pole

2026-05-14T08:47:51.108-07:00

Some of the most powerful documentaries are those that resurrect a far gone and largely forgotten story.

Ice Grave (Un Tombeau de Glace), a 78-minute European production that will have its U.S. premiere in June at the Lighthouse International Film Festival on Long Island Beach in New Jersey, is one such shining example. The film retraces a July 1897 expedition to the North Pole by a trio of Swedish explorers (Salomon August Andrée, Nils Strindberg, Knut Frænkel) who vanished without a trace shortly after takeoff. It was only several decades later, in 1930, that their remains were found.

Amazingly, given the era, 240 undeveloped photo negatives were among the materials extracted from the recovery site on Kvitøya (White Island). Out of this batch, 93 were salvageable and provide an eerie throughline for the movie.

Directed by veteran French documentary filmmaker Robin Hunzinger, Ice Grave began making its way across European film festivals in 2025 and was acquired along the way for worldwide distribution by the French-Swedish firm Lightdox.

The film animates various entries from the explorers' journals and features three individuals - historian Tyrone Martinsson, writer Hélène Gaudy and physician-author Bea Uusma - who have been personally fascinated by the expedition and researched it themselves over the years. The explorers departed from Danskøya on the Norwegian archipelago of Svarlbad in their balloon christened the Eagle (Örnen) and very sadly never made it beyond that area's northeastern limits.

The explorers crashed three days after departing in July, but that's only the beginning of their unlucky tale. To reveal more about their challenges on Kvitøya and how long they survived would spoil the core of the movie.

Traveling Across the U.S. in World's 'Worst Car'

2026-05-12T09:07:05.753-07:00

The last Yugo sedan rolled off the assembly line in Kragujevac, Serbia in the fall of 2008.

In a country celebrated for MVPs Novak Djokovic and Nikola Jokić, the Yugoslavian-originated sedan was anything but, famously dubbed stateside as the "worst car ever." But on May 19th, at the Beldocs International Documentary Festival in Belgrade, it will be a more joyous celebration when the U.S. road trip feature Yugo Goes to America kicks off the event.

Made by Serbians Filip Grujić and Aleksa Borković, the documentary chronicles the pair's travels with the help of a third friend, Aleksandar Blažić, from New York to Los Angeles in a 1980s-era Yugo sedan. Grujić's family owned one of the cars and he essentially grew up in it. The movie was shot at various points between 2023 and 2025.

“Parts for the Yugo were manufactured all across Yugoslavia, which created the image of the Yugo as a product of the entire country, and as such, a source of pride for all its citizens," Grujić told Vogue Adria. "In order for the Yugo to be imported into the American market, 419 modifications had to be made. Just to set foot on that market!"

"A special production facility was built for export to the U.S.," he continued. "There was no way that was profitable. And when some U.S. companies come to our market, the laws are changed in favor of the stronger side."

Yugo Goes to America premiered in March at the Copenhagen International Documentary Festival. With the Yugo now a vintage collectible in the U.S., the movie will likely strike a different chord

The project relied heavily on Jason Vujić’s 2010 book The Yugo: The Rise and Fall of the Worst Car in History. Making appearances in the documentary are former Yugo America vice president Tony Ciminera and Yugo America founder Malcolm Bricklin.

Maine Island Home Sale Triggers Swift Horror Film

2026-05-10T09:00:33.198-07:00

Carter Smith, a fashion photographer who burst onto the filmmaking scene with the 2006 short Bugcrush and 2008 Dreamworks feature The Ruins, has parlayed his professional success over the years into a number of properties on Maine's picturesque Bailey Island.

Last fall, as he was preparing to sell one of the properties, a red house with a boathouse near Mackerel Cove, he realized that the location was "too perfect" to not use for a horror film before he unloaded it. In the span of just six months, he and collaborator Johnny Berchtold put together the microbudget horror project Headlock and fast-tracked filming, which was completed earlier this spring.

Map courtesy: Visit Portland

"It can [typically] take years and years to get indie films made," Smith told the Harpswell Anchor. "Both of us really love that scrappy, DIY feeling of indie filmmaking. We got to write to the space that we had available - and the limitations."

Smith and Berchtold previously worked together on the 2023 thriller The Passenger, with Smith directing and Berchtold starring. Once again, that's the recipe here, with the additional layer of the pair having collaborated for the script as well.

Berchtold stars as Cody, a troubled man who is hired to pack up a summer rental on Bailey Island. As the character's past is gradually revealed, things begin to spiral. Berchtold's other recent acting credits include the 2025 Hulu series Murdaugh: Death in the Family and the 2023 Netflix family film Dog Gone.

There is still one day of filming left to complete for Headlock in Los Angeles, where Smith works and lives part of the time along with New York City. The plan is to release the film in 2027 after, hopefully, a run at top film festivals.

[Carter Smith: Instagram]

AI-Generated Music Video Reboots 1985 Reggae Hit

2026-05-08T08:54:25.905-07:00

Forty years ago, Jamaican singer Audrey Hall appeared on the iconic British TV show Top of the Pops to perform her catchy song "One Dance Won't Do."

The composition, a cheeky response to fellow Jamaican artist Beres Hammond's "What One Dance Can Do," became most notably a hit in the United Kingdom, cracking the Top 20 there. On May 21st, a very different version of the song will screen at the third annual AI Film Awards in Cannes.

Hall, now 78, collaborated extensively with New York-based MVD Entertainment, headed by fellow Jamaican Marcia Deans, to create a new AI-generated music video for the song that will screen at the Cannes soiree. Although the AI Film Awards take place at the Hotel Majestic on the famed Croisette towards the tail end of the Cannes Film Festival, which runs May 12th-23rd, it is not affiliated with the main event.

"Everybody loves "One Dance Won't Do" so much," Hall told the Caribbean National Weekly. "I'm hoping for big things in the future with it, and this could be the beginning."

The music video will screen alongside various other entries including Indian AI animated short The Light. Of course, AI generates immediate mixed feelings when brought up in the mainstream filmmaking community. An international editorial framing this year's Cannes Film Festival, featuring South Korean director Park Chan-wook as head of the jury, is titled "Fear and Curiosity Over AI Shape Cannes."

Hall collaborator Deans also took part in the 2025 AI Film Awards at Cannes, showcasing an AI film about the history of reggae music.

Drama About Last Witch Burning In Ireland Makes Its Way To U.S.

2026-05-06T08:08:13.664-07:00

On May 30th, the Indie X Festival in downtown Los Angeles will host a screening of Bridget, a short film about some tragically infamous events in Ireland in 1895.

The 35-minute drama, directed and co-written by Anne Williamson and brought to life by members of repertory company the Fionn MacCumhaill Players, of which she is a founding member, depicts the final days of 26-year-old seamstress Bridget Cleary. Her husband Michael became convinced that she was a witch and wound up burning her to death with the help of family members. (She may have been immolated first and set on fire after dying.)

Bridget liked to take walks in and around a fort near her home in Ballyvadlea in Tipperary county. When she became sick after doing so one day in the rain, her deluded husband described her as "being away with the fairies."

The murder trial held in April 1895 was an international media sensation and involved a gaggle of defendants. Michael Cleary was ultimately convicted of manslaughter and served 15 years in jail before immigrating to Montreal, Canada.

The short film premiered in Ireland in the fall of 2024 and has had a nice run of local screenings. It made its U.S. debut in March 2026 at the 3rd Annual Westerly Irish Film Fest in Westerly, Rhode Island and has been tapped at the upcoming Indie X Festival in three awards categories: Best Ensemble Cast, Best New Director and Best Young Actor.

Bridget is also scheduled for another and perhaps final Ireland screening May 16th at the historic Abymill Theatre Fethard.

Film Professor Revisits 1981 Kidnapping Of U.S. General

2026-05-04T08:11:36.533-07:00

Max Leonida, a film professor at William Penn University in Iowa, is thoroughly familiar with the case of General James Lee Dozier.

On December 7th, 1981 in Verona, Italy, a pair of Red Brigades terrorists posing as plumbers kidnapped the then-chief of staff of NATO's southern European land forces. Dozier was held for 42 days before being freed in a daring raid in Padua by Italian special police forces.

Leonida, originally from Milan, was an 11-year-old child when the Dozier kidnapping occurred and all these years later, he has made Dozier, a feature-length drama about the case with the help of William Penn students. At the recent Julien Dubuque International Film Festival, the film won the prize for Best Feature.

Leonida, who runs his production company Astarox Productions with his wife Paola, first lived in Los Angeles for 10 years after moving to the U.S., before relocating to the Midwest and Oskaloosa. General Dozier, meanwhile, is still alive, retired in Florida at age 95.

"General Dozier has been asked for the rights to his story by a lot of people," Leonida explained in an interview with the Oskaloosa News. "He never gave the rights to anybody, but he gave the rights to me after we became friends."

"The most beautiful thing has been when we presented the film in Dubuque, Dozier's daughter Cheryl was in the audience for the premiere and she said, 'This movie is one of the most beautiful tributes,' and everybody cried," he added. "To know that you've done something that has been so faithful, so right, so compelling that the Dozier family appreciated it, for me, that is enough."

Distribution plans are still being firmed up for Dozier, but Leonida is convinced it is in his home country of Italy that the movie will have its biggest impact. "We were looking for a project that could basically bring together our Italian background and connections, our American experience, our knowledge, our skills and of course the help of the entire community of Oskaloosa."

[Max Leonida website]

Brothers Channel Experience With Their Late Grandfather's Dementia

2026-05-01T09:04:23.523-07:00

Tony and Joshua Gary's grandfather passed away in 2025, a few months before the pair began filming Temple.

The 25-minute short comedy-drama, set to debut May 12th at New York City's Big Apple Film Festival, mirrors the experiences Tony had living in Atlanta with their grandfather, who suffered from dementia. Real-life brushes with a group of door-to-door missionaries trying to take advantage of the elderly man's condition frame the movie's title.

Not only was the film shot in the house where Tony, Joshua and their grandfather wiled away the elderly man's final years. But the actor initially hired to play Jean, the brothers' onscreen combined namesake, had to be replaced at the last minute because of their father-in-law's death. Michael Silberblatt stepped in and stars as Jean while Rick Andosca portrays the grandfather.

"We shot over, like, four days at the house," Joshua explained in an interview with Rough Draft Atlanta. "It was a pretty somber shoot. I don't think it got really super real until we put the guy playing our grandfather in wardrobe and we were seeing him at the table that we saw our grandfather at just a couple of months earlier."

Andosca, a veteran actor with a myriad of acting and directing credits, continues to teach Meisner technique classes in Atlanta. The brothers Gary, under the banner Funguh Productions, have made a number of previous films, including the 2020 feature drama Half a Mile Out on the Night, which won a pair of prizes at European film festivals.

[Temple: Website]

From Nazi Germany To Protesting The War In Gaza

2026-04-29T08:22:21.010-07:00

Peter Schumann, who turns 92 in June, is still going strong.

And on Sunday, May 3rd, this artist's indomitable spirit will be celebrated with the world premiere at the Highland Center for the Arts in Greensboro, Vermont of An Artist Responds to War, a 45-minute documentary about Schumann's refocusing of his paintings and puppets to protest the conflict in Gaza.

The film was made by Robbie Leppzer, who has also been at work for years on a separate feature-length documentary about Schumann's Bread and Puppet Theater in Glover, Vermont. Leppzer, along with Schumann's daughter Maria and others, will take part in a post-screening Q&A moderated by Reverend Ed Sunday-Winters, pastor of the Greensboro United Church of Christ.

"We don't actually see any documentary footage of Gaza in the film," Leppzer explained in an interview with Seven Days. "We only see Gaza through the paintings and theater productions of Schumann."

"At some of the work-in-progress screenings, people told me that they often get overwhelmed by the actual news footage of the devastation in Gaza," he continued. "But watching Peter's paintings in my film allowed them to open up their hearts and actually feel deep grief."

The film also retraces how Schumann fled Nazi Germany with his family in 1944, met his wife in Munich a decade later and move to the United States in the 1960s. An Artist Responds to War will have a subsequent virtual world premiere May 12th on the platform Kinema.

[Turning Tide Films: An Artist Responds to War ]

Beloved Fast Food Employee Gets Post-Retirement Premiere

2026-04-27T09:11:39.569-07:00

During her 37 years as an employee of Mac's Drive-Thru in Gainsville, Florida, Sighle Williams became known for remembering regular-customer names and orders.

On the evening of Saturday, May 2nd, no doubt many of those customers will be back to celebrate the work ethic and personality of Williams, who retired in the fall of 2024. A 20-minute documentary about her last day on the job, One Last Order, is set to premiere locally.

"Williams's dedication over 37 years shows that when you value your employees, they in turn create immeasurable value for your customers and community," noted Lauren DeFilippo, daughter of Mac's owner Ron DeFilippo, who co-directed the short documentary with Sam Soko. "We wanted her last day behind the window to be as memorable as she's made every customer feel."

At this month's Aspen Shortsfest, One Last Order won both the Audience Award and the prize for Best Documentary. The jury stated in awarding the latter prize that "while we are living in particularly tumultuous times, when the news can feel like an endless cycle of darkness, it feels especially important to shed light on the joyful moments of humanity. The jury was taken for an exciting and moving ride by this film's celebration of a resilient, hardworking subject who united a community with her generous spirit."

Williams started part-time at Mac's Drive-Thru in the summer of 1987 when the restaurant first opened. A year later, shockingly, her parents died two days apart, leading her to take over the care of two nieces who had been living with them and a few years later, three more great-nieces.

For the free screening event on May 2nd, there will be music provided by The Browns and, of course, a Mac's food truck. Owner DeFilippo is getting ready to open a second Mac's Drive-Thru location in the area and will be lucky if he lands employees with the spirit of his beloved all-timer.

Audiences at Aspen Shortsfest may also have been reacting to the wonderfully nostalgic and anachronistic strain of One Last Order. The days of a person working decades, happily, at a food service industry job and using that platform to connect with the community are almost entirely gone.

Georgia Pastor Lands Tubi Slot

2026-04-25T10:31:53.912-07:00

As Jimmy Thomas, a writer-director based in Bainbridge, Georgia, was headed to bible study one day, he got a providential call from his business partner Kenneth Jenkins.

His 2025 film My Pastor has been added to Tubi.

The 98-minute thriller tells the story of a 'dedicated pastor in the deep South who fights against dark forces that threaten his flock. A tale of courage, prayer and redemption.' The kicker in this case is that the writer-director is also a pastor himself in real life at New Faith Life Ministries.

"If you have an idea or dream, just go for it," Thomas exhorted to WTXL-TV reporter Vanessa Lawrence. "I mean, why not? I mean, we only got so many days on this earth here, so you spend it to do what you want to do. I know you got responsibilities though,but always make time for your dreams."

In Thomas's case, those dreams include his newest film, the comedy Mr. Griffin Goes To Court, which is set for a Bainbridge red carpet premiere May 2nd. Festivities will take place all day, with repeat showings, at The Charles H. Kirbo Regional Center.

"Let's pack the Kirbo out," Jenkins stated recently on Facebook. "Show up and support our own, and prove what happens when our community rallies behind local stories. Every ticket sold, every share, every tag - it all fuels the next one. We're just getting started, family."

Pixies Backup Singer Wants To Make Ableist Rock'n'Roll Flick

2022-07-31T17:11:00.008-07:00

There are a few days left, and about a third of the way to go, for U.K. indie drama Tallywacker's fundraising campaign.

The movie is a labor of love for Jeremy Macomber-Dubs, a man of many talents. On the one hand, he is the chairman of the Disability Commission in Northampton. On another, he is a rock guitarist who doesn't let being confined to a wheelchair get in the way of a good jam session.

The budget for Tallywacker is $30,000 U.S. At press time, about two-thirds of that had been raised on Seed and Spark. The current fundraising deadline for the full amount is August 4. The project is a buddy comedy about a pair of musicians (Macomber-Dubs, Chris Goodwin) whose friendship is challenged after their band Tallywacker is recruited to open for a major rock star.

One of Macomber-Dubs former bands opened for The Pixies. He befriended the band and wound up singing background vocals on one of their albums. Macomber-Dubs currently plays in the group Bunnies.

In recent years, Macomber-Dubs has been sharing his frustrations about the depictions of disabled musicians on Facebook. One of those posts caught the attention of Brendan Boogie, a Boston-based writer-director who has since relocated to L.A.

If a pair of collaborators with the last names Dubs and Boogie can't make a good music drama, then the world is doomed. Sure enough, based on those Facebook posts, Boogie came to Northampton to meet with Macomber-Dubs, and subsequently wrote the Tallywacker screenplay.

"I think Brendan's script is incredible," Macomber-Dubs recently told the Daily Hampshire Gazette. "He really understood the issues I was talking about. He wrote scenes about things that had happened to me that I hadn't even told me about. He just intuitively understood so much."