Film Invasion – L.A. & Lima

2026 Official Selection: Screenplay – Screenplay – Feature Film

Ceremony: Screenplay Awards Ceremony · Sat, Aug 22, 2026 · 6:00 PM

It takes a village — or at least one very questionable hockey team.

• Writer(s): Lesley Hoyt-Croft

Language: English

Country: Not Specified

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A hockey-playing single mom is threatened with having her daughter taken away by her sister and her sleazy filmmaker boyfriend, She must enlist the aid of her lesbian teammates, a church choir and some “Angry Coochies” to try and stop them.

2026 Official Selection: Arthouse/Experimental – Feature (over 60 mins), Documentary – Feature

Sixty years after the 1965 Watts uprising, the neighborhood America wrote off has shown us what is still possible.

Program: Nothing to See Here: Watts · Sat, Aug 22, 2026 · 6:00 PM

• Director(s): Michael Soenen
• Producer(s): Michael Soenen, Todd Lieberman, Suzanne Malveaux, Stix Bailey
• Key Cast: Lawanda Hawkins, Sean Reynolds, Tim Pearce, Kristina Ripatti, Meryland Gonzalez, Erik Loomis, Cornelius Wills, Neci McKinney, Emily Avalos, Tyrone Riley, Celeste Garnica, Iris Romero, Jaime Gregory, Pastor Jose Hernandez
• Composer(s): Stix Bailey

Language: English

Runtime: 1h 30m

Country: United States

Synopsis: Sixty years after the 1965 Watts uprising, the neighborhood America wrote off has shown us what is still possible.

After a late-night police ride-along in Watts, an outsider witnesses a version of Watts that never makes the news.

Searching for a way to understand what he had seen, he poses a simple question: what would happen if the people living the story told it themselves?

Twenty residents—rival gang members, police officers, students, parents, and victims of

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2026 Official Selection: Horror – Short

He knows how close you are.

Program: Shorts Block 11 · Sat, Aug 22, 2026 · 10:00 PM

• Director(s): Jonathan Hammond
• Writer(s): Jonathan Hammond
• Producer(s): Regina Pigsley
• Key Cast: Daniel Franzese, Patrick Mayuyu, Kevin Keppy
• Editor(s): Anjoum Agrama
• Cinematographer(s): John Barett
• Sound Designer(s): Melody Gun
• Composer(s): Nick Byron Campbell

Language: English

Runtime: 9m

Country: United States

Synopsis: After two friends banter over the pros and cons of using Grindr, one is left chatting with a mysterious stranger. And he’s getting closer…

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2026 Official Selection: Horror – Short

In order to save her young teammate from the bloody expectations of their coach, baton twirler Emma must confront her own insecurities in the middle of an important competition.

Program: Shorts Block 10 · Sat, Aug 22, 2026 · 9:20 PM

• Director(s): Kate Ohlweiler
• Writer(s): Kate Ohlweiler
• Producer(s): Kate Ohlweiler, Daniel Mohseni, Melissa Romberg
• Key Cast: McKensie Rummel, Pili Schonert, Julie Chapin
• Editor(s): Kate Ohlweiler
• Cinematographer(s): Kimberly Edelson
• Production Designer(s): N/A
• Sound Designer(s): Julian Nowik
• Composer(s): Julian Nowik

Language: English

Runtime: 11m

Country: United States

Synopsis: An experienced baton twirler, Emma, cuts off pieces of her body that she deems to be unsuitable for competition, enabled by her coach, Ethel. However, when Emma accompanies a younger twirler, Wesley, to her first competition, she has to confront her bloody practice, it’s results, and how it begins to affect young and impressionable Wesley.

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2026 Official Selection: Screenplay – Screenplay – Feature Film

Ceremony: Screenplay Awards Ceremony · Sat, Aug 22, 2026 · 6:00 PM

• Writer(s): Michael Peter Bolus
• Producer(s): Castaic
• Key Cast: CA

Language: English

Country: Not Specified

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The extraordinary life of GERTRUDE BELL – often called the “Female Lawrence of Arabia” – whose masterful infiltration of the male-dominated worlds of Victorian England and Middle Eastern sheikdoms, while simultaneously navigating the traumas of an ill-fated love affair, propels her into one of the most fascinating and consequential roles of World War I, including the creation of the modern state of Iraq.

2026 Official Selection: Screenplay – Screenplay – Feature Film

Ceremony: Screenplay Awards Ceremony · Sat, Aug 22, 2026 · 6:00 PM

Some wounds burn forever. A Southern Gothic folk horror reckoning with artistic ownership and the high cost of being seen.

• Writer(s): Jeremy Christensen

Language: English

Country: Not Specified

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When a struggling country singer is compelled to return to the haunted Kentucky holler where she grew up, she must confront her dark past with her grandfather, the town she fled, and the sinister presence of a long dead witch that will kill to escape. As the darkness heals her scars and reshapes her confidence, bodies pile up, and she must choose who to become. A Southern Gothic folk horror reckoning with artistic ownership and the high cost of being seen.

2026 Official Selection: Short Film – Drama

Chaos ensues when a group of college students stumble upon a dead body at a frat party.

• Director(s): Isaiah Silas Wright
• Writer(s): Marcus Lamar Corrothers
• Producer(s): Aja Hinds, Luke Pengelly
• Key Cast: Aja Hinds, Jeff Lawless, Nate Bartoshuk, Zach Cowan, Marcus Lamar Corrothers, Yaya Ogun, Gabriella David

Language: English

Runtime: 9m

Country: United States

Synopsis: Two college students with plans for a one night stand are soon interrupted when they discover a dead body in the Frat House. With little information to go around, and as more party-goers discover the body, their situation—as well as their ideas for a solution—only grow worse. With reputations, careers and futures now hanging in the balance, everyone begins to wonder how responsible they really want to be.

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2026 Official Selection: Screenplay – Screenplay – Feature Film

Ceremony: Screenplay Awards Ceremony · Sat, Aug 22, 2026 · 6:00 PM

In the end, the love we carry is what gives us the strength to let go.

• Writer(s): MP Soldo

Language: English

Country: Not Specified

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Haunted by the loss of the woman he never stopped loving and spiraling toward self-destruction, a scarred musician agrees to a raw on-camera interview that unfolds through music and memory, reliving love, loss, and sacrifice as he discovers that the love we carry is what gives us the strength to let go.

2026 Official Selection: Featurette – SciFi

In a dystopian future, a grieving scientist discovers Earth exists within a single neuron. He launches a desperate quest across space and time to find his son.

Program: Shorts Block 13 · Sun, Aug 23, 2026 · 2:15 PM

• Director(s): Raphael Buisson
• Writer(s): Raphael Buisson
• Producer(s): Raphael Buisson, Jack McMann, Kip Thorne, Rafael Maman, Hsiao Shih-Chun
• Key Cast: David Alan Graf, Kip Thorne, Ranen Warren, Jessica Park, Alan Aymie, Tamara Becker Cimmerian, Christian Haines
• Editor(s): Raphael Buisson
• Cinematographer(s): Adrien BOurguignon
• Production Designer(s): Jessie Clarkson
• Sound Designer(s): Doris Shen
• Composer(s): Augustin Izoard and Raphael Dargent

Language: English

Runtime: 22m

Country: United States

Synopsis: In a dystopian future, a grieving scientist discovers Earth exists within a single neuron. He launches a desperate quest across space and time to find his son.

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2026 Official Selection: Screenplay – Screenplay – Short Film

Ceremony: Screenplay Awards Ceremony · Sat, Aug 22, 2026 · 6:00 PM

An anxious man who struggles with asthma meets the woman who takes his breath away.

• Director(s): Erika Carsella
• Writer(s): Erika Carsella
• Producer(s): Erika Carsella
• Key Cast: Brooke Emerick, Annie Tank

Language: English

Country: Not Specified

World Premiere

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While eating alone at a diner, a socially anxious man believes his insecurity and embarrassment cost him a chance at connection, unaware that the women he idolized may be far more like him than he ever imagined.