ALL THAT WE LOVE

Bringing together an ensemble cast of Margaret Cho, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Kenneth Choi, Atsuko Okatsuka, and Missi Pyle, local filmmaker Yen Tan’s ALL THAT WE LOVE showcases what grief can look like after the loss of a pet. Cho, who gives a wonderfully grounded performance, plays Emma, whose life is pulled in all different directions after tragedy strikes. Co-penned with fellow Austinite, Clay Liford, the pair perfectly balance heart with humor and pain with truth. This slice of life story will certainly stay with you long after the credits roll.

CHINATOWN CHA-CHA

Chinatown Cha-Cha follows Coby Yee, a 93-year-old former nightclub dancer, as she joins the Grant Avenue Follies—a troupe of Chinatown’s golden-age performers—for one last tour. From San Francisco to Havana to China, their performances reignite cultural pride. What started as a quest to document overlooked Chinese American performers became an intimate portrait of resilience, legacy, and the enduring power of art—even in life’s final act.

Centerpiece Party

Celebrate with us for our Centerpiece Party at St. John Studios! Late-night bites, drinks, and ice-cold treats will be served along with cool vibes.

DOCUMENTARY SHORTS

In this compelling block of short documentaries, bold filmmakers pursue truth to uncover the layered depths of our humanity. A Palestinian filmmaker reclaims archival footage of wild flowers to interrogate the politics of land, representation, and erasure (THE FLOWERS STAND SILENTLY, WITNESSING). In an Oxford Thai restaurant, the complexities of home and displacement simmer quietly beneath the surface (HOME AND AWAY). Two Vietnamese refugees recall their surreal entanglement with Hollywood during the filming of Apocalypse Now (WE WERE THE SCENERY). A daughter's return to South Korea initiates a confrontation with intergenerational trauma, exposing the enduring cycles of domestic violence (WELCOME HOME FRECKLES), while in South India, a mother’s unwavering support for her trans daughter becomes an act of radical love (AMMA’S PRIDE). Together, these stories lift the veil on cultural memory, displacement, and resilience in our time.

MADE IN ETHIOPIA

Co-directors Xinyan Yu and Max Duncan's Made in Ethiopia offers an unprecedented look at China’s complex influence on Africa through the lens of a massive industrial park reshaping rural Ethiopia. Filmed over four years, the documentary follows three women whose lives intersect at the crossroads of globalization. As the park promises jobs and progress, painful realities emerge, revealing the tension between industrial ambition and traditional ways of life.

NARRATIVE SHORTS

This year brings another set of diverse narrative short films that has many of their characters restless and in search of something. Resolute intentions drives siblings escaping Syria for a better life in Türkiye (ALMOST CERTAINLY FALSE) and an elderly Chinese woman desperate to stave off dementia (GLORIA) but the future of how their lives continue are mired in uncertainty. In contrast, abstruse motivations propels a locksmith to work unlocking a solitary door in the woods in a Wong Kar Wai-esque setting (SUO JIANG) while a biologist and a sound recordist investigate why a mysterious seemingly feral man is bringing calamity to the area (VOX HUMANA). A daughter seeks understanding and perhaps forgiveness from her mother's sacrifice (HAVE I SWALLOWED YOUR DREAMS) and a young ardent church leader launches an inquisition into a cookie miscreant (29 HOUR FAMINE). Not all pursuits lead to a favorable outcome as sometimes choices are bleak and devastating when a young man shares a last dinner with his mother on the eve of his execution (THE LAST DAY).

NIGHT AND FOG IN KURDISTAN

The Yazidis, a Kurdish-speaking people of what is now Iraqi Kurdistan, have been oft persecuted for maintaining their traditional culture, including a unique religion based on pre-Zoroastrian beliefs. This rendered them a special target for ISIS, which in 2014 massacred and abducted thousands in Shingal, the largest Yazidi-majority city. Kurdish director Shilan Saadi—beset by her own childhood memories of the Iran–Iraq War—runs a filmmaking workshop for survivors of Shingal, teaching seven teenaged girls to document their lives in a Turkish refugee camp. Bonds are forged and strengthened, but soon fray as one after another departs for Europe. Taking a mixed-media approach to the Yazidi genocide and its aftermath, Saadi and her collaborators produce an uncannily powerful group portrait, each frame a witness to perseverance and haunted by absence.

Opening Night Badgeholders Afterparty

PAYING FOR IT

Sook-Yin Lee brings a very personal story of her own to the silver screen with her latest film PAYING FOR IT. After breaking things off with her longtime partner, Chester (Daniel Beirne), Sonny (Emily Lê) has a lot of fun while re-aquatinting herself with the Toronto dating scene. Chester has some trouble at first, but later finds his footing while seeking intimacy with sex workers. Brutally honest and raw, Lee’s insightful and inventive dramedy is not one to be missed.

SABAR BONDA (CACTUS PEARS)

Very different circumstances bring childhood friends Anand and Balya back together in rural India. They find themselves continuously drawn to each other, with their struggles bringing them closer and closer together over a period of a few days. Tender, emotional, and devastatingly intimate, SABAR BONDA (CACTUS PEARS) showcases a queer love story in a place we don’t often see on screen. Winner of the World Dramatic Jury Prize at this year’s Sundance, Rohan Parashuram Kanawade’s quiet and impressive feature debut will leave you in a daze.

STANDING ABOVE THE CLOUDS

Jalena Keane-Lee’s head-on testament to courage and sacrifice of the kiaʻi (protectors), Standing Above the Clouds lays bare the high-stakes battle of Native Hawaiians defending their sacred land against the proposed Thirty Meter Telescope being built—while laying bare the emotional cost of a lifelong fight for justice. More than a protest, Standing Above the Clouds is a profound portrait of the women who carry the weight of history on their shoulders.

SUNSHINE

Leading Filipina director Antoinette Jadaone (AAAFF 2021 award-winner Fan Girl) returns with another gripping tale of youth in turmoil. Winner of the Crystal Bear for Best Film from the Berlin Film Festival Youth Jury, Sunshine opens with the eponymous gymnast (Maris Racal) seemingly on the verge of realizing her Olympic dreams, only to make an unwelcome discovery: she's pregnant by her callow boyfriend Miggy (Elijah Canlas), in a country where abortion is constitutionally banned. Sunshine trawls Manila's underbelly for dubious remedies, besieged by mixed messages that compound her inner confusion—and occasionally joined by a mysterious child of unknown origin and ambiguous purpose.

TEXAS SHORTS

Our Texas Shorts block celebrates the vibrant spirit of the Lone Star State, inviting audiences into a charming foray of creativity, transformation, and self-discovery. An Indian-American retiree rekindles his passion for art in the wake of major life changes (STILL DRAWING). A recently divorced Asian American comedian mines heartbreak for punchlines while haunted by the raw edges of love and loss (PATSY). In 2002 Saigon, a young girl’s coming-of-age is shaped by an unlikely friendship and the silent truths of womanhood and survival (ROOFTOP LEMPICKA). Two queer strangers find connection on a late-night subway, their pasts unfolding in poetic fragments (NEWBIES). And in a quiet suburban library, a solitary clerk pieces together the lives of others through forgotten objects left between the pages of returned books (AN ONGOING LIST OF THINGS FOUND IN THE LIBRARY DROP, USUALLY BEING USED AS BOOKMARKS). These films, united by Texas roots, capture the beautiful universal moments that shape who we are—and who we’re becoming.

THE TRIO HALL

This spectacularly eccentric satire by Su Hui-Yu draws on 1970s Taiwanese TV culture and has a roller-skating Hitler dance with Stalin and Mao do the same with Chiang Kai-shek. A revue show of dictators in cahoots with the entertainment industry.

THIRD ACT

Third Act is a bittersweet father-son story from director Tadashi Nakamura (AAAFF 2021 documentary short film winner Atomic Café: The Noisiest Corner in J-Town), capturing his intimate journey with legendary Asian American artist and activist Robert A. Nakamura after a Parkinson’s diagnosis forces them to confront mortality, legacy, and healing. Through the lens of four generations of Japanese Americans, this tender yet powerful film explores the interwoven threads of family, art, and unprocessed historical trauma—revealing how the act of filmmaking itself becomes an act of love and reconciliation.

WATERDROP

Alone in the world with the death of her grandmother and guardian, thirteen-year-old Suyeon dreads her imminent absorption by the state child-care system. Desperate for a way out, she forms a parasocial relationship with an influencer couple and hatches an improbable scheme: to befriend their adopted seven-year-old daughter Seonyul and ingratiate herself with the family in hopes of being adopted herself. Choi Jongyong's prizewinning feature debut is an unpredictable psychological thriller like no other, anchored by a pair of remarkable child performers and a singularly strange onscreen dynamic.

YOUR TOUCH MAKES OTHERS INVISIBLE

In Rajee Samarasinghe’s visually stunning, genre-bending debut, we are taken on a painful journey many don’t know exist. YOUR TOUCH MAKES OTHERS INVISIBLE uses a mix of haunting imagery, interviews, news clips, and re-enactments to tell us the story of the thousands upon thousands missing members of the Tamil community during the Sri Lankan Civil War which began in the 1980s and lasted for 26 years. Decades later, the families of those who vanished are still left wondering... what happened to their loved ones?