Cinemafile

Director Praise Odigie Paige's beautiful narrative short Birdie's will have its World Premiere at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival, BIRDIE is a narrative short set in 1970’s Virginia, following a young Nigerian refugee trying to keep her family together in the aftermath of the Biafran War. Director Praise Odigie Paige BIRDIE is a coming-of-age film told through the eyes of 16-year-old English, the younger daughter of a Nigerian family living in a Catholic charity home in rural Virginia. As the war ends, the arrival of a new refugee unsettles their fragile balance and drives a wedge between English and her sister Birdie, leaving English to face the truths she’s been avoiding about her father, her family, and what is left of their home.

About the filmmaker - Praise Odigie Paige is a Nigerian-born filmmaker whose work centers girls and women on the edge of quiet transformation. Her films are intimate and atmospheric, often unfolding in charged historical moments where private desires collide with larger social forces. She is currently developing her debut feature, Igboland (working title), an intimate period drama about faith, girlhood, and desire at the edge of war. She lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

Director Brittany Shyne’s Oscar Shortlisted Feature Documentary seamlessly weaves together the stories of three Black generational farmers to create a collective and intimate portrait of farming today, SEEDS is a moving and powerful exploration of their lives, joys and struggles as well as the fragility of legacy and owning land. With remarkable intimacy, the film documents their everyday lives - cotton harvesting, chasing cows, dealing with broken machinery and financial precarities. The camera relishes simple moments - conversations through car windows, candy from grandma’s purse as it captures moments of warmth, joy and fulfillment - turning them into striking vignettes that honor the families’ connection to the land and each other. First-time Director Brittany Shyne stops by to talk about her own nine-year journey to bring thus multi-dimensional to us and how their stories have became more prescient with every passing day.

About the filmmaker - Brittany Shyne is an independent filmmaker based in Dayton, Ohio. Working in the narrative and non-fiction artform, her work seeks to depict the complexity of everyday life by examining themes such as personal histories, alienation and cultural modernization. Her films lyrically weave together frameworks of race, class, culture, identity and family lineage. She has worked as a cinematographer on films such as THE DEBUTANTES (Tribeca,’24) and Julia Reichert and Steve Bognar’s academy award-winning film AMERICAN FACTORY. Shyne was the recipient of the 2021 Artist Disruptor Award from the Center of Cultural Power. Her film SEEDS is her first feature documentary. . She is an alumni of the Chicken & (Egg) celerator Lab and was a Firelight Media Documentary Fellow (2020-2022). Shyne received her MFA in Documentary Media from Northwestern University and a BFA in Motion Pictures from Wright State University.

Michael Apted’s The Long Way Home, a revealing, rollicking portrait of the Soviet underground rock legend Boris Grebenshchikov, who became the first to record in the West during the early, optimistic days of Glasnost—not quite believing he would collaborate with Dave Stewart, Annie Lennox, Chrissie Hynde, and Ray Cooper—was released to critical acclaim after its broadcast in the UK and premiere at Sundance, but has largely disappeared these past 30 years. Thanks to Steven Lawrence, the film’s producer, THE LONG WAY HOME: REMASTERED AND EXPANDED (2026) will now have a second life in this newly remastered edition. In addition, together with Susanne Rostock, the film’s editor, he has created an epilogue charting Grebenshchikov’s fate following the release of his US album Radio Silence as an exile and an outspoken critic of Putin’s war in Ukraine. The new epilogue partially fulfills Apted’s own ambitions to make a sequel before his death in 2021.

Mickey (Zelda Adams) faces a deadly diagnosis, but she isn’t ready to die yet. Heading into the woods with her father (John Adams), she seeks dark magic at the hands of mysterious recluse, Solveig (Toby Poser) , who has an intimate relationship with death and roots that go deep in the land. For three days, Mickey endures Solveig’s extreme rituals of death magic. But every cure has its cost, and every curse is another’s gift. As buried secrets claw their way to the surface, the veil between the living and the dead begins to unravel, and Mickey finds herself facing dark truths that only the dead and the dying can know. Co-directors and co-screenwriters and co-stars John Adams, Zelda Adams, and Toby Poser stop by for a rollicking conversation on the making of Mother of Flies, the community of family and close friends that make their work possible and the deeper meaning of making films that celebrate life.

About the filmmakers - John Adams, Toby Poser, and daughters Lulu and Zelda Adams (collectively known as The Adams Family) have been making films under the creative marquee of Wonder Wheel Productions since 2010. Features include The Deeper You Dig (2019, Dark Sky Films), Hellbender (2021, Shudder), Where the Devil Romas (2023, Tubi), and Mother of Flies (2025, Shudder). The family’s films have been represented by Yellow Veil Pictures for sales, festivals, and theatrical runs since 2021. John and Toby also directed the sci-fi feature Hell Hole (2024, Shudder) and the episode 'Plastic Smile' for Screambox’s “Tales from the Void” (2024). The soundtrack for Adams Family films is performed by the family’s band, H6LLB6ND6R.

Follow director Adam Bhala Lough as he sets out to better understand the technology and people at the center of the AI boom. His quest sends him on a path towards the father of AI, OpenAI CEO, Sam Altman. When he isn’t able to sit down with Altman himself, Adam travels to India to create an AI version of him to interview instead. DEEPFAKING SAM ALTMAN is a verité documentary with a sci-fi comedic twist, the film becomes a sharp, surprisingly moving exploration of how we’re all trying to navigate the chaotic new world of artificial intelligence, and what happens when the answers we seek can’t (or won’t) come from their human source. Our guest Adam Bhala Lough (Telemarketers, Bomb the System, Alt-Right: Age of Rage) joins us to talk about the inspiration for making DEEPFAKING SAM ALTMAN and why he hopes that his film will help foster a broader conversations on the looming impact that AI will have on all of us.

About the filmmaker - Adam Bhala Lough is a Punjabi‑American film director, producer, and writer known for crafting award‑winning, widely viewed film and television projects. Lough burst onto the scene at 19 when he directed three music videos for MF DOOM. At 23 he premiered his narrative feature debut Bomb the System (2002), a graffiti‑culture drama that earned an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best First Feature. His follow‑up, WEAPONS (2007), starring a then‑emerging Nick Cannon and Paul Dano, was nominated for the Sundance Grand Jury Prize and distributed by Lionsgate. Transitioning to documentary, Lough co‑directed The Upsetter: The Life and Music of Lee Scratch Perry (2008), narrated by Academy Award‑winner Benicio del Toro, and the incendiary Lil Wayne portrait The Carter (2009). The Upsetter has since been inducted into the Criterion Collection. His Sundance‑premiering The New Radical (2017) featured a rare interview with Julian Assange inside the Ecuadorian Embassy and explored Bitcoin and 3‑D‑printed guns. Alt‑Right: Age of Rage (2018) followed, airing on Netflix (U.S.) and BBC (U.K.) after a fearless year embedded with both neo‑Nazi and ANTIFA. Lough’s HBO Original doc‑series Telemarketers (2023), which he co‑directed and executive‑produced with Josh and Benny Safdie, became the most‑watched doc‑series on HBO MAX upon release.

In the wake of the opioid epidemic, insurance companies were now required to cover addiction and mental health treatment at the same reimbursement rate as other medical conditions, but without any of the regulations, a move that effectively monetized the 40 million Americans struggling with these issues. Shot over the course of three years, Shuffle follows three individuals trapped by the insurance-fueled cycle of treatment fraud spreading across the country. whose future depend not on getting into treatment, but on getting out alive. A journey of discovery and transformation, these personal stories provide the framework for a more public investigation with the help of an FBI informant, an insurance analyst and the former Executive Director of a Philadelphia-based treatment facility shuttered for fraud., Shuffle unravels a web of public policy and private interest preying on a desperate population for the sake of profit. Director Benjamin Flaherty joins us on Cinemafile to talk about his approach to storytelling, “My goal was to craft a narrative that refused to flatten them into victims or heroes, and instead allowed their contradictions to remain intact. Directing SHUFFLE was an act of witness, accountability, and ultimately love.”

About the filmmaker - Writer/Director/Producer/Executive Producer Benjamin Flaherty is an Austin-based filmmaker with a diverse collection of work - from documentary and art films with Lou Reed & Lola Schnabel to commercial spots for major brands. His short form PSA’s have been awarded at Cannes, D&AD, One Show and the Clios. His documentary feature debut, SHUFFLE, won the Jury Award for Best Documentary Feature at SXSW 2025.

Shortlisted for this year’s Best Feature Documentary Oscar, Director Brandon Kramer’s deeply empathetic story begins with the despicable attack that took place on the morning of October 7, 2023, while Israeli-American Liat Atzili and her husband Aviv were at home when Hamas attacked their kibbutz. By nightfall, Liat and Aviv are captives in Gaza along with 250 other people - 12 of whom, like Liat, are American citizens. Caught between international diplomacy and a rapidly escalating war, their family must face their own uncertainty and conflicting perspectives in the pursuit of Liat and Aviv's release. This agonizing process, and the ultimate fate of their loved ones, challenges how the members of the family understand themselves and their place in the conflict. Our guest, director Brandon Kramer, through the intimate lens of a family's experience, HOLDING LIAT poses complex questions of identity across generations, as the family is thrust into the epicenter of a global conflict rapidly unfolding in real-time.

About the filmmaker - Brandon Kramer is a Washington, DC-based filmmaker and co-founder of Meridian Hill Pictures with his brother Lance. Brandon directed THE FIRST STEP (Tribeca, AFI DOCS); CITY OF TREES (Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, PBS, Netflix); and the Webby Award-winning independent documentary series THE MESSY TRUTH (CNN). Brandon is a Film Independent Fellow, a DC Commission on the Arts & Humanities Fellow, a regular collaborator with Kartemquin Films in Chicago, and has served as a media teaching artist for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Brandon holds a bachelor's degree in film and cultural anthropology from Boston University.

In the heart of the Mississippi Delta, the village of Glendora may seem quiet and remote. But beneath its stillness lies a vibrant, tightly knit African-American community whose strength, resilience, and creativity thrive despite chronic scarcity. GLENDORA is the result of five years of close collaboration between filmmaker and townspeople—an intimate portrait of life where economic fragility meets profound cultural wealth. GLENDORA is a film made with—and by—the people who live there. It amplifies voices too often unheard, offering a powerful story of culture, resilience, creativity, and collective memory from a town long overlooked—but not easily forgotten.

About the filmmaker - Cinematographer, Writer Isabelle Armand is a New York–based documentary photographer and filmmaker whose work interweaves photography, film, and oral testimonies to explore the complex layers of people whose histories, lives, and potential have long been undervalued. Her acclaimed book Levon and Kennedy: Mississippi Innocence Project (powerHouse Books, 2018), which documents the wrongful convictions of two men, has received wide recognition. Her images are held in the collections of the Brooklyn Museum, Akron Art Museum, and Portland Museum of Art. Armand’s work has been featured in The New York Times, Art in America, The Economist, The Daily Beast, and others. She recently completed her first feature documentary, Glendora, and is currently editing a photo book by the same title.

In co-directors Michael Mabbott and Lucah Rosenberg-Lee's Peabody Award winning documentary portrait, ANY OTHER WAY: THE JACKIE SHANE STORY a star is reborn. With an outsize stage presence that eclipsed R&B greats like Etta James and Little Richard, Black trans soul singer Jackie Shane was the real deal. After mysteriously vanishing from public view for almost 40 years, this little-known icon is finally given her ultimate due. In an era when voices like hers were silenced and marginalized, Jackie blazed an incandescent trail from her native Nashville to the top of the charts in 1960s Toronto, where she ruled the nightclub scene. With few recordings of her legendary performances, this film brings Jackie to life in her own words through never-before-heard phone conversations, dazzling rotoscope animation and a newly released song, part of an incredible soundtrack that seals Jackie’s place as one of the greatest soul performers of the 20th century. Co-directors Michael Mabbott and Lucah Rosenberg-Lee join us to talk about their own journey into the world of Jackie Shane, working with Executive Producer Elliot Page, watching others learn about the artist and the person, Jackie Shane.

In pre-internet 1987, Conor and his dog Sandy live a life of seclusion, lost in the slow-rendering graphics of early Macs and televisions aglow with late night horror movie marathons. But when he begins playing OBEX, a new and mysterious, state-of-the-art computer game, he finds himself trapped in a low-tech, but high-stakes analog hellscape as the line between reality and game blurs. Audacious and uncanny, writer-director Albert Birney's OBEX is a delightfully skewed lo-fi fantasy. Shot in striking black and white, this surreally nostalgic nightmare revisits the dawn of personal computing to reflect on the loneliness of our always-online present day.

About the filmmaker - Albert Birney is a Baltimore based filmmaker. He has directed six feature films: The Beast Pageant (co-directed with Jon Moses), Sylvio and Strawberry Mansion (both co-directed with Kentucker Audley), Tux and Fanny, Eyeballs in the Darkness and OBEX. Sylvio was named on eof the ten-best films of 2017 by The New Yorker. His films have premiered at Sundance, SXSW, the Maryland Film Festival, Slamdance and the Ottawa International Animation Festival. In 2021, he released a Tux and Fanny video game that he made with Gabriel Koenig.