Location: Main Stage (331 Main) | Time: 7pm

VERMONT PREMIERE A provocative examination of celebrity haters, public vitriol, and the toxic price of fame. Director Rory Kennedy depicts how the tragic accidental death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of Rust in 2021 hatched a distressing cottage industry of career-furthering paparazzi and prosecutors maneuvering for payoffs and power. Talented and adored, yet also flawed and prone to explosions of anger, NYC-based Hollywood star Alec Baldwin becomes a lightning rod of envy and online hate as he fights to protect himself and his family from our culture’s revolting empathy gaps. Rory Kennedy’s sober assessment never lets you forget the Hutchins family’s tragedy while walking us through a riveting final act detailing the shocking revelations of Baldwin’s trial in New Mexico. – Jaie Laplante

Location: Main Stage (331 Main) | Time: 11am

From folk traditions and remarkable personal histories to environmental change and rediscovered archival footage, these documentaries offer intimate portraits of people, places, and communities. Together, they explore the ways we preserve memory, carry stories forward, and find meaning in the landscapes and traditions around us.

• A Life Aloft by Clayton Simoncic

  MAINE | Run Time - 12:49

• The Photo Returner by Garret Harkawik

  VERMONT | Run Time - 13:00

• Finger in the Spring by Andie Madsen

  USA | Run Time - 14:47

• Messages from the Marsh by Amy Kaczur

  USA | Run Time - 3:05

• Ball Lightning by Catriona Trina Baker

  USA | Run Time 11:59

• The Last Syllabus by Corey Walker Hendrickson

  VERMONT | Run Time 9:30

• Motorcycle Moment by Les Blank

  USA | Run Time - 6:00

• Salvation Mountain: Leonard Knight by Harrod Blank

  USA | Run Time - 20:00

Location: The Underground (331 Main) | Time: 11am

Caryl is dying -- but she’s funny, direct, stubborn, and determined to live on her own terms. Gorgeously shot against the winter landscapes of rural Vermont, Riding Home follows Caryl through her final months as she draws her family closer. After Caryl’s sister Christie dies by suicide, Caryl and her husband Jim adopt Christie’s adult children, Steph and Drew. Now Caryl gives them what they did not have before: time to ask questions, laugh, grieve, and say goodbye. Intimate and unexpectedly life-affirming, Riding Home shows how facing death honestly can make life feel more vivid.

https://www.ridinghomefilm.com/

Location: Putnam Pop-Up (337 Main) | Time: 11am

Juanita has been unjustly detained in Reynosa, Mexico for over seven years, accused of a crime she didn’t commit and forced to confess in a language she didn’t understand. This intimate portrait follows Ana and Pedro, Juanita’s aunt and uncle, on their thousand-mile journey from the highlands of Guatemala. With the help of their Maya Chuj community and a network of Maya interpreters, they fight for Juanita’s freedom and demand justice from the Mexican authorities, a cause that became internationally recognized for its defense of migrants’ rights and language justice.

https://www.freejuanitafilm.com/

Location: Main Stage (331 Main) | Time: 1pm

In 1969, Bermudian teenager Clyde Best broke into England’s First Division Football (Soccer) and became the first Black superstar of football/soccer’s modern television era. Enduring racism while inspiring millions, Best emerged as the Jackie Robinson of English football, breaking barriers through his on-field excellence and quiet resilience. Overcoming adversity, inspiring a generation of young Black athletes, and later starring in the North American Soccer League, his influence still echoes across the global game. Featuring Clyde Best himself alongside notable interviewees such as Sir Geoff Hurst, Ian Wright, John Barnes, and Viv Anderson, "Transforming the Beautiful Game" is the first feature documentary to tell Best’s full story, an untold chapter of Black sporting history and a powerful testament to quiet revolution and lasting legacy. The film combines never-before-seen archival footage, historic match material, and intimate interviews to restore Clyde Best to his rightful place in football history.

https://clydebest.com/

Location: The Underground (331 Main) | Time: 1pm

From folk traditions and remarkable personal histories to environmental change and rediscovered archival footage, these documentaries offer intimate portraits of people, places, and communities. Together, they explore the ways we preserve memory, carry stories forward, and find meaning in the landscapes and traditions around us.

• A Life Aloft by Clayton Simoncic

  MAINE | Run Time - 12:49

• The Photo Returner by Garret Harkawik

  VERMONT | Run Time - 13:00

• Finger in the Spring by Andie Madsen

  USA | Run Time - 14:47

• Messages from the Marsh by Amy Kaczur

  USA | Run Time - 3:05

• Ball Lightning by Catriona Trina Baker

  USA | Run Time 11:59

• The Last Syllabus by Corey Walker Hendrickson

  VERMONT | Run Time 9:30

• Motorcycle Moment by Les Blank

  USA | Run Time - 6:00

• Salvation Mountain: Leonard Knight by Harrod Blank

  USA | Run Time - 20:00

Location: Putnam Pop-Up (337 Main) | Time: 1pm

These documentaries look at the people, passions, and traditions that shape communities across generations. From Vermont’s mountains and forests to Southern musical traditions, later-life love, and an unexpected athletic team-up, the films celebrate resilience, connection, and the communities we build around the things we love.

• Roots by George Madison

  VERMONT | Run Time - 14:59

• Last of a Kind by Chris Flaherty, Dan Sullivan

  USA | Run Time - 13:13

• Twin Grass: A Tale of Memphis Legends by Ema S Wagner

  USA | Run Time - 19:14

• Love, Later by Katie Stormer

  USA | Run Time - 19:02

• Brick by Brick by Chris Boyd, Nate Riedel

  USA | Run Time - 30:00

Location: Main Stage (331 Main) | Time: 3pm

These narrative shorts explore the complicated spaces between who we are, who others expect us to be, and the lives we inherit from those around us. Through stories of grief, family, aging, faith, rebellion, and unexpected connection, these films find humor and humanity in moments when familiar ways of living begin to shift.

• anyone lived in a pretty how town by Daniel Kreizberg

  LITHUANIA | Run Time - 8:36

• Francine East/West by Elvira Barboza

  FRANCE | Run Time - 22:27

• Final Sale by Olivier Frigon

  QUEBEC | Run Time - 13:00

• SAVERIO by Ellen Ancui

  USA | Run Time - 13:50

• Sit With Me While I Die by Brian Russell

  USA | Run Time - 19:21

• Les Vouèsins by Brian Hawkins 

  USA | Run Time - 14:57

Location: The Underground (331 Main) | Time: 3pm

In the late ’60s and ’70s, a group of architects landed in Vermont with big ideas and a simple plan: to stop just designing buildings and start making them too. Drawing from Bauhaus ideals but rejecting the rigidity of academia, they built by hand, embraced mistakes, and turned architecture into a wild, creative experiment. More than just structures, they built a way of life—one rooted in community, empowerment through doing, and the belief that process matters more than perfection.

Stitched into this story are the decades that shaped design/build, told through the houses that best captured each era. The film moves through the radical homes of the ’60s, where sculptural forms and bold ideas first took shape, into the ’70s, when creativity exploded alongside experiments in alternative energy and materials. By the ’80s, Yestermorrow Design/Build School was founded along with the crown jewel Waitsfield10 house.

Allie grew up in the middle of it all, playing in half-finished houses where learning happened by trying and failing, and trying again. Years later, she picks up a camera to trace the movement’s history, only to find herself pulled back into its ethos—this time, by building a house of her own. Both nostalgic and full of momentum, the film is a celebration of making cool stuff, messing up, and making more cool stuff—a reminder that the best way to build anything is to just start.

https://www.pricklymountainfilm.com/

Location: Putnam Pop-Up (337 Main) | Time: 3pm

These narrative shorts move across time, place, and genre, from wartime folklore and dystopian futures to intimate stories of family, memory, grief, and belonging. Blending surrealism, animation, historical drama, and contemporary realism, the films explore what happens when characters confront forces beyond their control and discover unexpected ways forward.

• The forest of souls by Pierre Gaffié

  FRANCE | Run Time - 5:00

• MIAZEL by George Dogaru

  ROMANIA | Run Time - 

• The Lone Piper by Matthew Kravchuk

  USA | Run Time - 9:39

• The Golem's Return by Nathan Meltz

  USA | Run Time - 8:30

• Spiral by Abbey Lynn Paccia

  USA | Run Time - 3:00

• I don't know if I'll have to say everything again by Vitória Fallavena, Thassilo Weber

  BRAZIL | Run Time - 14:10

• Cinco by Diego Gardo, Víctor Candela

  SPAIN | Run Time - 19:00

• Laurel Moon by Sarah Sherman

  USA | Run Time - 19:59

Location: Main Stage (331 Main) | Time: 5pm

From sugaring camps and rural farms to experimental landscapes and museums devoted to the everyday, these films offer a varied portrait of Vermont and the people who make it home. Moving between documentary, animation, and experimental forms, the block considers tradition, mortality, memory, isolation, and the strange beauty of ordinary life.

• Hell by Parker Croft

  VERMONT | Run Time - 5:00

• The Photo Returner by Garret Harkawik

  VERMONT | Run Time - 13:00

• Sugarhouse by Jesse Kreitzer

  VERMONT | Run Time - 29:26

• 12 Dozen Brown Eggs by Jacques Thomas

  VERMONT | Run Time - 4:58

• The Last Syllabus by Corey Walker Hendrickson

  VERMONT | Run Time - 9:30

• Eons by Natalie Jones

  VERMONT | Run Time - 13:22

• Glorious Obscurity by Ronan Furuta

  VERMONT | Run Time - 10:00

Location: The Underground (331 Main) | Time: 5pm

From Icelandic witches and Irish bog spirits to Bavarian folklore and the revival of ancient mumming traditions, these films draw on myths, rituals, and supernatural figures from across the world. Moving between handcrafted puppetry, folk horror, documentary, and atmospheric fantasy, the block explores the enduring power of stories we inherit, reinvent, and continue to tell.

• Hell by Parker Croft

  USA | Run Time - 5:00

• Grýlu Sker by Kevin McTurk

  Iceland | Run Time - 21:58
  

• Krampus by Florian Ecker

  Germany | Run Time - 29:52

• MUMMERS ARISE by Godfrey Jordan

  Ireland | Run Time - 11:00

• Puca by Conor Kennedy Burke

  Ireland | Run Time - 29:50

Location: Putnam Pop-Up (337 Main) | Time: 5pm

We take a last road trip with Rubin— back to rural Georgia where he once picked cotton as a child. We’re with him and partner John Artis. They’re both lifers— John was the kid who wrongly went to prison with Rubin for killing three whites in a New Jersey bar.

On the road, Rubin rediscovers the forces that forged him: segregation, discrimination, and racial hatred. He’s buoyant, charismatic, determined, undeterred-- but it’s an unforgettable journey back to Ku Klux Klan country.

His story is his resurrection song— from black American destroyer in the ring who persevered—through talent and will against all odds—to become a civil rights icon known around the world. Back in the 60s, Rubin was a contender for the middleweight crown.

Our story is not only how he survived prison— but how he fought to make the wrongly convicted a mainstream issue— and battled to outlaw the death penalty. And it’s the story of John, the athletic kid who lost his life dream— to play for the New York Jets.

But it’s also about their remarkable resilience over decades and their ultimate victory— the saga of two lifers— one famous, one not— who beat the odds, won freedom and have a message for all of us: Live, laugh and love!

https://rubinforeverafighter.com/

Location: Main Stage (331 Main) | Time: 7pm

VERMONT PREMIERE More than 30 years after Iran’s leader Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa, a religious decree calling for the death of author Salman Rushdie over the publication of his novel The Satanic Verses, Rushdie traveled to Chautauqua to speak about the United States as a sanctuary for exiled writers and artists. The event marked the 20th anniversary of a writer-refuge program - a setting meant to celebrate safety and creative freedom. It was there that a young man rushed the stage, intent on killing him with a knife. Using excerpts from Rushdie’s works, including his powerful memoir “Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder”, Alex Gibney’s documentary is both a striking testament to freedom of expression and a defiant response to the attempt on Rushdie’s life.

The film incorporates never-before-seen footage shot by Rushdie’s wife, Rachel Eliza Griffiths, in the days and weeks following the attack. This material offers a graphic, unflinching, and deeply intimate account of what happened, including archival footage of Rushdie’s early career and rise to literary fame, the controversy surrounding The Satanic Verses, and events leading up to the attempted murder. It also traces Rushdie’s physical and spiritual recovery, including the challenges he continues to face, from losing an eye to the reduced use of one hand.

Knife blends reportage with fictionalized dialogues to explore the mindset of the attacker, probing the “why” behind the violence. At its core, the film is a portrait of resilience - of Rushdie’s own extraordinary strength and the love that carried him through this ordeal - and a call to action against censorship and hatred. It argues that art itself can be a form of resistance.

In Knife: The Attempted Murder of Salman Rushdie, Gibney, working with longtime collaborators Andy Grieve (editor) and Will Bates (composer), crafts a poetic dreamscape that reflects how Rushdie views his writing as his own “knife,” a tool to fight back, reclaim his story, and respond to violence with imagination and art.

Location: Main Stage (331 Main) | Time: 11am

Frank Matsura, the orphaned son of a samurai, emigrates to the American West in 1901, settling in remote Washington State. There he joins a community of Native people and newly arrived settlers. He quickly becomes the region’s leading photographer and most beloved citizen. His work, which transcends the prosaic photographs typical of the times, is characterized by unusual self-portraits and playful collaborations with his subjects. His death at age 39 is a blow to all. A century later, the people of the county and the tribes still have pride and a sense of personal connection to him and the work he created.

https://ourmrmatsura.com/

Location: The Underground (331 Main) | Time: 11am

From her crumbling estate on the Potomac, Yolanda Signorelli von Braunhut is engaged in a David-and-Goliath-like battle to wrest control of her late husband Harold’s iconic toy Amazing Live Sea Monkeys back from the corporate men who stole them from her. Harold von Braunhut and Yolanda Signorelli had worked together for forty years before Harold - a genius magician, scientist and inventor – passed away and left his iconic novelty toy in Yolanda’s care. Yolanda alone possesses the true Sea Monkey secret formula and she alone must free them, not only from their captors, but also from the stain of her husband’s dark legacy.

Location: Putnam Pop-Up (337 Main) | Time: 11am

These narrative shorts explore the complicated spaces between who we are, who others expect us to be, and the lives we inherit from those around us. Through stories of grief, family, aging, faith, rebellion, and unexpected connection, these films find humor and humanity in moments when familiar ways of living begin to shift.

• anyone lived in a pretty how town by Daniel Kreizberg

  LITHUANIA | Run Time - 8:36

• Francine East/West by Elvira Barboza

  FRANCE | Run Time - 22:27

• Final Sale by Olivier Frigon

  QUEBEC | Run Time - 13:00

• SAVERIO by Ellen Ancui

  USA | Run Time - 13:50

• Sit With Me While I Die by Brian Russell

  USA | Run Time - 19:21

• Les Vouèsins by Brian Hawkins 

  USA | Run Time - 14:57

Location: Main Stage (331 Main) | Time: 1pm

These documentaries look at the people, passions, and traditions that shape communities across generations. From Vermont’s mountains and forests to Southern musical traditions, later-life love, and an unexpected athletic team-up, the films celebrate resilience, connection, and the communities we build around the things we love.

• Roots by George Madison

  VERMONT | Run Time - 14:59

• Last of a Kind by Chris Flaherty, Dan Sullivan

  USA | Run Time - 13:13

• Twin Grass: A Tale of Memphis Legends by Ema S Wagner

  USA | Run Time - 19:14

• Love, Later by Katie Stormer

  USA | Run Time - 19:02

• Brick by Brick by Chris Boyd, Nate Riedel

  USA | Run Time - 30:00

Location: The Underground (331 Main) | Time: 1pm

In 1969, Bermudian teenager Clyde Best broke into England’s First Division Football (Soccer) and became the first Black superstar of football/soccer’s modern television era. Enduring racism while inspiring millions, Best emerged as the Jackie Robinson of English football, breaking barriers through his on-field excellence and quiet resilience. Overcoming adversity, inspiring a generation of young Black athletes, and later starring in the North American Soccer League, his influence still echoes across the global game. Featuring Clyde Best himself alongside notable interviewees such as Sir Geoff Hurst, Ian Wright, John Barnes, and Viv Anderson, "Transforming the Beautiful Game" is the first feature documentary to tell Best’s full story, an untold chapter of Black sporting history and a powerful testament to quiet revolution and lasting legacy. The film combines never-before-seen archival footage, historic match material, and intimate interviews to restore Clyde Best to his rightful place in football history.

https://clydebest.com/

Location: Putnam Pop-Up (337 Main) | Time: 1pm

Cliff is a young man looking for love in all the wrong places in a small desert town. When his birth mother, Marg, arrives unexpectedly they start to connect. But her secrets soon catch up with them.

https://www.cloudypicturesinc.com/

Location: Main Stage (331 Main) | Time: 3pm

These narrative shorts move across time, place, and genre, from wartime folklore and dystopian futures to intimate stories of family, memory, grief, and belonging. Blending surrealism, animation, historical drama, and contemporary realism, the films explore what happens when characters confront forces beyond their control and discover unexpected ways forward.

• The forest of souls by Pierre Gaffié

  FRANCE | Run Time - 5:00

• MIAZEL by George Dogaru

  ROMANIA | Run Time - 

• The Lone Piper by Matthew Kravchuk

  USA | Run Time - 9:39

• The Golem's Return by Nathan Meltz

  USA | Run Time - 8:30

• Spiral by Abbey Lynn Paccia

  USA | Run Time - 3:00

• I don't know if I'll have to say everything again by Vitória Fallavena, Thassilo Weber

  BRAZIL | Run Time - 14:10

• Cinco by Diego Gardo, Víctor Candela

  SPAIN | Run Time - 19:00

• Laurel Moon by Sarah Sherman

  USA | Run Time - 19:59

Location: The Underground (331 Main) | Time: 3pm

When the departure of a longtime manager threatens to shutter an already struggling movie theater in small-town Maine, a band of misfit employees fights to save the place that brought them together.

​​https://savingblackbear.com/

Location: Putnam Pop-Up (337 Main) | Time: 3pm

In the late ’60s and ’70s, a group of architects landed in Vermont with big ideas and a simple plan: to stop just designing buildings and start making them too. Drawing from Bauhaus ideals but rejecting the rigidity of academia, they built by hand, embraced mistakes, and turned architecture into a wild, creative experiment. More than just structures, they built a way of life—one rooted in community, empowerment through doing, and the belief that process matters more than perfection.

Stitched into this story are the decades that shaped design/build, told through the houses that best captured each era. The film moves through the radical homes of the ’60s, where sculptural forms and bold ideas first took shape, into the ’70s, when creativity exploded alongside experiments in alternative energy and materials. By the ’80s, Yestermorrow Design/Build School was founded along with the crown jewel Waitsfield10 house.

Allie grew up in the middle of it all, playing in half-finished houses where learning happened by trying and failing, and trying again. Years later, she picks up a camera to trace the movement’s history, only to find herself pulled back into its ethos—this time, by building a house of her own. Both nostalgic and full of momentum, the film is a celebration of making cool stuff, messing up, and making more cool stuff—a reminder that the best way to build anything is to just start.

https://www.pricklymountainfilm.com/

Location: Main Stage (331 Main) | Time: 5pm

From her crumbling estate on the Potomac, Yolanda Signorelli von Braunhut is engaged in a David-and-Goliath-like battle to wrest control of her late husband Harold’s iconic toy Amazing Live Sea Monkeys back from the corporate men who stole them from her. Harold von Braunhut and Yolanda Signorelli had worked together for forty years before Harold - a genius magician, scientist and inventor – passed away and left his iconic novelty toy in Yolanda’s care. Yolanda alone possesses the true Sea Monkey secret formula and she alone must free them, not only from their captors, but also from the stain of her husband’s dark legacy.

Location: The Underground (331 Main) | Time: 5pm

Cliff is a young man looking for love in all the wrong places in a small desert town. When his birth mother, Marg, arrives unexpectedly they start to connect. But her secrets soon catch up with them.

https://www.cloudypicturesinc.com/

Location: Putnam Pop-Up (337 Main) | Time: 5pm

From sugaring camps and rural farms to experimental landscapes and museums devoted to the everyday, these films offer a varied portrait of Vermont and the people who make it home. Moving between documentary, animation, and experimental forms, the block considers tradition, mortality, memory, isolation, and the strange beauty of ordinary life.

• Hell by Parker Croft

  VERMONT | Run Time - 5:00

• The Photo Returner by Garret Harkawik

  VERMONT | Run Time - 13:00

• Sugarhouse by Jesse Kreitzer

  VERMONT | Run Time - 29:26

• 12 Dozen Brown Eggs by Jacques Thomas

  VERMONT | Run Time - 4:58

• The Last Syllabus by Corey Walker Hendrickson

  VERMONT | Run Time - 9:30

• Eons by Natalie Jones

  VERMONT | Run Time - 13:22

• Glorious Obscurity by Ronan Furuta

  VERMONT | Run Time - 10:00

Location: Main Stage (331 Main) | Time: 7pm

30TH ANNIVERSARY The scintillating fiction-feature debut of writer/director Mary Harron (AMERICAN PSYCHO) and one of the most controversial independent films of the 1990s, I SHOT ANDY WARHOL stars an electric Lili Taylor as Valerie Solanas, a militant feminist whose attempted murder of Andy Warhol brought instant fame to her radically anti-male “SCUM Manifesto.” Dropping out of graduate school in the mid-60s, the brilliant yet volatile Solanas survived in New York City as a destitute artist, sex worker and panhandler, soon striking up a friendship with Warhol superstar Candy Darling that brought her briefly into the orbit of the world’s premier pop artist. With vivid, hallucinatory attention to historical detail, Harron captures the explosive cross-pollination of New York’s political and artistic countercultures as well as the creativity, snobbery and decadence at the heart of the legendary Factory. Anchored by pitch-perfect performances — and featuring a blistering score by John Cale, as well as covers of ‘60s hits by some of the 1990s’ most iconic bands (R.E.M., Wilco) — I SHOT ANDY WARHOL is an incisive portrait of a rebel without an outlet and the soon-to-be-lost generation she came to define.

Join us immediately following the screening for a conversation with Director Mary Harron!