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100 METERS
Togashi is a naturally gifted runner who wins every race effortlessly. In sixth grade, he meets Komiya, who is full of determination but lacks technique, and takes him under his wing. Years later the two meet again as rivals on the track and reveal their true selves. Based on the popular manga, the director of the hit On-Gaku: Our Sound takes on the sports anime delivering a thrilling mix of competition and heart.
Fri, Oct 10 9:45 PM Sat, Oct 11 4:20 PM
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ARIEL
Agustina travels to the Azores Islands to perform in a production of The Tempest. But upon her arrival she is thrown by the peculiar eccentricities of the inhabitants. She soon finds Ariel, who serves as a guide to this otherworldly and ambiguous space. Born out of an exploration of Ariel from The Tempest, the film incorporates a variety of characters from Shakespeare's work, reflecting on the poetry, humanity, and depth of the texts.
Sat, Oct 11 12:30 PM Sun, Oct 12 7:00 PM
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DENOUEMENT HAPPY HOUR
Sit down with artist Jessie Kraemer, reflect on a film fest viewing experience, then watch as she turns that into a piece of art you can take home with you!
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EPIGRAPH COFFEE TALK: MAKE YOUR OWN DAMN MOVIE
Start your morning with a coffee from fix! and conversation. Join these young filmmakers in a discussion about working in low or no-budget cinema in today's ever changing cinematic landscape.
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EPIGRAPH COFFEE TALK: RADICAL FILMMAKING
Start your morning with a coffee from fix! and conversation. Join us as we discuss revolutionary cinema across decades and the importance of art as activism.
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FILMSPOTTING LIVE
Join co-host Adam Kempenaar (UI professor) and longtime Chicago Tribune film critic Michael Phillips for a special live taping! Inspired by Opening Night film Train Dreams, Adam and Michael will share their Top 5 Movies Adapted from Iowa Writers. Filmspotting has produced "weekly installments of affable, insightful film analysis since 2005" (The New York Times).
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FUCKTOYS
Join AP as she tries to lift a curse in a 16mm bubblegum grindhouse adventure through sunny and romantic Trashtown, USA. This raucous odyssey reimagines The Fool’s Journey of the Major Arcana of the Tarot through a dreamy landscape of smut, filth and psychics as AP scooters her way deeper into the night colliding with a series of larger-than-life characters and absurd situations—a rich collage of humid industrial landscapes and pastel cotton candy skies.
Fri, Oct 10 9:00 PM Sat, Oct 11 9:45 PM
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HEDDA
Nia DaCosta (Little Woods) writes/directs a provocative, modern reimagining of Henrik Ibsen’s classic play, Hedda Gabler. Hedda (Tessa Thompson) finds herself torn between the lingering ache of a past love and the quiet suffocation of her present life. Over the course of one charged night, long-repressed desires and hidden tensions erupt—pulling her and everyone around her into a spiral of manipulation, passion, and betrayal.
Fri, Oct 10 7:00 PM Sun, Oct 12 6:45 PM
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I AM NIGHT AT NOONDAY
In Marseille, the gates and doors are multiplying. The streets are closing. The whole city is affected. Distrust and fear have taken hold everywhere. To free the city from this spreading evil, an unlikely Don Quixote and a scooter-riding Sancho Panza embark on an improbable journey, battling with the castles that are colonizing the city and its spirit in a modern docunarrative interpretation of Cervantes.
Fri, Oct 10 1:00 PM Sat, Oct 11 5:10 PM Sun, Oct 12 4:30 PM
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KONTINENTAL '25
When Orsolya oversees the eviction of a local elderly man, the unintended consequences come to shatter her and her understanding of her place in society. Spiraling into an existential crisis, she traverses the city, meeting with various people in her life — her husband, an old friend, her former student, a priest — to consider and reconcile her place in an increasingly maddening modern world in Radu Jude’s furious and hysterical reimagining of Roberto Rossellini's Europa '51.
Fri, Oct 10 7:30 PM Sun, Oct 12 4:50 PM
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LITTLE AMÉLIE OR THE CHARACTER OF RAIN
The world is a perplexing, peaceful mystery to Amélie until a miraculous encounter with chocolate ignites her wild sense of curiosity. As she develops a deep attachment to her family’s housekeeper, Nishio-san, Amélie discovers the wonders of nature and deeper emotional truths of her family’s idyllic life as foreigners in post-war Japan. Adapted from the autobiographical novel by Amélie Nothomb, this tender, poignant and visually stunning story shows us the healing power of human connection.
Sat, Oct 11 11:00 AM Sun, Oct 12 11:00 AM
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LIVE READ: LET YOUR DARLINGS LIVE
Witness the culmination of a four-week screenwriting class taught by novelist and screenwriter Camila Urioste as actors perform short scenes from the scripts created in the workshop. Experience firsthand how text comes to life when writers and actors collaborate.
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LOVE & POP
Tokyo schoolgirl Hiromi and her friends spend the summer going on dates with older men for money. Armed with only a cellphone, Hiromi sets out to date her way to ¥128,000 in order to purchase an expensive topaz ring before the mall closes for the day. Based on the novel by Ryu Murakami, Love & Pop is the live action feature debut from Hideaki Anno (Neon Genesis Evangelion).
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MONOGRAPH SHORTS 2025
A Refocus Film Festival shorts block, featuring five selections that expand our understanding of art and adaptation—from gorgeous stop-motion animation to intimate family stories and experimental work.
Fri, Oct 10 6:30 PM Sat, Oct 11 6:30 PM Sun, Oct 12 7:00 PM
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NO OTHER CHOICE
After being unemployed for several years, a man devises a unique plan to secure a new job: eliminate his competition. Director Park Chan-wook (Oldboy) adapts Donald Westlake's The Axe in this delirious and chilling satire of workplace politics.
Sat, Oct 11 6:55 PM Sun, Oct 12 6:30 PM
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ORWELL: 2+2=5
George Orwell was one of the most radical and visionary authors of the 20th Century whose work foretold a chilling, all-too-believable authoritarian future. Raoul Peck (I Am Not Your Negro) seamlessly interweaves historical clips, readings from Orwell's diary, cinematic references, and dynamic modern day footage to craft not only a definitive portrait of the writer himself, but an entirely fresh take on how remarkably relevant and prophetic his work has become.
Sat, Oct 11 1:10 PM Sun, Oct 12 7:30 PM
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PARTITION + THE FLOWERS STAND, SILENTLY WITNESSING
Partition fuses archival footage from the British occupation of Palestine with audio recorded of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon—tracing lines of continuity left by seismic displacement—and presents silent films gathered in imperial collections that hold histories that have barely been told and ways of colonial seeing that seep into the present.
Fri, Oct 10 4:00 PM Sat, Oct 11 1:00 PM
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PETER HUJAR'S DAY
Director Ira Sachs (Passages) freely and imaginatively recreates a conversation recorded in 1974 between photographer Peter Hujar (Ben Wishaw) and writer Linda Rosenkrantz (Rebecca Hall). The wonderfully discursive exchange focused on a single 24 hours in the life of Hujar, the brilliant and famously uncompromising artist who was one of the most important figures in downtown New York’s legendary cultural scene of the 70s and 80s.
Sat, Oct 11 11:15 AM10:15 PM Sun, Oct 12 12:00 PM
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PLAY IT AS IT LAYS
Maria (Tuesday Weld) is frustrated with her loveless marriage to an ambitious film director who would rather work on his career than their relationship and numbs herself with drugs and sex with strangers. Only her friendship with a sensitive gay movie producer (Anthony Perkins) offers a semblance of solace. But even that relationship proves to be fleeting amidst the empty decadence of Hollywood in this adaptation of the Joan Didion novel.
Fri, Oct 10 1:30 PM Sun, Oct 12 4:05 PM
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POSTSCRIPT OPENING NIGHT AFTER PARTY
Mingle with fellow festival goers to celebrate opening night of the fest! Chat about the opening night film and compare plans for the rest of the fest. Sip on a special cocktail created by FilmScene staff just for this occasion.
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REFOCUS REANIMATIONS
Sit down with artist Jessie Kraemer, reflect on a film fest viewing experience, then watch as she turns that into a piece of art you can take home with you!
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REFOCUS REVISION: NIGHT & DAY
An ambient film and sound installation created by Patrick O’Connor observing the two-sidedness of Iowa City. Taking place entirely in the Pedestrian Mall, analog projectors and grainy B&W film loops provide viewers a ghostly perspective on this city’s split personality.
Sat, Oct 11 12:00 PM Sun, Oct 12 12:00 PM
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RIVER OF GRASS (2025)
Director Sasha Wortzel reimagines environmentalist Marjory Stoneman Douglas’s celebrated book, The Everglades: River of Grass, which transformed the public’s understanding of the area from worthless swamps to an essential source of freshwater, enabling the ecosystem to endure, just barely, today.
Fri, Oct 10 3:45 PM Sat, Oct 11 2:30 PM Sun, Oct 12 2:15 PM
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ROMERÍA
Marina must travel to Spain’s Atlantic coast to obtain a signature for a scholarship application from the paternal grandparents she has never met. Stirring long-buried emotions, reviving tenderness, and uncovering unspoken wounds tied to the past, Marina pieces together fragmented memories of the parents she barely remembers. Using her mother's letters as a backbone to the story Carla Simón crafts a film with universal resonance through its exploration of family bonds.
Fri, Oct 10 12:30 PM Sat, Oct 11 7:30 PM
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SAÏD EFFENDI
After schoolteacher Saïd Effendi and his family are evicted from their home, they must settle into their modest new neighborhood in 1950s Baghdad. Tensions come to boiling point when the Effendi children butt heads with the cobbler's kids. Adapted from the short story "Fight" by writer Edmond Sabri, this landmark work of Iraqi cinema takes influence from Italian neorealism to explore one man's struggle to balance parenting, community harmony, and personal ethics.
Fri, Oct 10 4:45 PM Sun, Oct 12 2:30 PM
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SHE'S THE HE
Director Siobhan McCarthy takes inspiration from early 2000s teen rom-coms while flipping the heternormative script in an adaption of their unproduced play. Highschool best friends Ethan and Alex pretend to be trans women in order to stop rumors that they are gay and get Alex closer to his crush, Sasha, but when Ethan puts on a dress, she realizes she really is trans.
Fri, Oct 10 6:30 PM Sat, Oct 11 9:30 PM
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SUBTEXT
Raise a glass and mingle with the artists of Refocus and Iowa City Book Festival, as well as community VIPs.
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THE HIPS OF J.W.
Inspired by a postcard that French critic Serge Daney sent to director João César Monteiro, this singular piece of cinema ostensibly sees a director (Monteiro) putting on a production of an adaptation of August Strindberg’s novel Inferno. But with writing credits given to Pier Paolo Pasolini, Teixeira de Pascoaes, and André Breton alongside Strindberg and Monteiro, the levels of adaptation are unwieldy to the point of irrelevance.
Fri, Oct 10 9:15 PM Sun, Oct 12 3:20 PM
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THE ICE TOWER
Jeanne (Clara Pacini), a 15-year-old runaway orphan, witnesses the shoot for a film adaptation of the fairy tale The Snow Queen and becomes fascinated by its star, Cristina (Marion Cotillard), an actress who is just as mysterious and alluring as the Queen she is playing. When her fascination becomes all consuming, Jeanne cons her way in front of the camera, doing anything she can to get closer to the object of her desire.
Fri, Oct 10 6:15 PM Sat, Oct 11 9:00 PM Sun, Oct 12 4:00 PM
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THE INCOGNITO LOUNGE: FRIENDS OF DENIS JOHNSON
Join with friends, family, and admirers of Denis Johnson (author of Train Dreams) for readings, personal stories, and even a surprise or two to honor his legacy.
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THE SPOOK WHO SAT BY THE DOOR
Based on the best-selling novel of the same name by Sam Greenlee, director Ivan Dixon explored what he considered to be “a fantasy” as an African-American male in the United States with the deeply complex story of Dan Freeman, the fictional mild-mannered first black CIA agent, who uses his specialized paramilitary training to organize a black revolution—one of the most daring political films of the 1970s that remains just as significant today.
Sat, Oct 11 1:30 PM Sun, Oct 12 1:10 PM
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TRAIN DREAMS
Based on Denis Johnson's beloved novella, Train Dreams is the moving portrait of Robert Grainier, a logger and railroad worker who leads a life of unexpected depth and beauty in the rapidly-changing America of the early 20th Century.
Thu, Oct 9 7:00 PM Sat, Oct 11 4:00 PM
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TWO PROSECUTORS
Based on the novel by Georgy Demidov, the latest from celebrated Ukrainian director Sergey Loznitsa follows a young, principled prosecutor's struggle to challenge a system of mass extermination, as he risks everything to seek justice during Stalin's Great Purge. Convinced of a prisoner's innocence, he begins a determined effort to challenge the local secret police, leading him all the way to Moscow to seek the support of the Prosecutor General of the Soviet Union.
Fri, Oct 10 3:30 PM Sat, Oct 11 11:30 AM
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UNFOCUS AFTER PARTY AT THE GREEN HOUSE
Go wind down at the Green House Unfocus After Party from 10pm to 12am. Enjoy music provided by Ayron Messerschmitt, plus $1 off drinks for festival goers and complimentary desserts!
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VIDEOHEAVEN
Inspired by and featuring clips from Daniel Herbert's Videoland: Movie Culture at the American Video Store, this entirely archival documentary takes us on a journey into the socio-cultural hub, consumer mecca, and source of existential dread of the video rental store through the films of the era with narration from Maya Hawke—diving into a lost phenomenon that forever changed the way we interact with movies.
Sat, Oct 11 3:00 PM Sun, Oct 12 12:00 PM
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WHISKEY TANGO FILMSCENE
Join us for a night of storytelling with guests of Refocus Film Festival to hear their war stories about creating art and getting it out into the world while sipping some Woody Creek Distillers whiskey!
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WITH HASAN IN GAZA
Footage of life in Gaza from 2001 of a search for a former prison mate from 1989 was recently rediscovered. The search resulted in an unexpected road trip with Hasan, a local guide whose fate remains unknown. Refocus Film Festival alum Kamal Aljafari (A Fidai Film) transforms this forgotten footage into a cinematic reflection on memory, loss and the passage of time, capturing a Gaza of the past and lives that may never be found again.
Fri, Oct 10 2:00 PM Sat, Oct 11 3:30 PM Sun, Oct 12 12:30 PM
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WTO/99
An immersive archival documentary that reanimates the clash between the then-emerging World Trade Organization (WTO) and the more than 40,000 people who took to the streets of Seattle to protest its impacts on the environment, human rights, and labor. The protesters were met with extreme violence by a militarized police force, an all-too-fitting way to usher in a new century—one that is now defined by US failure to address climate change and increasing state aggression.
Sat, Oct 11 6:45 PM Sun, Oct 12 11:30 AM
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ZODIAC KILLER PROJECT
Refocus Film Festival alum Charlie Shackleton (The Afterlight) tells the story of what might have been in this wholly original, self-aware cinematic work that cheekily indicts the true crime boom by putting it under the microscope, detailing what he would have done with his failed adaptation of a Zodiac Killer book he found on Amazon.
Fri, Oct 10 9:00 PM Sat, Oct 11 7:00 PM
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