Willie Stark is a dynamic backwoods personality who rides a wave of populist fervor straight into the governor's mansion, only to fall prey to the corruption he pledged to fight. Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Robert Penn Warren, this dynamic political noir took home the Academy Award for Best Picture.

The #1 podcast for the movie buff according to The New York Times, Chicago’s Filmspotting has provided in-depth movie discussions, interviews, and Top 5 lists since 2005. Join co-host Adam Kempenaar (UI professor) and special guest host Marya Gates as they record a live episode.

Based on Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel, Nickel Boys tracks the experiences of two young Black men who meet at a brutal Florida reform school in the 1960s. After being sent to Nickel Academy as punishment for a crime he didn’t commit, Elwood Curtis meets Turner, a kindred spirit who becomes his closest ally.

In this unconventional take on the rock-doc, Alex Ross Perry blends performance footage and interviews with a biopic, a staged jukebox musical, and a gallery exhibit to tell the story of the iconic ‘90s rock group Pavement.

Adapting a chapter of Cesare Pavese’s Dialogues With Leucò, Matías Piñeiro explores a conversation on heartbreak between Sappho and the goddess Britomartis. Paired with Tomás Paula Marques’ short DILDOTECTÓNICA.

After being accused of an unspecified crime, Josef K. (Anthony Perkins) must wade through an increasingly obscure and hostile bureaucratic maze to receive answers and clear his name in this Orson Welles adaptation of Franz Kafka's classic novel.

Emilia Jones stars as the titular translator who leaked classified documents leading to a 63 month prison sentence in this humorous and heartfelt inside look into a public figure known for one courageous act and a funny name. Susanna Fogel (Cat Person) directs this adaptation of Kerry Howley's 2017 profile for New York Magazine.

Spurred by the encouragement of his wife, oafish Ubu murders King Wenceslau and takes Poland as his own, sending the country into chaos.

Bill Furlong discovers shocking secrets kept by the convent in his sleepy Irish town that threaten to disrupt his perception of the past and the peace of his community. Adapted from Claire Keegan's award-winning historical fiction novel of the same name by acclaimed playwright and screenwriter Enda Walsh, this powerful drama examines the personal and historical truths that shaped a people.

Jun and Ibuki meet as seniors in high school, drawn to each other by their shared love of 70s glam-rock band Exne Kedy and the Poltergeists. As the demands of adulthood loom, the young couple drifts apart. Years later, the band reunites. Will Jun and Ibuki reunite as well? Inspired by songwriter Kensuke Ide's 2021 concept album Strolling Planet ’74.

Inspired by Terry Masear's book, Fastest Things on Wings: Rescuing Hummingbirds in Hollywood, this joyous documentary offers profound truths and moments of wonder in a deceptively simple story. In tending to hundreds of fragile yet resilient hummingbirds, Masear finds a sense of healing from her own past.

Reclaiming a collection of still and moving images taken by the IDF from the archive collection of the Palestine Research Center in Beirut in the summer of 1982, this poignant exploration of identity, memory, and resistance, uses a unique blend of documentary and experimental filmmaking techniques to create a counter-narrative to loss—a cinematic salvaging to restore looted memories.

In an old house in an unnamed Midwest town, former child-prodigy writer Barbara Fowler and her sci-fi author husband Richard are entwined in a love triangle with their pious maid.

A Refocus Film Festival Short Film Block featuring personal works from up and coming directors and anchored by the latest a piece by Leos Carax the reflects on his 40 year career while paying homage to Jean-Luc Godard.

This manga adaptation follows 11-year-old Karin who finds herself abandoned by her father in a small Japanese town. Her grandfather asks his jovial but rather capricious ghost cat, Anzu, to look after her, and their spirited personalities collide.

Pioneering director Sarah Maldoror presents a revolutionary bombshell–an electrifying chronicle of Angola’s awakening independence movement. Based on the novella The Real Life of Domingos Xavier by José Luandino Vieira

In collaboration with Brazil’s indigenous Yanomami people, this documentary follows leader and shaman Davi Kopenawa as he fights to return the world to balance in closely observed rituals and trenchant comments on the ruthless logic of a materialistic outside culture. Based on the shaman's book of the same name, the film holds up a mirror to capitalist societies that threaten the survival of humanity as a whole.

When the community of Covas do Barroso, Portugal discovers that the British company Savannah Resources plans to build the largest open-pit lithium mine in Europe just a few meters from their homes, they decide to organize and expel them from their lands. Using the people as actors, incorporating footage from their protests, and playing their protest songs, director Paulo Carneiro worked with the villagers to document their resistance as a tool for intervention.

Join us for a night of storytelling with these guests of Refocus Film Festival and Iowa City Book Festival to hear their war stories about creating art and getting it out into the world while sipping some whiskey!

A screening of the hour-long film and a post-screening Q&A with Venise Berry and S. Toriano Berry.

Ezra Claytan Daniels reads a short selection of comics. Followed by a Q&A and signing.

Go wind down at the Green House with drinks, desserts, and music provided by Blake Shaw with Chris Navarrete.