Fredericksburg, Virginia—Fredericksburg Film Festival Co-Founder and Executive Director Dalton Okolo kicked off the third iteration of the festival June 25-28 at the Courtyard by Marriott, located along the town’s historic main artery, Caroline Street. Amid expressing his thanks to the attendees, Okolo added that the 2026 festival theme, “Cinema That Connects,” is as much about the people as it is about the films themselves.

“When the credits end, don’t let the experience end. Turn to the person next to you” and talk about the movies, Okolo said, adding that he believes “cinema is a living, breathing event.”

Okolo also thanked his team, including Executive Producer & Experience Designer Wa’ad Adam and Producers Carlos Naranjo and Antonella Membreno, all of whom helped run the 2025 festival.

The “Opening Night Shorts Block” included surreal entries “Candy Bar,” in which a girl thinks she sees her father in her chocolate treat, and “I Lay for You to Sleep” from Qatar about a man beholding people grieving over his dead body. Ida Melum’s darkly comic “Ovary-Acting” is an animated short about a woman pestered by her talking uterus to get busy baby-making. And Virginia filmmaker Hunter Christy was on hand with “909,” a horror short about a man haunted by photos of his childhood home.

During the post-screening Q&A, Christy said he has always enjoyed David Lynch’s films, and the Lynchian surreality infuses “909.”

“We all have a unique voice, and if you lean into that, you’re sharing something of great value,” said Christy, who also shared that he was able to get the music of Starflyer 59, one of his favorite bands, into “909”—essentially creating a music video.

“The record label saw some of my work and said, ‘Do you wanna do some work for Starflyer 59?’” enthused Christy. “The song is about looking back at a simpler time in life, [but] when you’re always looking back, you’re not looking at now and being present.”

Following the shorts block, festival Executive Producer Wa’ad Adam introduced the Oscar-nominated documentary “Cutting Through Rocks,” from directors Sara Khaki and Mohammad Reza Eyni. The film follows Sarah Shahverdi, an Iranian activist who successfully runs for local office, only to have her power continually undermined by the male establishment. Her detractors trot out familiar lines of misogyny, including that Shahverdi is divorced and acts “unfeminine.” She is a study in endurance and courage in a society that typically looks down upon such characteristics, especially when exhibited by women. Adam explained that the filmmakers had been unable to attend in person because of the security situation in the Persian Gulf.

On Friday afternoon at REIGN the Venue, I introduced the “What We Carry Shorts Block,” featuring eight narrative and documentary shorts that collectively explore ideas about burdens, empathy and what it means to be a part of the greater human family. Joining me for the post-screening panel was Fredericksburg filmmaker Robert Kendzie, whose 6-minute “Depart Not” tackles the ennui that Kendzie, now 55, wrestles with during a spell of unemployment and a filmmaking career that didn’t go quite according to plan—and asks, philosophically, if a fortune cookie “warned” him of any of this back in 1989. Navida Stein, writer and star of the narrative short “Thumbprint Cookies,” joined our roundtable to discuss pulling in every favor possible to get the narrative short made in Upstate New York with SAG-AFTRA actors. Stein drew applause when she said she intends to spend her career making films centering on women over 50. (Capsule reviews of both films appear below.)

Saturday morning, as downtown was buzzing due to Fredericksburg’s Pride Parade, I headed back to Caroline Street to moderate a discussion with filmmakers Melody Roscher and Timothy Parsons, whose feature “Bird in Hand” and short “Memory Project,” respectively, screened at FFF. For the panel, “Filmmaking in Virginia—From Production to Distribution,” I asked Roscher and Parsons about their process, including securing funding and getting their scripts to the right people. In Roscher’s case, her cast features several famous actors, including Christine Lahti and James Le Gros, who believed in her project enough to work for modest pay. Roscher wrote and directed “Bird in Hand,” which deals with a biracial woman (Alisha Wainwright) returning to her Virginia home to tackle some demons.

Meanwhile, Parsons’s “Memory Project” dramatizes the infamous Milgram “learning” experiments, in which teachers were directed to shock learners, even though the learners were actors faking pain as a way to study obedience to authority.

Parsons and Roscher spoke about the joys of filming in Virginia, as well as the challenges inherent in being far from filmmaking hotbeds New York and Los Angeles. Roscher reminded the audience—several of whom were themselves filmmakers—to continue lobbying politicians in Richmond to keep in place the state’s filming tax incentive.

On the festival’s final day, I took in the “Beyond Borders Shorts Block,” encompassing two animated and three documentary films from beyond the United States. I especially enjoyed the uncanny bizarreness of “Kyiv Cake,” Mykyta Lyskov’s animated fantasia about electrical appliances with literal biting teeth that are just one of the problems—including Russian missiles—facing a Ukrainian family. Wyneke van Nieuwenhuyzen’s short documentary “Ask Me Anything” tells the story of Abdulaal Hussein, a Syrian refugee who invites people in his new home of the Netherlands to, essentially, interrogate him on his adjustment to the Dutch way of life. It’s somewhat uncomfortable, not the least when the locals compliment Hussein on “how Dutch” he seems and praise his facility with their language. However, the documentary is ultimately hopeful, and again shows the resilience and the agency of people who leave everything behind for a new life in a different culture.

Among the other films I caught during the festival were:

Runa Simi (Language of the People)
Director: Augusto Zegarra

A Peruvian man called Fernando embarks on a quixotic attempt to dub “The Lion King” into the Quechua language. Fernando taught himself Quechua as a young man, and later would do cartoon voices to both entertain his friends and keep the language alive. Now a father himself, Fernando hopes a dub of “The Lion King” can be enjoyed by his son Dylan as well as other members of the Quechua community. Fernando even gets Rob Minkoff, co-director of “The Lion King,” on a video call. Minkoff is sympathetic but of course doesn’t own the rights to “The Lion King,” so Fernando bravely calls up Disney to plead the case for his (yes, unauthorized) dubs.

Fernando wants to set a positive example for Dylan, whether that means getting a “real job” or using his voice (in all senses of the word) to get the Disney empire to agree to Quechua dubs of their movies.

Khartoum (featured image)
Director: Phil Cox

As Sudan enters a period of civil war, the filmmakers follow five people as they flee to safety. With the help of Cox and his team, the refugees safely reenact their traumas in front of a green screen, with the filmmakers animating their stories behind them. A unique way to use film for healing.

Bird in Hand
Director: Melody C. Roscher

Filmed in Virginia, the darkly humorous “Bird in Hand” stars Alisha Wainwright as a biracial young woman who returns home on the eve of her wedding. Many family secrets are revealed, and poor decisions are made. Christine Lahti and James Le Gros co-star for writer-director Roscher.

The Heart Is a Muscle
Director: Imran Hamdulay

At a South African barbecue, Ryan (Keenan Arrison) has his 5-year-old son inexplicably disappear, leading him on a journey not only to find his boy but into the reasons behind his own anger. Imran Hamdulay directs from his own script.

Depart Not (short)
Director: Robert Kendzie

Did a fortune cookie from 1989 guide Robert Kendzie to the right career? Or was it all coincidence that the cookie portended: “Depart not from the path which fate has you assigned.” But what was the plan? And did fate get it “right”?

Filmed around Fredericksburg as Kendzie, now 55, ponders his past, his present and his future now that he’s at the age where the world “takes more than it gives,” as he observes. He also wonders what his next job will be, and if he should continue to make movies at all.

Kendzie is a bravura local talent who continues to make thought-provoking films in and about our community and his connection to it.

We Are Kings (short)
Director: Frank Sun

Writer and director Frank Sun tells a deceptively simple story about two Chinese-American teens, one of whom has a crush on a White girl who wanders into the family restaurant one afternoon.

Night Light (short)
Director: Luke Baker

What would it be like if your own inner voices yelled at you nonstop? This moody short explores the idea of one’s dreams (or waking nightmares) quite literally pestering our protagonist (Hanna Kemp). Haunting and unnerving.

Kaju Katli (short)
Director: Sujay Khona

Filmed in Fairfax, Virginia, by George Mason student Sujay Khona, this narrative short explores the reasons a young Indian man hesitates to prepare for a Diwali feast.

Sit With Me While I Die (short)
Director: Brian Russell

James Naughton and Mia Dillon portray a priest and a cancer patient, with the priest wrestling with the idea of medical aid in dying after not being there for his terminally ill sister. Phenomenal acting from Naughton and Dillon, who share much of the screen time.

Thumbprint Cookies (short)
Director: Katy Frame

As an older woman (Navida Stein, who also wrote the screenplay) makes cookies for her husband (D.C. Anderson), she tunnels through her memories. We even come to question her reality before the end credits roll.

Guilt (short)
Director: Bobby Huotari

A creepy ghost story that goes from a therapy session to a nightmarish dreamscape and back again. Bobby Huotari writes and directs.

Oral Histories of Amonate (short)
Director: Laura Iancu

Director Laura Iancu chronicles the lives lived in one section of Virginia coal mining country.