The Downtown Festival has announced its official selection for its third annual edition, including films by Paul Schrader and Ethan Hawke. The festival is a multidisciplinary celebration of independent film, music, art, and culture taking place at the Roxy Cinema in Tribeca. This year’s Official Selection includes 32 feature films and special presentations — featuring 7 world premieres, 3 U.S. premieres, 9 New York premieres, anniversary and restoration screenings — as well as 4 short film programs. The festival will run from October 9 through October 18, 2026.
Each screening will be presented as a special, one-night-only event, followed by a conversation with the filmmaker and, often, members of the cast and creative team. Moderated by artists from different disciplines and generations, these conversations are designed to spark dialogue that extends beyond a conventional post-screening Q&A.
“The 2026 Official Selection reflects what I want The Downtown Festival to be — a place where wildly different artists and radically varied work can exist alongside one another and create unexpected connections,” festival founder and director Rebekah Sherman-Myntti said. “This year’s program moves across a wide range of forms, genres, and perspectives, while remaining united by originality and an uncompromising point of view. We’re spotlighting artists from around the world who share our spirit of independence, curiosity, willingness to take risks, and belief in the importance of a genuine artistic community.”
Musical performances, additional artist talks, and additional special events are still to be announced throughout the weeks leading up to the festival, but highlights include the opening night program of the U.S. Premiere of Paul Schrader’s “The Basics of Philosophy,” and Ondine Viñao’s “Two Neighbors,” plus a special artist program featuring rare archival portraits of Jean-Michel Basquiat, Robert Mapplethorpe, and Nan Goldin in collaboration with Paul Tschinkel’s ART/new york. Other premieres include Nick Sandow’s “The Mayflower,” Romane Bohringer’s “Dites-lui que je l’aime,” and Siyou Tan’s “Amoeba.”
The full list of films playing at the 2026 Downtown Festival is listed below.
Features Program
“The Basics of Philosophy” | Paul Schrader (U.S. Premiere)
USA, 2026, 94 minutes
A repressed philosophy professor grapples with lingering guilt over a decision from his past when the victim suddenly returns to his life. Narrative
“Two Neighbors” | Ondine Viñao (U.S. Premiere)
USA / United Kingdom, 2025, 103 minutes
A struggling writer and an insatiable socialite become entangled in a dangerous conflict fueled by a modern-day genie who promises to grant their deepest, darkest wishes. Narrative
In collaboration with Paul Tschinkel’s ART/new york: 3 DOWNTOWN ARTISTS | Featuring Robert Mapplethorpe, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Nan Goldin (Special Presentation)
USA, Various, Various
Presented in collaboration with Paul Tschinkel’s pioneering video series ART/new york, this program brings together rare archival portraits of Robert Mapplethorpe, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Nan Goldin at pivotal moments in their careers. A 1982 studio interview captures a 21-year-old Basquiat on Crosby Street, already emerging as one of the defining figures of the downtown art scene, as he discusses his working process, public persona, and rapid ascent through the New York art world, while Mapplethorpe is seen in a 1983 interview from his downtown loft reflecting on the ideas, relationships, and charged subject matter behind his work. The program also revisits Goldin’s celebrated 1996 Whitney Museum retrospective, tracing more than 25 years of photographs documenting her friends, lovers, and the alternative cultures around her. Together, the films form an extraordinary record of three artists who helped define and transform the cultural landscape of downtown New York. Archival
“Dwarf Neon Mayfield” | Leland Nally (New York Premiere)
USA, 2026, 80 minutes
A kaleidoscopic documentary portrait of life in rural Kentucky after a pair of historically violent storms devastates the countryside. Documentary
“L.I.E.” | Michael Cuesta (25th Anniversary)
USA, 2001, 108 minutes
A 15-year-old Long Island boy loses everything and everyone he knows, soon becoming involved in a relationship with a much older man. Narrative
“The Mayflower” | Nick Sandow (World Premiere)
USA, 2026, 91 minutes
After a heart diagnosis, actor/director Nick Sandow sets out to make what may be his final film. Blending documentary and narrative, The Mayflower follows Nick as he investigates family secrets, confronts mortality, and searches for meaning, identity and his late father. Narrative
“Sitting Ducks” | Henry Jaglom (4K Restoration; New York Premiere)
USA, 1980, 89 minutes
Two small-time thieves come together as a bizarre comic duo in a quest to make their childhood dreams come true. Presented in collaboration with Cinématographe, a new sub-label from Vinegar Syndrome that seeks to fill gaps in the canon of American cinema. Narrative
“The Joyless Economy” | Marjorie Conrad (East Coast Premiere)
USA, 2026, 57 minutes
A woman’s movie collection triggers her infidelity in a work created for one viewer – the woman whose confessions are revealed through hypnotic second-person narration. Narrative
“Slauson Rec” | Leo Lewis O’Neil (North American Premiere)
USA, 2025, 147 minutes
A young filmmaker captures the exhilarating rise and troubling fall of Shia LaBeouf’s experimental theater school in South Central Los Angeles. Documentary
“Big Break” | Ian Faria (New York Premiere)
USA, 2026, 88 minutes
The debut feature from comedy group Simple Town follows Caroline, Felipe, and Will as they visit their old comedy partner, Sam, who struck it rich in Hollywood and left them behind. Staying at his isolated house in the woods, the trio has one goal: convince Sam to cast them in his next big movie. But when a dark secret slips out, old resentments turn to horror, and this washed-up comedy group learns what it really means to kill. Narrative
“Let Them Be Seen” | Nolitha Refilwe Mkulisi (Special Presentation)
South Africa/Germany, 2025, 74 minutes
In Tapoleng, a small forgotten and profoundly religious South African village tethered to three borders that form a kind of holy trinity, a new religion emerges. Once the church served as refuge during the old apartheid order, later giving way to communion in taverns. Now, this evolution culminates in the camera… A sacred spectacle that subtly supersedes the spiritual, where no other authority offers anything worth believing in but themselves. Absurdist/Fantastical Documentary
“GALICIA!” | Anna Maguire and Kyle Greenberg (World Premiere)
Spain, 2026, 66 minutes
What if you went on holiday and the apocalypse happened? GALICIA! is a hybrid documentary following a couple through home-video footage as they visit friends at a winery in rural Spain and inadvertently capture the end of days. Documentary
“Tycoon” | Charlotte Zhang (Special Presentation)
Canada/USA, 2026, 89 minutes
Two petty thieves drift aimlessly through a near-future Los Angeles marred by Olympics turmoil and cockroach conspiracies. Narrative
“Chronicles of Shpongle” | Paul Gondry (World Premiere)
USA, 2025, 135 minutes
A group of religious harvesters in a forgotten mythological underworld hidden behind closed doors in contemporary New York City harvest a mind-altering fungus called “Shpongle” that links users to a fantastical world. Narrative
“Little Miss Sun Sign” | Joey Frank (World Premiere)
USA, 2026, 101 minutes
Part experimental documentary, part one-man show, Little Miss Sun Sign follows director Joey Frank over a two-day journey into astrology, unspooling his personal astrological theory to a rotating cast of guests. Documentary, Experimental
SENSING SYSTEMS: Works by Andrew Norman Wilson and Jonah Freeman (Various)
Bringing visual artists into the film program, SENSING SYSTEMS reflects the festival’s commitment to exchange across cinema and contemporary art. Select works by Andrew Norman Wilson and Jonah Freeman explore perception, technology, information, and the ways sound and image shape how we understand the world around us. The films speak to one another through sound, vision, machine perception, and the relationship between human and technological systems.
“Fellas” | Matthew Danger Lippman (World Premiere)
USA, 2026, 41 minutes
Nick has been dumped by his girlfriend and finds an apartment with Will in NYC’s worst neighborhood. His one solace is a dumpster-dived, controversial DVD box set gifted by their friend Marty. After it disappears from their housewarming, Nick is convinced one of the guests (or his ex’s new, college-aged boyfriend) is to blame and enlists the Fellas to get it back. Matt just goes on an app date. Television Pilot
“The Story of Eve” | Alexandra Cabral (Preview Screening)
USA/Greece, 2026, 60 minutes
After a public scandal, an aging film star flees to a remote island with her devoted young lover where isolation blurs performance and reality. Narrative
“Chelsea Walls” | Ethan Hawke (25th Anniversary)
USA, 2001, 109 minutes
Set over the course of a single day at New York’s legendary Chelsea Hotel, Ethan Hawke’s directorial debut follows a mosaic of artists, writers, musicians, and dreamers navigating their creative ambitions and personal lives within the storied walls of the downtown landmark. Narrative
“Dites-lui que je l’aime” | Romane Bohringer (New York Premiere)
France, 2025, 92 minutes
Romane decides to adapt Clémentine Autain’s book about her mother for the screen. The project forces her to confront her past and her own mother, who abandoned her when she was nine months old. Narrative
“The Water Is Always Warm” | Morgan Krantz (New York Premiere)
USA, 2026, 82 minutes
Following the dissolution of a friendship after one friend becomes involved in a controversial religion, this haunted comedy unfolds through a series of dinners that take place over the course of several years, each date farther apart than the last, until finally there are no more. Narrative
“Amoeba” | Siyou Tan (New York Premiere)
Singapore, 2025, 99 minutes
At an authoritarian all-girls school, four misfit teens form a secret gang. Their fumbling rebellion unearths buried desires and the quiet violence of growing up in contemporary Singapore. Narrative
“Cabaret Boys” | Michael M. Bilandic (World Premiere)
USA, 2026, 89 minutes
A fringe therapist takes the world by storm with a galaxy-brained new approach to self-help called the Jackman Method. Through immersive sessions, he transforms wayward young men into semi-employable outsider artists—all from the comfort of his posh home office in New York City. When an unhinged ex-patient returns to his care and is chosen to headline the practice’s first-ever cabaret night, the fallout is immense. Diva behavior, grueling rehearsals, and public scandal threaten to destroy not only the show but the Jackman Method itself. Narrative
“The Projectionist” | Alexandre Rockwell (Special Presentation)
USA, 2026, 95 minutes
A reclusive projectionist haunted by a wrongful conviction and the loss of his wife lives in solitude inside a fading art house theater—until one fateful night when his past resurfaces, forcing him to confront the truth, rekindle love, and find peace in the glow of the final reel. Narrative
Select Works by Michel Auder (Special Presentation)
A selection of works from 1970 to the present. Archival
“Karishika” | Christian Onu (30th Anniversary & New York Premiere of Restoration)
Presented with Nolly Babes
Nigeria, 1996, 113 minutes
The legendary story of a stunningly beautiful girl sent by Satan to infiltrate the human world. Armed with worldly temptations—wealth, fashion, luxury cars, and sex—her mission is to corrupt humanity and bring down powerful men of God. She unleashes spiritual havoc, but a final battle remains over whether her demonic mission will ultimately succeed. Narrative
“Amos Poe: Unmade” | Sebastian Mlynarski (World Premiere)
USA, 2026, 40 minutes
Film measures time; time measures life. Amos Poe: Unmade follows the legendary underground filmmaker through three years of terminal illness—not as a farewell portrait, but as a final, uncompromising work of his own cinema. Presented with selections of Amos Poe’s work as part of a closing-night celebration of Poe’s life and legacy. Documentary
Shorts Program
“Beyond the Threshold” brings together stories about people moving through the unfamiliar, between past and present, solitude and connection, reality and imagination, one version of themselves and the next. Across very different settings and forms, the films explore moments of change that emerge in the spaces between one state of being and another. Works by Wren Martin, Tina Pasotra, Jack Wedge + Will Freudenheim, Moises Acevedo, Selma Cervantes, Ellis Kaan Özen, Julián Gallese, Brice Birdsall, Kate Sterlin, and Conor Fay.
“Surfaces and the Self” is a selection of works about identity, performance, desire, and the roles people play for themselves and for one another. The films move between comedy, absurdity, intimacy, and chaos. They examine what happens when performances begin to slip and people unravel, reinvent themselves, misbehave, or simply stop playing along. Works by Ethan DeLorenzo & Victoria Pedretti, Kiernan Francis, Erin Grant & Taylore Scarabelli, Tommy Davis, Samuel Puglia, Avery O’Rourke, Ally Ionides, Max Tullio, Andrew Theodore, Lena Greene, Roisin Agnew, and Shalemar Coloma.
“Signals in the Distance” explores isolation, disconnection, life at the margins, and the search for belonging. The films interrogate moments when people withdraw, are left alone, set adrift, or pulled away from the lives they knew. There are fragile, unexpected forms of connection and togetherness that can emerge through uncertainty, dependence, abandonment, and chance encounters. Works by Tess Goldwyn, Isaiah Brody, Will Tutino, Alec Moeller, Lily Platt, Will Pope, Brenda Davis, Florence Kosky, Gideon Baeza, and Loïc Potencier.
“Dissolutions” features works about crossing into states that feel just outside ordinary reality. Moving through memory, death, altered consciousness, addiction, violence, fate, and the supernatural, these works delve into what happens when familiar boundaries begin to blur. Characters are pulled toward other versions of their lives, confronted by forces they cannot fully understand, and asked to reckon with what lies beyond what they thought they knew. Works by Isabella Ivoš, Alan Jones, Juice Caballero, Abyn Reabe, Marissa Rubio, William Rowley, Conor Scheinberg, Zachary Zamsky, Hillary Sproul, and AJ Lambert.