Tallahassee Film Festival

The 16th annual Tallahassee Film Festival takes place August 31 and September 1, 2024, at the Challenger Learning Center downtown – in its IMAX and Planetarium theaters – and at Cap City Video Lounge, in the Railroad Square arts district between FAMU and FSU. The festival championed early work by Academy Award-winning directors such as Denis Villeneuve (Dune), Bong Joon-ho (Parasite), and Barry Jenkins (Moonlight), and has brought a who’s who of contemporary indie-film stars to town, including Turner Ross of the Ross Bros. (Gasoline Rainbow), Joe Swanberg (Easy), composer Dan Deacon (Hustle), Khalik Allah (Black Mother), the enigmatic duo Soda Jerk (Hello Dankness), and Kat Candler (Queen Sugar).

This year’s festival boasts an exciting array of more than 70 films – including eight shorts programs – with everything from bold animation (including the new film from the legendary Don Hertzfeldt, and the visionary Boys Go to Jupiter, from Julian Glander) to cinema classics, with a centerpiece presentation of Wim Wenders’ poignant neo-Western, Paris, Texas. Look for fiercely original new independent features, whether sensitive self-reflections (Taylor Olson’s Look at Me) or anarchic comedies (Maxwell Nalevansky and Carl Fry’s Rats!), and a wide-ranging slate of documentaries, at once otherworldly (Welcome Space Brothers, about an alien-channeling Los Angeles cult) and immersive (Grasshopper Republic, a nearly hallucinogenic deep dive into the Ugandan grasshopper industry). Tickets and passes are on sale now.