Hudson Film Festival Reveals 2026 Lineup with ‘Filipiñana,’ ‘Barbara Forever,’ and More

For the fourth year running, IndieWire announces the lineup for the annual Hudson Film Festival, which this year takes place in Upstate New York, August 6-9. This summer, the growing festival features 25 films, a new curated video art collection, and an expansion beyond the town of Hudson and into Catskill, New York. Tickets and passes are now on sale via the festival’s website.

The festival opens on Thursday, August 6 with the Hudson Valley premiere of Sundance 2026 World Cinema Special Jury Award winner “Filipiñana” and continues with Hudson Valley premieres of David Alvarado’s Sundance U.S. Documentary Audience Award winner “American Pachuco: The Legend of Luis Valdez,” Brydie O’Connor’s editing award winner “Barbara Forever,” Sundance World Cinema Directing Award winner “How to Divorce During the War,” and the Local Filmmaker Spotlight screening of Denver documentary audience award winner “Comparsa.”

Spotlight showcase screenings include Harry Lighton’s IndieWire-favorite queer romance “Pillion” and a celebration of the Studio Ghibli animated classic “Spirited Away” — one a family, the other not so much!

The 2026 Hudson Film Festival shorts include live action, animated, and documentary films across genres and organized around these themes: Connection and Desire, The Unexpected and Unpredictable, Growth and Courage, and The Darker Side: Kisses, Crimes and Cults.

Shorts include: “Attached” (dir: Kendra Brown), “The Boys and the Bees” (dir: Arielle Knight), “Buckskin” (dir: Mars Verrone), “Budō” (dir: Amanda Aagard, Alexander Toma), “Callback” (dir: Matthew Puccini), “Deep in my Heart is a Song” (dir: Jonathan Pickett), “Marga en el DF” (dir: Gabriela Ortega), “Radiant Frost” (dir: Hannah Schierbeek), “The Seeing Eye Dog Who Saw Too Much” (dir: Eric Jackowitz), “The Shyness of Trees” (dir: Sofiia Chuikovska, Loïck Du Plessis D’Argentré, Lina Han, Simin He, Jiaxin Huang, Maud Le Bras, Bingqing Shu), “Some Kind of Refuge” (dir: Alexandra Kern), “Taxi Moto” (dir: Gaël Kamilindi), Oscar winner “Two People Exchanging Saliva” (dir: Natalie Musteata, Alexandre Singh), and local spotlight titles “To End All Spells” (dir: Zak Cedarholm, Nan Kwabena), “Into the Dark” (dir: Fiona Otway), “I Was Here” (dir: Noelle Gentile), “Look at Ruby,” and “Il Pezzo” (dir: Kimberly Scarsella).

Hudson Film Festival co-founders John Maybee, Sarah Peters, and Sonia Marcela Freeman said in a press statement, “Over the course of this year’s four-day festival, audiences will have the chance to see a total of 25 films by a diverse group of artists from around the world. We are thrilled to share more short films than ever before, allowing more opportunity to showcase some of the most exciting emerging voices in cinema, and to provide a newly expanded Free Youth Film Workshop with Stockade Works and Mental Health Association of Columbia-Greene (MHACG). With our new partnerships, including XFR Collective and MHACG, we are proud to continue to provide accessible arts history & educational opportunities for youth in our community and festival attendees. We are grateful for our continued partnerships with Time & Space Limited, Hudson Hall, Basilica Hudson, and The Spark of Hudson, and excited for the additions of Community Theater and Avalon Lounge in Catskill, so that film lovers can come together to celebrate exceptional cinema in eclectic settings all across the region.”

The festival’s programming collaboration with XFR Collective will advance their mission to partner with artists, activists, and community organizations to lower the barriers to preserving at-risk audiovisual media — especially unseen, unheard, or marginalized works — through digitization, screenings, educational workshops, and pop-up events. XFR Collective works to create an inclusive environment in which to explore practical methods for media preservation, archiving, and access.

Festival week kicks off with the second Free Youth Film Workshop on Saturday, August 1 in partnership with Stockade Works and Mental Health Association of Columbia-Greene (MHACG). This hands-on film and television workshop is designed for middle school students in grades 6-8, with a focus on location-scouting, and a final video compilation of student work to screen August 7.

The festival returns to venue partners Hudson Hall, Time & Space Limited, Basilica Hudson, and The Spark of Hudson, along with screening technical partner Story Screen. The 2026 edition also marks the addition of new venue partners Community Theater and Avalon Lounge in the organization’s first expansion of events in Catskill, NY.