Tag Archives: Heartland Film Festival

The Heartland International Film Festival 2025 Season Finale

October 20, 2025 By in Conventions & Events, Indiana, Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
balcony view of a movie screen down below. Onscreen is a pic of Emily Deschanel and two producers, encouraging viewers to become a Heartland member. Walls around screen are glowing green and have large icons of film reels.

Our Sunday night view from the balcony of the Tobias Theater at Newfields. The slideshow still is from last year’s world premiere of ReEntry.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! Since 1992 my hometown of Indianapolis has presented the Heartland International Film Festival, a multi-day, multi-theater celebration of cinema held every October. Local moviegoers have the opportunity to see over a hundred new works in the realms of documentaries, narrative features, shorts, and animation made across multiple continents from myriad points of the human experience. Some participants stop in Indy on their grand tour of Hollywood’s festival circuit; some are local productions on shoestring budgets; and a wide spectrum of claims are staked in the innumerable niches between, projects with well-known actors screening alongside indies with enormous hearts.

This’ll be my third year diving in and seeing more than just a single entrant. Heartland’s 34th edition runs October 9-19, for which I’ve made plans to catch at least six films in all (Lord willing) — maybe more if time permits…

Once again I took a week’s vacation from my day job and posted for eight consecutive days about the six films I saw at three theaters in nine days, one virtual screening we’ll get to in a moment, plus a few other entries that included still another movie, albeit more of an anti-Heartland studio product that opened the same weekend. I doubt anyone out there read every single word, but I’m not even done yet!

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Heartland Film Festival 2025: “Nuremberg”

October 20, 2025 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Russell Crowe faces off against Rami Malek while Leo Woodall stands in the background.

Zeus vs. Freddie Mercury! TWO GODS ENTER! ONE GOD LEAVES!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! Since 1992 my hometown of Indianapolis has presented the Heartland International Film Festival, a multi-day, multi-theater celebration of cinema held every October. Local moviegoers have the opportunity to see over a hundred new works in the realms of documentaries, narrative features, shorts, and animation made across multiple continents from myriad points of the human experience. Some participants stop in Indy on their grand tour of Hollywood’s festival circuit; some are local productions on shoestring budgets; and a wide spectrum of claims are staked in the innumerable niches between, projects with well-known actors screening alongside indies with enormous hearts.

This’ll be my third year diving in and seeing more than just a single entrant. Heartland’s 34th edition runs October 9-19, for which I’ve made plans to catch at least six films in all (Lord willing) — maybe more if time permits…

Our final theatrical screening of the festival, and their official Closing Night selection, was also the very first entrant I bought tickets for, based on a single selling point: Academy Award Winner Russell Crowe IS Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring IN Nuremberg! And that must be announced or imagined in the deepest possible Epic Voice Guy voice or else why bother.

Same as with the Academy Awards, World War II and the Holocaust are common subjects in Heartland selections, for reasons tragically obvious to anyone who’s seen enough of them and nevertheless supports the important, evergreen “Never Forget” message behind them. Nuremberg wasn’t the only such film on the docket, but it was certainly the highest-profile one. Its writer/director James Vanderbilt has worked on numerous big-budget crowd-pleasers (the last three Screams and both Amazing Spider-Mans, among others) and recruited a strong ensemble to tell this particular story, of which the indisputable highlight is — for those just joining us — Maximus himself as Göring, the bombastic narcissist and highest-ranking Nazi still alive after the war, the sort of boo-able real-life Kingpin in more ways than one, whose every move and every haughty gaze was like a steamroller through every room he entered.

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Heartland Film Festival 2025: “Blue Moon”

October 19, 2025 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Andrew Scott in a tuxedo, one foot taller than Ethan Hawke in a 1940s suit. Both stand in a bar, staring through us at an offscreen woman.

Super-Villain Team-Up presents Moriarty and The Grabber!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! Since 1992 my hometown of Indianapolis has presented the Heartland International Film Festival, a multi-day, multi-theater celebration of cinema held every October. Local moviegoers have the opportunity to see over a hundred new works in the realms of documentaries, narrative features, shorts, and animation made across multiple continents from myriad points of the human experience. Some participants stop in Indy on their grand tour of Hollywood’s festival circuit; some are local productions on shoestring budgets; and a wide spectrum of claims are staked in the innumerable niches between, projects with well-known actors screening alongside indies with enormous hearts.

This’ll be my third year diving in and seeing more than just a single entrant. Heartland’s 34th edition runs October 9-19, for which I’ve made plans to catch at least six films in all (Lord willing) — maybe more if time permits…

Next up is Blue Moon, the twelfth film I’ve seen by prolific director Richard Linklater. His last joint, the true-story dramedy Hit Man, was among my favorites last year. Though his subjects vary wildly from one to the next, his films and their ensembles always have their laid-back charms, so invitingly that you don’t feel time passing because you’re enjoying the conversations so much…even when the loudest guy in the room is blissfully unaware that everyone else is aware of his problems.

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Heartland Film Festival 2025: “It Was Just an Accident”

October 17, 2025 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment
An Iranian auto mechanic sits in his van in the middle of the desert, smoking and thinking. Not far away are a body-sized hole he's dug and a discarded shovel.

CAUTION: Rated NC-45 for scenes of smoking.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! Since 1992 my hometown of Indianapolis has presented the Heartland International Film Festival, a multi-day, multi-theater celebration of cinema held every October. Local moviegoers have the opportunity to see over a hundred new works in the realms of documentaries, narrative features, shorts, and animation made across multiple continents from myriad points of the human experience. Some participants stop in Indy on their grand tour of Hollywood’s festival circuit; some are local productions on shoestring budgets; and a wide spectrum of claims are staked in the innumerable niches between, projects with well-known actors screening alongside indies with enormous hearts.

This’ll be my third year diving in and seeing more than just a single entrant. Heartland’s 34th edition runs October 9-19, for which I’ve made plans to catch at least six films in all (Lord willing) — maybe more if time permits…

Our next film is Heartland’s sold-out “International Centerpiece Screening” of It Was Just an Accident, which has been building buzz online among pro critics in the days leading up to its limited release in the largest U.S. markets this week. It’s rare for a small foreign film to open in Indy the same weekend as it does in NYC and L.A., so it’s nice that Heartland provides such occasions for us to feel like we count as a Major City by Hollywood distribution definitions.

The latest from writer/director/producer Jafar Panahi isn’t the first time he’s shot a film in his native Iran entirely without the government’s permission. The same held true for previous films such as This Is Not a Film and No Bears, not to mention some of his earlier ones that were made “legally” only to be banned later. A suspended prison already hangs over his head, but he still has plenty more to say through his art.

Full disclosure: after seeing Accident but before sitting down to collect my own thoughts, I read Vulture.com’s new interview with him, which contained a wealth of fascinating information. Anything in this entry that resembles Fun Trivia comes from their article.

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Heartland Film Festival 2025: “Happy Birthday”

October 17, 2025 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
A middle-aged woman and a tiny girl at the counter of a brightly lit bakery, where the chef is icing a cake.

Last-minute birthday cake shopping: kind of a headache in every country.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! Since 1992 my hometown of Indianapolis has presented the Heartland International Film Festival, a multi-day, multi-theater celebration of cinema held every October. Local moviegoers have the opportunity to see over a hundred new works in the realms of documentaries, narrative features, shorts, and animation made across multiple continents from myriad points of the human experience. Some participants stop in Indy on their grand tour of Hollywood’s festival circuit; some are local productions on shoestring budgets; and a wide spectrum of claims are staked in the innumerable niches between, projects with well-known actors screening alongside indies with enormous hearts.

This’ll be my third year diving in and seeing more than just a single entrant. Heartland’s 34th edition runs October 9-19, for which I’ve made plans to catch at least six films in all (Lord willing) — maybe more if time permits…

As someone who watches every Marvel Cinematic Universe installment for better or worse, I’ve found it interesting to see what filmmakers do next after they’ve done their time in the machine. Sometimes they move on to equally gargantuan pop-culture universes (The Mandalorian, Superman). Sometimes they have a ball in their own sandboxes (Sinners, Wolfs). Sometimes they give the impression Marvel broke their brains (The Gray Man, Fast X). Sometimes they step back from Hollywood excess and find fulfillment in smaller works (Next Goal Wins, the upcoming Hamnet).

Case in point: our next film, Happy Birthday — Egypt’s official submission for Best International Feature at the next Academy Awards — comes to us from the talents of writer/director Sarah Goher, who was on the writing staff of Moon Knight, and her co-writer and longtime creative partner Mohamed Diab, who directed four of the show’s six episodes. (Two other writers receive a “Story By” credit, but as of today I can’t verify their names online for some reason.) Its total budget was probably less than what they paid the VFX team in charge of rendering Khonshu’s skull, but sometimes an indie film is just as capable, if not more so, of slipping through your jaded defenses with its sincerity right before it breaks your heart.

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Heartland Film Festival 2025: “Christy” with Bonus Live Q&A!

October 14, 2025 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Female boxer with messy brown hair, red gloves, white mouthpiece and all-white outfit standing proudly in the ring and kinda roaring.

For anyone who was really hoping Spider-Woman would get to punch someone in Madame Web, have we got great news for you!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! Since 1992 my hometown of Indianapolis has presented the Heartland International Film Festival, a multi-day, multi-theater celebration of cinema held every October. Local moviegoers have the opportunity to see over a hundred new works in the realms of documentaries, narrative features, shorts, and animation made across multiple continents from myriad points of the human experience. Some participants stop in Indy on their grand tour of Hollywood’s festival circuit; some are local productions on shoestring budgets; and a wide spectrum of claims are staked in the innumerable niches between, projects with well-known actors screening alongside indies with enormous hearts.

This’ll be my third year diving in and seeing more than just a single entrant. Heartland’s 34th edition runs October 9-19, for which I’ve made plans to catch at least six films in all (Lord willing) — maybe more if time permits…

Next up on the list is Christy, a biopic based on the true story of welterweight champion Christy Martin, the first female boxer ever to grace the cover of Sports Illustrated. Longtime MCC readers know sports aren’t usually my thing (the Creed trilogy doesn’t count because, uh, reasons!), but when time permits I do keep an ear open whenever buzz builds for potential future Oscar nominees. Quite a few actresses have endured the ritual of severe deglamorization For Your Oscar Consideration — toughening up, radically altering their physique, shedding their Instagrammable hairstyles, letting costume designers embarrass them, and in a preponderance of cases wrangling a thick southern accent. Sydney Sweeney, best known for such TV series as Euphoria and the first season of The White Lotus, takes a break from playing rich women with beauty regimens to explore that transformational career option.

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Heartland Film Festival 2025: “The Invisible Half”

October 13, 2025 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Movie poster of a half-Japanese girl with a white baseball bat standing in front of a giant mummy head that has an earbud cord wrapped around it. The earbuds are bloodied.

Funny how wearing lots of bandages always means “scary monster” and not “victim receiving the care they sorely needed”.

It’s that time again! Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: since 1992 my hometown of Indianapolis has presented the Heartland International Film Festival, a multi-day, multi-theater celebration of cinema held every October. Local moviegoers have the opportunity to see over a hundred new works in the realms of documentaries, narrative features, shorts, and animation made across multiple continents from myriad points of the human experience. Some participants stop in Indy on their grand tour of Hollywood’s festival circuit; some are local productions on shoestring budgets; and a wide spectrum of claims are staked in the innumerable niches between, projects with well-known actors screening alongside indies with enormous hearts.

This’ll be my third year diving in and seeing more than just a single entrant. I enjoyed much of what I saw in 2024, though some of my picks have yet to find distribution to this day. Those few that did kinda came and went without much fanfare. The most “prestigious” film I saw, Small Things Like These, at least went well enough for its makers that star Cillian Murphy and director Tim Mielants reunited for Steve, which just hit Netflix earlier this month. (Highly recommended, by the way.) Numerous other Heartland entries showed up on Oscar ballots, but I failed to catch them at the festival proper. (Eventually I saw Heartland veterans Flow and The Seed of the Sacred Fig, to name a couple.) I’ll be curious to see what happens to this year’s alumni in the months ahead.

Heartland’s 34th edition runs October 9-19, for which I’ve made plans to catch at least six films in all (Lord willing) — maybe more if time permits. Longtime MCC readers know the rule: every film I see in theaters gets its own entry, no matter how big or little. We kick things off with one of the only three horror films in the lineup (a genre HIFF has only opened up to within the past few years), and among this year’s few Asian ones: The Invisible Half, in which we learn Japanese teenagers are no more well-adjusted than ours are.

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The Heartland International Film Festival 2024 Season Finale

October 21, 2024 By in Conventions & Events, Indiana, Meta, Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Black pin with yellow border and lettering, "Audience Choice Jury Member, Heartland International Film Festival".

Woo-hoo! Free pin!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! Since 1992 my hometown of Indianapolis has presented the Heartland International Film Festival, a multi-day, multi-theater celebration of cinema held every October. Local moviegoers have the opportunity see over a hundred new works in the realms of documentaries, narrative features, shorts, and animation made across multiple continents from myriad points of the human experience. Some participants stop in Indy on their grand tour of Hollywood’s festival circuit; some are local productions on shoestring budgets; and a wide spectrum of claims are staked in the innumerable niches between, projects with well-known actors screening alongside indies with enormous hearts…

Heartland’s 33rd edition ran October 10-20 — over 100 films, at least seventeen of them with cast/crew Q&As afterward. I took a week’s vacation from my day job and posted for nine consecutive days about the seven films I saw at five theaters in ten days, one virtual screening we’ll get to in a moment, plus a few other overdue, mostly unrelated entries. I doubt anyone out there read every single word, but I’m not even done yet!

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Heartland Film Festival 2024 Screening #7: “We Strangers”

October 20, 2024 By in Indiana, Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment
Kirby sitting alone at one end of a fancy table in front of a large, banal still-life fruit painting. She stares at unseen people on the opposite end, an untouched teacup beside her.

This scene near the end should tell you a lot about what she puts up with from the other characters.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! Since 1992 my hometown of Indianapolis has presented the Heartland International Film Festival, a multi-day, multi-theater celebration of cinema held every October. Local moviegoers have the opportunity see over a hundred new works in the realms of documentaries, narrative features, shorts, and animation made across multiple continents from myriad points of the human experience. Some participants stop in Indy on their grand tour of Hollywood’s festival circuit; some are local productions on shoestring budgets; and a wide spectrum of claims are staked in the innumerable niches between, projects with well-known actors screening alongside indies with enormous hearts.

Heartland’s 33rd edition runs October 10-20, for which I’ve made plans to catch at least eight films in all (Lord willing). Longtime MCC readers know the rule: every film I see in theaters gets its own entry…

…and we come at last to the final theatrical recount in this very special MCC miniseries: We Strangers (not to be confused with last year’s All of Us Strangers), a dramedy that premiered at South by Southwest back in March and caught my eye in Heartland’s listings on the strength of its star Kirby Howell-Baptiste (whose recent roles, including this one, have been billed mononymously as just “Kirby”). Best known to geeks as Dream’s big sister Death in Netflix’s Sandman, I’ve also seen her in Veronica Mars season 4 (as a bartender who doesn’t appreciate being a murder suspect), the Apple TV+ series Sugar (as Colin Farrell’s handler), the Cruella prequel (as young Anita Darling), HBO’s Barry (blink and miss her as a recurring student in Gene Cousineau’s acting class), and so on and so on. Okay, I’ll stop now.

Suffice it to say she’s no stranger to me in that sense, though “stranger” can mean different things, and switch context at any moment without notice, even when you’re finally on the call sheet.

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Heartland Film Festival 2024 Screening #6: “Sheepdog”

October 19, 2024 By in Indiana, Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
A young white veteran and an old Black veteran, both in autumn outerwear, sitting and feeling chummy on a movie poster.

It’s extremely tough finding screen shots of films that don’t yet have a distributor, an official site with a gallery, or a trailer available for Fair Use purposes…

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! Since 1992 my hometown of Indianapolis has presented the Heartland International Film Festival, a multi-day, multi-theater celebration of cinema held every October. Local moviegoers have the opportunity see over a hundred new works in the realms of documentaries, narrative features, shorts, and animation made across multiple continents from myriad points of the human experience. Some participants stop in Indy on their grand tour of Hollywood’s festival circuit; some are local productions on shoestring budgets; and a wide spectrum of claims are staked in the innumerable niches between, projects with well-known actors screening alongside indies with enormous hearts.

Heartland’s 33rd edition runs October 10-20, for which I’ve made plans to catch at least eight films in all (Lord willing). Longtime MCC readers know the rule: every film I see in theaters gets its own entry…

Nowadays films about veterans poorly adjusting to post-deployment civilian life (apart from five whole minutes of The Hurt Locker) tend to get made only if the afflicted veteran becomes a bad guy for the heroes to defeat or an antihero to put down like a rabid dog — twisted by their combat traumas into a serial killer, a terrorist, a super-villain, or a politician scheming himself an evil long game. We used to have a smattering of modestly budgeted adult dramas back in the day when Americans first began feeling ashamed of how Vietnam veterans were treated. (Anyone else remember Unnatural Causes, a 1986 TV-movie starring John Ritter and Alfre Woodard, about vets stricken by side effects of Agent Orange?) It’s not like society actually solved that problem and all our veterans feel great now — filmmakers just stopped attempting any serious explorations.

Sheepdog is the sort of movie the major studios believe isn’t worth their time or effort anymore. Its writer/director/producer/star Steven Grayhm (from a Canadian SF series called Between) spent over a decade putting it together anyway. It premiered at the Boston Film Festival last month (the event nearest to where it was filmed) and is currently traveling the circuit, including two showings at Heartland. (We missed its first showing last Friday, which concluded with a post-screening Q&A with Grayhm and two other producers, but that was the same night as ReEntry‘s World Premiere and Q&A.) I have aesthetic quibbles, which tend to be my thing, but Grayhm’s heart is absolutely in the right place.

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