While their marquee event, the St. Louis International Film Festival, features independent cinema from around the world, Cinema St. Louis also spends each summer celebrating the film community right here at home. The 26th annual St. Louis Filmmakers Showcase features, in the words of the festival’s official announcement, “more than 60 films that have been written, directed, edited, or produced by local St. Louis filmmakers (or artists with strong ties to the community),” spread out over two weekends. Let’s take a look at the first weekend’s festivities.
The festival opens on Friday July 17th with Chasing Summer (7:30pm), the latest feature from director Josephine Decker (Thou Wast Mild and Lovely, Madeline’s Madeline). Filmed right here in St. Louis, the film stars comedian Iliza Shlesinger as a young woman who returns to her Texas hometown after losing both her boyfriend and her job, where hijinks (and romantic entanglements) inevitably ensue. The movie costars Tom Welling (Smallville), Lola Tung (The Summer I Turned Pretty), Garrett Wareing (Ransom Canyon), and Megan Mullaly (Will & Grace). Before the showing, there is an opening reception next door at Par Lounge (1001 McCausland Ave.), and the movie is followed with a Q&A with producer Nihaar Sinha and Kelley Hiatt from the St. Louis Film Office.
Saturday July 18th offers a packed schedule with features, shorts, and more. The day kicks off at 11:00am with a filmmakers workshop exploring the ins and outs of working with the SAG-AFTRA acting union within the confines of low budget filmmaking. The matinee feature is Annie Turnbo Malone: The Untold Story (07.18, 2:00pm), Kim Love’s documentary about the woman whose haircare empire, founded here in St. Louis, made her one of the first self-made Black female millionaires. Malone used her largesse to fund many worthy causes, including the Annie Malone Children and Family Service Center, a legacy that earned her an annual parade in her honor and that this film shines an additional spotlight onto.
Following that is the first narrative shorts showcase, titled “The Architecture of Aftermath” (07.18, 4:00pm), a collection of seven short films where, as the fest describes, “characters navigate the painful but transformative process of confronting internal vulnerabilities, from the isolation of grief and anxiety to the weight of identity and duty.” I was able to sample five of the seven shorts; my favorite of those was Broken Rice from director Paul Vo Le, a Webster University grad currently studying for an MFA at Lindenwood University. The film follows Kim (Nhu Doan), a homesick Vietnamese student studying in America who is using her studies to come up with a plan to expand her dying mother’s business back home, even as mom insists that Kim stay abroad and honor the sacrifice her family made to get her there. The film has a very palpable feeling of sadness, wistfulness, and grief, amplified by its evocative piano score. Another strong exploration of grief from another local graduate student filmmaker, Austin Berry’s Teal stars PJ McCauley as Blue, who loses her friend Miguel (Sebastian Rodriguez) and uses substances to mask her mourning, but soon finds you can only run from your memories for so long. Berry takes a tender approach to exploring grief, letting McCauley’s subtle emotional shifts tell the story. Not all the shorts are quite so sad (Travis Haughton’s Ferguson-based Caratico is a horror short based on the infamous Bubblehead Road local urban legend and family secrets that has some genuinely unsettling sequences), but all are certainly worth watching.
Speaking of horror, Saturday wraps up on the spooky side with Dan Goldman’s Fairlight (07.18, 7:30pm). Bradford Haynes and Emree Franklin star as a rich couple on each other’s last nerve as they arrive home from a lengthy trip only to get stranded in their house by a wildfire, but things go from bad to worse for the not-so-happy couple when a stalker breaks into their house. The home invasion horror feature was filmed in St. Louis, and by all indications the Showcase screening is its premiere.
Sunday, the shorts programs continue with a block of animation and experimental shorts (07.19, 5:00pm), followed by a second round of narrative live action shorts. This one, titled “A Genuine Place to Land” (07.19, 7:30pm) promises to “dive into the raw, complicated, and often clumsy ways we reach out to one another in moments of vulnerability.” I have not had a chance to watch these shorts yet but plan to watch what I can tomorrow. Check back on this very same article Friday night or Saturday morning for more info on these two shorts showcases.
[Update: 07.18.26] I am very glad I made the time to catch the animation and experimental shorts, as this is the strongest lineup in that category that I’ve seen yet from the Showcase. The session wraps with its strongest entry, John and Jessica Che’s exquisite “Ladybeetle.” In it, May is a teenager facing the end of high school and her looming adulthood while also raising her younger brother Jamie after a traumatic incident of abuse from their father. The headstrong teen is determined to not repeat the mistakes of her parents, but as her bond with her brother deepens, she must discover that she can’t protect him forever. Jessica Che’s character animation is impressive, both in its technical accomplishments (done in a pencil style that’s simple but is anything but simplistic) and in its ability to evoke an emotional reaction. But really everything about this 31-minute short is wonderfully executed, from the painterly backgrounds to the multiple pieces of expertly deployed music to voice acting. And while the story is heavy at times, “Ladybeetle” is also by turns contemplative, funny, and even a little romantic. This one is a must-see.
Another strong animation entry in this showcase is Webster University student Ryan Michael Anderson’s “SKI M4$K” (a funny 5-minute mockumentary about a band so punk that their “movement” doesn’t have times for things like “learning your instrument” or “songs”). On the experimental side (often the place where this category loses me), I found myself drawn to Malik Maurice Marshall and Sadie Ramirez’s “Drake & Hen” (a 4-minute blend of interpretive dance and nature footage), Paul Vo Le’s “Sanctuaries” (a 3-minute meditation on loss aided by visuals from Laumeier Sculpture Park), and Alicia Wolf’s “On Fire” (a “visual poem” by artist French-American artist Shane Wolf about his philosophy of only painting using in-person reference and natural light).
[Update 07.19.26] Five of the nine entries in the Sunday narrative shorts showcase were made available for review and they certain delivered the “the raw, complicated, and often clumsy” stories of human connection that were promised. It doesn’t get much more raw than Quinn Mesnard’s “Inseparable,” a tale of a heroin addict couple doomed to tragedy, though the time-looping thriller “Mistake” rivals it in intensity. “You’re Just in Your 20’s” (written and directed by Olivia Moreno, an Argentinian student studying film at Lindenwood University) goes for “complicated” as Liv (played by a game, funny Nat Harper) instantly falls in love with every boy she meets, imagining weddings and other romantic rendezvous. My favorite of the batch I got to see, though, is writer/director Michael Doshier’s clumsy love story “Ronita Rambo,” about a sassy waitress at a greasy spoon in rural Missouri whose ease with homophobic insults masks that she’s hiding her own feelings deeeeeep in the closet. But it’s Valentine’s Day and, for the first time in her life, she’s got a girl’s number…but can she send the text? Betsy Moore knocks it out of the park in bringing out “Ronnie’s” awkwardness as she finally learns to be true to herself.
All showings are at the Hi-Pointe Theatre (1005 McCausland Ave.). Tickets for the feature films are $15 for the general public and $12 for students and Cinema St. Louis members. Tickets for shorts programs are $5. Five-film and full festival passes are also available. For more information, the full festival schedule, or to purchase tickets, visit festivals.cinemastlouis.org/showcase2026/. | Jason Green
