The Camden International Film Festival (CIFF) has announced its slate of features and short films for the 22nd edition of the festival, which will take place in person from September 17-20 at venues in Camden and Rockland, Maine.

"A program of the Points North Institute, CIFF stands among the world’s most influential platforms for cinematic nonfiction, showcasing groundbreaking work from global filmmakers in an intimate, small-town setting on the coast of Maine," said Points North, in a news release. "It is one of the largest documentary industry gatherings in the U.S., serving as both a launchpad for Oscar campaigns and a gateway for international filmmakers to reach American audiences, distributors and production partners."

YETI, RandomGood Foundation, The deNovo Initiative, and LEF Foundation return as headline sponsors, joined by Points North Institute supporters the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and Maine Office of Tourism.

This year’s edition includes 28 features and 35 short films from 24 countries. Half of the features in the program are either U.S., North American, or World Premieres, including several new works coming straight to Maine following recent premieres at Venice, Locarno, and Toronto, along with award-winners and standout films from Sundance, Berlinale, Visions du Réel, Cannes and others. For the fourth year, CIFF’s two major juried competitions — the Harrell Award and Cinematic Vision competitions — are comprised entirely of films making their World, U.S. or North American premieres at the festival.

Sean Flynn, artistic director and Points North co-founder, said, in a news release, “When it feels as though everything is recorded and nothing is remembered, the filmmakers here look closer and stay longer.” He continued, “Just as photographers use long exposures to turn faint light into indelible images, they have spent years, sometimes decades, patiently telling stories that guide our frayed attention back toward what is most precious, most alive and human, most deserving of protection and preservation.”

Along with Flynn, this year’s festival was curated by Senior Programmer Zaina Bseiso, Festival Manager Morgan Hulquist, and Programming Associates Gugi Gumilang (Features) and Nehal Vyas (Shorts).

“Time moves differently across this program, expanding, compressing or coming to a pause to reveal what might otherwise remain unseen,” said Senior Programmer Zaina Bseiso. “In the hands of these filmmakers, the manipulation of time brings obscured or unexplored patterns into focus while foregrounding what is truly unique to cinema.”

“The conditions for making independent documentary have rarely been harder, and the need for it has rarely been clearer,” said Points North Executive Director Elise McCave. “Funding has contracted, distribution has narrowed, and filmmakers are being asked to justify work that takes years to do properly. What our 2026 program demonstrates is that they are doing it anyway. Our job is to make sure that when they arrive here in Maine, they find an audience, a market, and a community equal to what they have made.”

CIFF will open with two new works of observational cinema by accomplished artists. The Illusion of an Everlasting Summer, directed by Magnum photographer Alessandra Sanguinetti, chronicles 25 years in the lives of two cousins in the rural Argentine Pampas, creating a singular portrait of girlhood, friendship and the passage of time. After its recent Locarno premiere, the film picked up the Golden Leopard in the Cineasti del Presente Competition and the First Feature Award.

Boatbuilders, from two-time Sundance-winning director Luke Lorentzen, trains an attentive gaze on the meticulous, time-honored tradition of wooden boat building at Maine’s legendary Brooklin Boat Yard. The film comes to Camden following its upcoming world premiere in Venice.

Across a range of geographies, histories and artistic forms, many of the films in this year’s CIFF program turn on themes of intimacy, time, archives, and memory — examining what one generation chooses to keep and what it hands to the next. They also revolve around the interplay between love, labor, and resistance to machineries of power.

The slate is anchored by centerpiece screenings that weave personal themes into wider political contexts. Barbara Kopple returns to CIFF with the U.S. premiere of Union Town, a propulsive verité doc that concludes a trilogy on labor organizing that began with her Oscar-winning Harlan County, USA and American Dream. Another U.S. premiere, Alex Gibney’s four-hour epic Musk, chronicles the ascent of the world’s first trillionaire and the systems that have enabled such concentration of power. Sam Pollard’s Tutu, a portrait of the South African anti-apartheid leader,will make its North American premiere.  Biljana Tutorov and Petar Glomazić’s Sundance winner, To Hold a Mountain, isan intimate verité portrait of a shepherd mother and her teenage daughter set in the highlands of Montenegro, where both NATO militarization and patriarchal violence threaten their way of life. The film returns to Camden as an alum of Points North’s prestigious Diane Weyermann Fellowship, a program honoring the late producer by championing ambitious and globally resonant documentary cinema.

Four features will have their World Premieres at CIFF — each using archives to unfurl stories that stretch across decades. Hubert Taylor and Cyrus Moussavi’s Windows of Time draws on four decades of home video footage shot in Fitzgerald, Georgia, an extraordinary community archive that centers on Taylor’s father, the gospel singer Brother Theotis Taylor. Sierra Pettengill’s Argonauts at the End of History reconstructs the 1989 voyage of Soviet sailors who built their own boat and entered the Whitbread Round-the-World Race, just as the Cold War began drawing to a close. Nicole Costa’s No Money No Honey documents the wild escapades of Máxima, a trans immigrant sex worker, and her glamorous friends. Grace Harper Brighouse’s Dependence uses the camera to reconnect with her father, estranged after years of his OxyContin addiction.

Themes of inheritance and memory are most prominent in the program’s archival works. Palestinian filmmaker and archivist Mohanad Yaqubi’s Locarno Special Jury Prize winner Revolutionaries Never Die catalogues and restores the reels that the Lebanese filmmaker Jocelyne Saab deposited before her death, arguing that each new ordering of images changes the present. After screenings at Sundance, Cannes, Venice, and TIFF, the critically-acclaimed Once Upon a Time in Harlem by William Greaves and David Greaves restores the 16mm archives of a lively 1972 gathering of Harlem Renaissance luminaries. Atlas of Disappearance by Manuel Correa uses forensic technology to give closure to families of those disappeared by Franco’s dictatorship.

The festival’s international selections also include a broad spectrum of personal films that grapple with family dynamics and intimacy against backdrops of political and technological change. Chouwa Liang’s debut feature Replica follows three women in contemporary China who turn to AI boyfriends to meet their emotional needs. Another debut, Nông Nhật Quang’s Baby Jackfruit, Baby Guava,is a cinematic love letter to the director’s newborn nephew. Past Future Continuous, by Morteza Ahmadvand and Firouzeh Khosrovani, is an essay from an Iranian woman in exile, now watching her elderly parents’ Tehran house through its surveillance cameras. Renowned Algerian director Hassen Ferhani brings Alea Jacarandas, which follows his father’s obsession with the jacaranda tree and the city of Algiers. Finally, the French director Alain Cavalier, whose career spans seven decades, will screen his playful Cannes-premiering essay, Thanks for Coming.

The slate features two anticipated films about people testing both their physical and emotional limits. Following screenings at Venice and TIFF, ElizabethChai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin return to CIFF with Everest: The Other Side, a heart-stopping film about the legendary ski mountaineers Jim Morrison and Hilaree Nelson. Erik Shirai will bring Sumo: Spirit Weighs Nothing, a rare close-up portrait of the lives of Japan’s top sumo wrestlers.

This year’s slate includes seven alumni of Points North’s Artist Programs, which connect emerging filmmakers with mentorship and resources to advance their work and careers: Dependence, Windows of Time, How to Clean a House in 10 Easy Steps, and Jaripeo all participated in the Points North Fellowship; To Hold a Mountain is the first project completed through the Diane Weyermann Fellowship; Ceremony by Banchi Hanuse, a filmmaker supported by the 4th World Media Lab; and mother, you have not died yet… by Advik Beni, an alum of the North Star Fellowship.

"CIFF has long been known for its adventurous shorts programming and its juried Shorts Award is Oscar-qualifying," said CIFF.

The shorts program features new work from Laura Poitras and Rachel Lauren Mueller (They’re Here), Maryam Tafakory (Ghazal-e Sorkh), and Joshua Oppenheimer (The Revolution Against Death). Four shorts in competition will make their World Premieres: Of Your Tenderness by Zoulikha Tahar, Of Indigo and Iron by Alec Ybarra, S’Ardia by Billy Barraclough, and So God Made An Oil Worker by Jeanne Zhen Zhang. They are joined by North American and U.S. premieres from Alba Jaramillo (Guided Tour), Timoteus Anggawan Kusno (Obscura), Daniel Duque (Pacífico), Collectif Faire-Part (What We Said to Brussels Airlines), Chun Tien Chen (The Architect Who Built His Own Collapse), Lydia Cornett (Test Track), and Fairouz Hasan (Lovely Butterfly).

Also featured in the shorts program is the festival’s annual Dirigo Docs showcase of short films set in Maine and primarily by Maine-based filmmakers, a special shorts program and panel discussion on science storytelling presented in collaboration with TangledBank Studios, and the Pretty Wild Showcase, featuring a slate of new outdoor-themed short films supported by Points North and YETI.

For the second year, the Fowlie Audience Award — named after CIFF founder Ben Fowlie — will be presented to the film rated highest by audience members and will come with a $10,000 cash prize. The festival weekend will be filled with special programming for locals and visitors alike, including a free community screening of Nanette Burstein’s Carl Sagan: We Are Made of Star Stuff, a community sail in Rockland Harbor, an exhibition of Bucks Harbor director Pete Muller’s photographic work, and a special, collaborative performance at the festival’s YETI Lounge from the Grammy-nominated artist MC Taylor, frontman of Hiss Golden Messenger, and acclaimed jazz pianist Nikolaj Hess.

Similar to prior years, the festival will run concurrently with Points North’s Artist Programs fellowships, which support 21 documentary films in development from around the world through mentor-led creative retreats and industry access opportunities. In total, 58 early- and mid-career filmmakers with works-in-progress will attend CIFF through Points North programs and partnerships with an array of mission-aligned artist development organizations, including Ellis-Beauregard Foundation, BAVC Media, FWD-Doc, Multitude Films, Center for Asian American Media, American Documentary, Chicken & Egg Films, TIME Studios, and Bird Street Productions. These filmmakers will have opportunities to meet with 150+ industry delegates both in person and online.

"The confluence of these programs makes the CIFF weekend the most dynamic, intimate and globally representative documentary market experience in the U.S.," said Points North.

A full announcement of this year’s Points North-supported filmmaker fellows will be made later in August.

A complete list of the program’s features and short films can be found below.

2026 Camden International Film Festival Features

Features

Alea Jacarandas| Hassen Ferhani | Algeria, France | U.S. Premiere

In Algiers, a writer embarks on a poetic mapping of jacarandas, those purple-flowering trees from Latin America. His filmmaker son follows him on this intimate journey.

Argonauts at the End of History | Sierra Pettengill | United States, Georgia, Ukraine | World Premiere

A group of sailors from the USSR join a race around the world, navigating wild seas, personal tragedy and the end of the Cold War.

Atlas of Disappearance| Manuel Correa | Spain | North American Premiere

Atlas of Disappearance exposes Valle de los Caídos, where technology unearths the truth buried beneath fascist monumentality.

Baby Jackfruit, Baby Guava| Nông Nhật Quang  | Vietnam, Korea | US Premiere

When an unplanned baby enters the lives of a conservative mother, neurodivergent daughter and detached gay son, the trio travels back in time through their diaries and family photos to mend ruptured bonds and prepare for a new cycle of motherhood.

Boatbuilders| Luke Lorentzen | United States | North American Premiere

Over the course of 16 months, at the head of a remote harbor in Maine, the workers of the Brooklin Boat Yard meticulously build a 56-foot wooden sailboat. As the seasons change and the vessel takes shape, director Luke Lorentzen immerses the viewer in a close-knit community rooted in time-honored craft, shared joys, and mutual respect.

Bucks Harbor| Pete Muller | United States

In a rural lobster fishing village, Bucks Harbor explores manhood, community and survival in a harsh and beautiful world.

Carl Sagan: We Are Made of Star Stuff| Nanette Burstein | United States 

An intimate portrait of visionary astronomer, author and television star Carl Sagan, whose groundbreaking ideas transformed our understanding of the cosmos and human existence.

Ceremony| Banchi Hanuse | Canada

As the Nuxalk trace their vanished ooligan through settler tapes and a historic land claim, their radio station becomes courtroom, confessional and conjuring ground. The fish and the people return together or not at all.

Dependence| Grace Harper Brighouse | United Kingdom | World Premiere

Sifting through a lifetime of home movies, a family navigates the slow reality of OxyContin addiction and the sharp, sudden shock of profound grief. In an accumulation of ordinary moments, Dependence is a portrait of loving someone you cannot save.

Everest: The Other Side| Jimmy Chin, Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi | United States, China, Nepal 

Elite ski mountaineers Jim Morrison and Hilaree Nelson share an audacious dream: to climb up and ski down the direct North Face of Everest, taking on one of the most dangerous routes on the world’s tallest mountain. Blending breathtaking spectacle and romance, this is an epic story of resilience and transcendence.

How To Clean A House In 10 Easy Steps| Carolina Gonzalez Valencia | United States 

Beatriz Valencia, a domestic worker in the United States, and Carolina, her daughter and filmmaker, collaborate to create the fictional character of a writer.

The Illusion of an Everlasting Summer| Alessandra Sanguinetti | Argentina

Filmed over 25 years by photographer Alessandra Sanguinetti, two cousins grow up in the Pampas of Argentina in this stirring portrait of rural life and celebration of female friendship.

Jaripeo| Efraín Mojica, Rebecca Zweig | Mexico, United States, France 

Jaripeo journeys to Michoacán’s hypermasculine rodeos. What starts as a celebration of tradition descends into the subconscious of memory, queer desire, and longing. A reckoning with the wounds and beauty of a home left behind.

Jean-Michel Basquiat| Quinn Whitney Wilson, Viridiana Lieberman | United States

Jean-Michel Basquiat is a reclamation of what has been lost in the legacy of a globally renowned artist.

mother, you have not died yet. but you will. and when you do, you will finally be alive again.| Advik Beni | South Africa, United States | North American Premiere

In Durban’s Indian township, where post-apartheid violence still simmers, Lishana tends to her dying mother. Through photography, she reflects on life and death, past and present, oscillating between the tangible and mystical.

Musk| Alex Gibney | United States | U.S. Premiere

An incisive look behind the legend of Elon Musk, the world’s most heralded “inventor-entrepreneur,” who has enormous influence on the world in which we all live.

No Money No Honey| Nicole Costa | Chile, United States | World Premiere

Revisiting old VHS tapes, Máxima Mauricio, an Argentine sex worker, longs for her golden days in Miami while confronting a childhood marked by neglect and abuse. As she reconciles with her past, she finds strength in friends and the trans community.

Once Upon a Time in Harlem| William Greaves, David Greaves | United States 

A decade after his death, genre-defying filmmaker William Greaves has one last trick up his sleeve with what he considered the most important event he captured on film: a 1972 party he engineered with the living luminaries of the Harlem Renaissance.

Past Future Continuous| Morteza Ahmadvand, Firouzeh Khosrovani | Iran, Norway, Italy | North American Premiere

Past Future Continuous is an intimate, poetic documentary exploring exile and memory. It offers a timely reflection on displacement, identity and the longing for home.

Replica| Chouwa Liang | China, France | U.S. Premiere

Young Chinese women turn to AI companions in search of the love they feel is missing from their lives — but are chatbots the answer, or are they standing in the way of real human connection?

Revolutionaries Never Die| Mohanad Yaqubi | Palestine, Belgium, Qatar | U.S. Premiere

Revolutionaries Never Die explores the politics of memory and the profound capacity of filmmaking to navigate the complexities of grief by looking at the archives of Jocelyne Saab.

Sumo: Spirit Weighs Nothing| Erik Shirai | Japan, United States, United Kingdom, Denmark

SUMO: Spirit Weighs Nothing is the first-ever documentary feature to reveal the secret world of sumo wrestling to international audiences, all from the unique perspective of the famed wrestlers themselves.

Thanks for Coming| Alain Cavalier | France | U.S. Premiere

The final episode of Alain Cavalier’s video diary. “Le Filmeur” traces his late life trough the approach of death and the beauty of life intertwine with his doubts and contradictions as he encounters others.

To Hold a Mountain| Biljana Tutorov, Petar Glomazić | Serbia, France, Montenegro, Slovenia

In the remote highlands of Montenegro, a shepherd mother and daughter proudly defend their ancestral mountain from the threat of becoming a NATO military training ground for mortar shelling, stirring memories of the violence that shattered their family.

Tutu| Sam Pollard | United States | North American Premiere

Through never-before-seen archival footage and first-hand accounts of those who knew him best, the film traces Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s rise as the voice of the oppressed, guided by faith, hope and an understanding of the power of forgiveness.

Union Town| Barbara Kopple | United States | U.S. Premiere

Union Town completes Barbara Kopple’s (Harlan County, U.S.A, American Dream) trilogy on labor rights. Set in New York City, the film follows delivery industry workers as they take on some of the world’s most powerful corporations, revealing the challenges, passion and humanity at the heart of this growing labor movement.

Whispers in the Woods| Vincent Munier | France

In the deep snow of the Vosges mountains in France, a father breaking trail urges his son to follow in his footsteps. Wildlife photographer and filmmaker Vincent Munier earned these woods from his own father. Together, three generations of naturalists wait in blinds for the appearance of lynx, deer, owls, and the near-mythical capercaillie.

Windows of Time| Hubert Taylor, Cyrus Moussavi | United States | World Premiere

Driven by a divine vision, filmmaker Hubert Taylor spent forty years capturing hundreds of hours of footage celebrating Black life in South Georgia. Windows of Time weaves this extraordinary archive into an intimate portrait of Hubert’s father, the legendary gospel singer Brother Theotis Taylor, their tight-knit community, and filmmaking as an act of love and liberation for a prodigal son.

Shorts

The Architect Who Built His Own Collapse | Chun Tien Chen | Taiwan | North American Premiere

Children & Animals | Walker Kalan | United States

Claws for Concern  | Julia Forsyth | United States

The Coral and The Copepod | Jason Jaacks | United States | World Premiere

The Coral Rescuers | Jason Spingarn-Koff | United States

Fish Film | Emma Baiada | United States | World Premiere

For a Moment the Clouds Parted and I Felt the Sun | Jared Lank | United States | World Premiere

Ghazal-e Sorkh | Maryam Tafakory | Iran, United Kingdom, France | U.S. Premiere

Guided Tour | Alba Jaramillo | France, Puerto Rico | U.S. Premiere

If You Don’t Like It, Look Away | Margaux Fournier | France

In the Morning Sun | Serville Poblete | Philippines, Canada

Isla & Isla (Work in Progress) | Mike Day | Scotland

Listen | Taliesin Black-Brown | United States 

Lovely Butterfly | Fairouz Hasan | Palestine | U.S. Premiere

May the Water Not Freeze | Zahira Hafeeza Chaudhry | United States

Obscura | Timoteus Anggawan Kusno | Indonesia, Netherlands | North American Premiere

Of Indigo and Iron | Alec Ybarra | El Salvador | World Premiere

Of Your Tenderness | Zoulikha Tahar | France | World Premiere

Oxbow | Greg Kohs | United States, Japan

Pacífico | Daniel Duque | France, Colombia | North American Premiere

Plant Life | Brett Marty, Josh Izenberg | United States

Rare Bird | Juliana Schatz Preston | United States | World Premiere

The Revolution Against Death | Joshua Oppenheimer | Denmark, Sweden, United States

River | Emily Cohen Ibanez | United States, Colombia | World Premiere

Same Water | Martine Granby | United States

S’Ardia | Billy Barraclough | Italy | World Premiere

Sea Change | Chiara Hollender | United States | World Premiere

So God Made An Oil Worker | Jeanne Zhen Zhang | United States | World Premiere

Steward·Ship | Luke Kaneb | United States

Sweetgrass | Mike Sockabasin, Emily Karlik | United States | World Premiere

Test Track | Lydia Cornett | United States | U.S. Premiere

They’re Here | Laura Poitras, Rachel Lauren Mueller | United States | North American Premiere

What We Said to Brussels Airlines | Collectif Faire-Part | Belgium, Democratic Republic of Congo | North American Premiere

A Wolf in the Suburbs | Amélie Hardy | Canada

Established in 2016, Points North Institute is the launching pad for the next generation of nonfiction storytellers. Building on the success of the Camden International Film Festival, Points North brings together a unique, interdisciplinary community of filmmakers, artists, journalists, industry leaders, and audiences, forming a creative hub on the coast of Maine where new stories and talent are discovered, collaborations are born, and the future of nonfiction media is shaped. Programs include the annual Camden International Film Festival and Points North Forum, as well as a year-round calendar of artist development initiatives that nurture the careers of diverse nonfiction storytellers and help them develop a stronger artistic voice.

Founded in 2005 and recognized as one of the top documentary film festivals in the world, the Camden International Film Festival (CIFF) brings innovative nonfiction cinema to the coast of Maine, showcasing 50+ documentary films and immersive works from around the globe each fall.

The 2026 Camden International Film Festival will take place September 17-20, 2026. Major support for this year’s CIFF is provided by MacArthur Foundation, Maine Office of Tourism, YETI, The deNovo Initiative, RandomGood Foundation, LEF Foundation, National Geographic Documentary Films, Perspective Fund, ESPN Films, Doc Society, Lesher Family Foundation, and Onion Foundation.