Julie Pacino’s I Live Here Now is more than a debut feature. It is a sensory experience steeped in texture, color, and dream logic, drawing from a lineage of surrealist filmmaking that includes David Lynch, whom Pacino openly cites as a creative north star. After speaking with Pacino and lead actor Lucy Fry, it’s clear this film didn’t just borrow from that tradition.

Baltimore filmmaker Albert Birney has built a career out of making movies that feel handmade, intimate, and just a little bit otherworldly. From The Beast Pageant to Sylvio, which was named one of the ten best films of 2017 by The New Yorker, to Strawberry Mansion and beyond, Birney’s work has consistently embraced the mystical, the tactile, and the defiantly strange. With Obex, he may have crafted his most personal transmission yet.

Talking to Ernie O'Donnell was one of those full-circle moments that sneaks up on you. I grew up on Clerks and Chasing Amy. Chasing Amy, especially, was in constant rotation for me in high school. I used to fall asleep to it more nights than I can count.

Spending time with Sarah Ramos, Mike Mitchell, and Paul Rust made it immediately clear why The Napa Boys feels less like a traditional comedy and more like an inside joke you are lucky enough to be invited into. The film thrives on chemistry, trust, and a shared willingness to let things get weird, all of which carried naturally into the conversation. For me, this interview was a full-circle moment.

There is something quietly unnerving about the way Allan Hawco enters a scene in In Cold Light. It is not loud. It is not theatrical. It is controlled. A steady gaze beneath a cowboy hat.

There is no pretending what Blood Barn is inspired by. And that is exactly the point. When I sat down with director and co-writer Gabriel Bernini, co-writer and producer Alexandra Jade, and star Lena Redford, the energy was honest, self-aware, and completely in line with the film itself.

There’s a particular kind of passion that only reveals itself when a filmmaker stops talking about plot and starts talking about why something scares them. That’s where Jeremiah Kipp lives. Before sitting down to talk with Kipp, I wasn’t familiar with The Mortuary Assistant video game, nor was I deeply acquainted with his body of work beyond reputation.

There is a quiet confidence that Barbara Crampton brings to Teacher’s Pet, one that comes not from dominance or spectacle, but from lived experience. In Noam Kroll’s restrained psychological thriller, Crampton plays Sylvia, a foster mother orbiting the film’s central conflict, reacting rather than driving, listening rather than confronting. It is a performance built on subtlety, and one that reflects exactly where Crampton is in her career right now.