BIFF Offscreen: woolgathering

A cinematic reverie, exploring breath and breathlessness.

Free Event

BIFF Offscreen: Cage Match Dress Rehearsals

Liquid darkness, fractal forms and still images in motion.

Free Event

BIFF Shorts: Vast Confinements

Portraits of people in various prisons.

BIFF Offscreen: Arena

Electronic performative intermodulations!

Free Event

The Golden Thread

Outside Kolkata a few jute mills crank on, virtually unchanged since the industrial revolution – powered by sweat and steam.

Night Zero Party

Kick off the festival with a filmmaker-friendly gathering, drinks, and great vibes!

Free Event

unseen

A story told through experimental imagery and sound at the intersections of immigration, disability, and mental health.

Eight Eyes

A mysterious local crashes a couple's vacation through the former Yugoslavia, pulling them deeper into his web of psychic rituals.

Tradition, Trauma & Tenderness

A meditation on how traditions that are passed on in a tender, nurturing environment, can help heal and prevent trauma.

Where The Road Leads w/ Midnight Ride

An unexpected visit shakes the life of a barely-inhabited Serbian village to its core.

Maria Schneider, 1983 + The Passenger

If you ask Maria she'll tell you – basta! The Passenger is a film that's closer to who she is.

Place-Based NonFiction

A conversation w/ filmmakers Ronald Baez, Set Hernandez, Pedro + Noam Osband! Co-moderated by Kathryn Larsen + Lynne Bader!

Free Event

Aurora's Sunrise

The story of how Aurora Mardiganian, a survivor of the Armenian genocide, became a silent film star in Hollywood.

Everybody Wants To Be Loved w/ Learning to Dance

Meditations on love and aging.

Space-Based Fiction

A conversation w/ filmmakers Kristian Mercado, Andrew Miano + Dan Balgoyen about If You Were the Last! Co-moderated by Kathryn Larsen!

Free Event

BIFF Brew

Sip an exclusive limited-edition brew by Community Beer Works – celebrating 17 years of cine-magic!

BIFF Shorts: Film on Film

A collection of 16mm films. Black and white, and color. Silent and with sound. Self reflexive, tactile cinema.

A Thousand Pines w/ It's Possible

A crew of 12 Oaxacan tree planters travel to the US to regrow America’s Pine forests. Plus local activists talk climate crisis.

BIFF Shorts: Local Portraits

Local portraits of an artist, a record-cutter, and a James Joyce scholar.

BIFF Offscreen: The Flicker

Phenomenological cinema at its best!

Free Event

Space Is the Place Party

Calling Planet Earth (+ Planet Saturn) – this party will be out of this world!

Free Event

BIFF Offscreen: II

Contemporary structural film at its best!

Free Event

Razing Liberty Square

Miami is ground-zero for sea-level-rise. Now Liberty Square residents must fight a new form of racial injustice- Climate Gentrification.

Starting From Zero

A boxer, a journalist, and a TV personality are uprooted from their lives and homelands, separated from family, and in bureaucratic limbo.

If You Were The Last

Adrift in a broken-down space shuttle, two astronauts argue over whether their remaining days are better spent as friends or something more.

New Strains

As a mysterious new variant of an unnamed pandemic emerges, a squabbling couple in lockdown starts acting like children.

Poundcake

There’s a madman loose in NYC. Late at night, he stalks the streets looking for straight white men to punish.

Only the Good Survive

Brea finds herself in the custody of the small town sheriff, who may be hiding as many secrets as she is.

BIFF Shorts: Saturday Morning Cartoons

Animated fun for the whole family!

BIFF Shorts: Racial Justice in View

Nonfiction and narrative shorts that shine a light on race, (de)colonialism, and inequity in the US, Canada + sovereign Indigenous Nations.

Free Event

BIFF Shorts: Connections

Interactions and exchanges to ward off loneliness.

BIFF Shorts: Experimental

Art and language, poetry and prose – hand-drawn, in pixels, and on celluloid.

In Focus + On Location: The Puppetman

A conversation with Director Brandon Christensen + Producer Mac Cappuccino + Buffalo Niagara Film Office Director of Operations Rich Wall!

Free Event

The Only Doctor

After working years without pay, Dr. Karen Kinsell is the only doctor in Georgia's poorest county for 15 years.

BIFF Shorts: Next Gen

Thoughtful and fun, teen and youth made shorts.

Free Event

BIFF Shorts: Community

Introspective and interconnected stories of communities - large and small.

BIFF Shorts: Coming of Age

Stories of struggle and growth, and other evolutions.

Heartbreak Falls

A high-profile deal to control real estate and commerce on both sides of Niagara Falls creates new enemies and alliances.

Eat Bitter

An evocative study of intertwined lives and supply chains against the backdrop of civil war in the Central African Republic. With Saha.

Spare Key Party

Saturday night among the silos – music, art + more!

Free Event

BIFF Shorts: WNY Stories

Stories from around the region, and around the block.

BIFF Shorts: Episodic Stories

Love stories, dark comedies and more – works that focus on interpersonal and cultural exchanges.

Unfriending

A dark comedy and razor sharp satire on performative online personas and cultures, and the me generation in general.

BIFF Offscreen: Video Nasty

I've got a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore...

Free Event

BIFF Offscreen: Stress Dolls

alt/pop/rocks!

Free Event

The Puppetman

The daughter of a convicted murderer starts to believe his claims of innocence when everyone around her starts to die.

BIFF Offscreen: Dead Orchids

Angelic calls/primal screams/groovy funk/glamorously heavy flair!

Free Event

BIFF Offscreen: Starjuice

Performance by Starjuice under the stars @ the silos!

Free Event

BIFF Shorts: Students

The next generation of filmmaking, today!

I Like It Here w/ Gone Before Your Eyes

We talk or laugh about aging, but we rarely confront its reality.

Into the Spotlight

An exploration of creativity, community, life’s complexities, and empowerment.

Sunday Funday Party

The ultimate gathering for film enthusiasts, sports fans, and party-goers alike.

Free Event

BIFF Offscreen: Medison

Endless sonic pleasures as the co-founder of Queen City Cartel and a staple of DBGBs returns to Buffalo.

Free Event

BIFF Shorts: Homefronts

Stories about home, and the politics and poetics of place. Shorts from Canada, Indonesia, Iran, Venezuela and United States.

BIFF Shorts: Family Films

Shorts for and about families, for everyone to enjoy!

DMS@50+

Join us for the inaugural celebration of University at Buffalo’s infamous Department of Media Study – starting with the "Buffalo Heads"!

Free Event

Break The Game w/ Pronoia

Narcissa live streams every minute of her quest to become the world's fastest Legend of Zelda player, torn between virtual + irl existence.

[six years]

An experimental doc and musical short in dialogue together.

BIFF Offscreen: Buddy Boi + Turkey Boi

Returning DJ duo, Buddy Boi + Turkey Boi, keep Sunday Funday festive.

Free Event

Under the Influencer

A successful Youtuber is aging out of the platform in her mid-20s, and struggling to redefine herself.

Chasing Chasing Amy

An exploration of the impact of a ‘90s rom-com on a 12 year old kid from Kansas, coming of age and contending with queer identity.

Scrap

After getting laid off, a young single-mom is living in her car and struggling to hide her homelessness from her estranged brother.

A Decade At DBs

Dukes Bohemian Grove Bar stood as a staple of Allentown.

Go On, Be Brave

The story of one woman’s race against time - a diagnosis of ALS and an attempt at the impossible.

Kenyatta: Do Not Wait Your Turn

An inspiring love story about a self-described “poor, gay, black man from North Philly” on his historic run for the United States Senate.

Love Is Not an Orange

An intimate portrait of familial exchange and love from afar, archivally articulated and created out of the collapse of the Soviet Union.

ᏓᏗᏬᏂᏏ / We Will Speak

With fewer than 1,500 fluent speakers left, a small group of Cherokee activists race to save their language from extinction.

Alien Food

A touching, unexpected friendship anchors this stark, first-person window into psychosis.

98 Degrees West -Zamir Discovers Bourdain's America

Feeling lost and abandoned Zamir Gotta, a longtime friend of Anthony Bourdain goes in search of the America Tony knew.

Plan C

A secret grassroots organization persistently fights to expand access to abortion pills across the USA

Award Ceremony

BIFF's Annual Awards Ceremony for Official Selections in Competition.

Free Event

2023 Tilke Hill W.i.P. Award

Join us during our Awards Ceremony when we will announce our 2023 Tilke Hill W.i.P. Award Winner!

Free Event

Fancy Dance

Following her sister's disappearance, a Seneca-Cayuga woman kidnaps her niece from her white grandparents and sets out for the state powwow.

Free Event

Kim's Video

Originally run by the enigmatic Yongman Kim out of his dry-cleaning business, Kim's Video (NYC) was a cornucopia of rare, esoteric films.

BIFF Shorts: Danger Zone

You’ve been warned, things are gonna get weird.

Maria Schneider, 1983 + Sweet Ruin + Shulie – Encore w/ Elisabeth Subrin

Three cross-genre works that bend time, history, and form...

Free Event

BIFF Shorts: Racial Justice in View Encore

Nonfiction and narrative shorts that shine a light on race, (de)colonialism, and inequity in the US, Canada + sovereign Indigenous Nations.

Free Event

Into the Spotlight Encore

An exploration of creativity, community, life’s complexities, and empowerment.

Free Event