The Loft Cinema’s annual Loft Film Fest is back for another year, with international Oscar submissions, highly anticipated new releases and conversations with industry legends.
The festival runs through Nov. 19 at The Loft, 3233 E. Speedway, and brings together dozens of films across different genres, from archival footage documentaries, to adaptations of classic literature and campy vampire comedies.
“We try to cover the gamut. We have feature films, documentaries, animation, we have ‘late night fair,’ so things that are a little out there.” said Loft Cinema Program Director, Jeff Yanc.
Now in its 16th year, he said the Loft Film Fest is created to be a curated compilation of the greatest hits from other festival circuits.
“Because it's happening in November, a lot of the other big international festivals have happened, like Sundance and Cannes and Venice and Telluride,” Yanc said. “So we're able to look at all of those festivals and try and cull from those festivals and some of the great films that they've shown, and then bring them to Tucson.”
This year, the Loft Film Fest features a lineup of 46 films and programs, including seven official Oscar submissions from countries like Japan, Mexico and Lithuania.
“We try every year very diligently to make sure there's different countries being represented,” Yanc said. “That was really the driving force behind starting the festival years ago, that we wanted to bring a lot of international films to Tucson.”
The Japanese Oscar submission, “All of a Sudden,” is about caregiver Marie-Lou, who runs a nursing home striving for more humane elder care, and her friendship with Mari, a Japanese theatre director facing terminal cancer.
“On the Road,” the official submission from Mexico for the Best International Feature Film Academy Award, explores the hyper-masculine world of long-haul trucking across the north of Mexico.
“The Lithuanian Oscar submission has, I think, one of the best titles we're showing, ‘How to Divorce During the War,’” Yanc said.
Directed by Andrius Blazevicius, the film follows married couple Marija and Vytas, when Marija chooses the worst possible moment for an honest conversation about divorcing – just one day before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Image from "Clarissa," which will play on the closing night of the Loft Film Fest.
One of the most anticipated films of the festival is the closing night drama, “Clarissa.”
“It's from Nigeria. It's directed by two twin brothers named Arie and Chuko Esiri, and it's a movie based on the Virginia Woolf novel Mrs. Dalloway,” he said. “I think people are also looking forward to the film called ‘Tender Loving Care.’ It's by a director that a lot of people who like art films know named Mike Leigh, who's a British filmmaker. He's made films for decades, and this is his last film.”
Other festival highlights include an animated Latvian film, “Dog of God,” about a werewolf trial in a 17th century Latvian village.
“I's pretty wild. So it's for people who are very open-minded about animation and understand that animation is not always for kids,” Yanc said. “There's a film from Austria called ‘The Blood Countess’ for people who like vampire movies. Isabel Huppert, who's a pretty famous French actress, is playing a real-life countess from Hungary who was an alleged serial killer with vampiric tendencies.”
Another film Yanc was particularly excited about is “Time Warp,” which he said has special significance for the Loft.
“It's a documentary set in Wyoming about this young man who is trying to start a Rocky Horror shadow cast in this very small, conservative town,” he said. “It's about how Rocky Horror gives the queer community a space to express themselves, which is why we’ve been showing it here at the Loft for 50 years.”
In addition to screenings of the newest critically acclaimed works in cinema, the week’s programming also includes discussions with well-known filmmakers and writers behind some of cinema’s most beloved movies like “Brokeback Mountain” and “Good Will Hunting.”
“We found our audience really loves getting to meet filmmakers to hear about the process of making films or screenwriting or directing,” Yanc said.
This year, the Loft is honoring Gus Van Sant, the director behind “Good Will Hunting,” with the 2026 Lofty Achievement Award.
“He's been nominated for more than one Oscar, and he's very well known in the industry and among audiences,” Yanc said. “So I'm very excited about that. I love his work. To me he’s an example of how a great filmmaker can move back and forth between Hollywood and indie.”
Image from "My Own Private Idaho," which will be playing at the Loft Film Fest.
To honor Van Sant, there will be a special 30th anniversary showing of his 1986 film “My Own Private Idaho,” on Nov. 14 followed by a screening of his earliest film, “Mala Noche,” and an in-person Q & A with the director himself.
The other Lofty recipient for 2026 is Susan Seidelman, the director of the 1985 film, "Desperately Seeking Susan,” which will be playing Nov.13
“It's just a fun romantic comedy about women reinventing themselves and swapping identities,” Yanc said. “Then we're showing her first film also, which is called ‘Smithereens,’ which was from the early '80s. It's kind of a punk rock, very low budget indie kind of DIY movie about a young woman in New York who's trying to be famous, but she doesn't really know what she can do to be famous.”
After the screening of “Smithereens” on Nov. 14, Seidelman will be holding a book signing for her recently published a memoir, "Desperately Seeking Something," which delves into Seidelman’s experiences as a woman in the film industry in the '80s.
Image from "Desperately Seeking Susan," which will be showing during the Loft Film Fest.
New this year, the film fest is debuting the Larry McMurtry Screenwriting Award. The award will be presented to Joan Tewkesbury for her writing of the 1975 film, “Nashville,” which examines the political and cultural landscapes of the United States, from the nation’s music capital. The award will be presented to Tewkesbury by McMurtry’s writing and producing partner, Diana Ossana.
“We also do a local shorts program because we like supporting local films, so there's a bunch of local filmmakers who will be at that screening and doing a Q and A,” Yanc said.
A few of the local directors featured in the festival are Leslie Ann Epperson and her documentary, “The Valley Between,” which focuses on wildlife migration across the border in the San Rafael Valley in Arizona; David Aberle whose film, “They Wait,” tells the story of a desperate grandfather who seeks revenge through an Indigenous spirit broker; and Pedro Perez Nuñez. Yanc described Nuñez’s film, “Truncated Soul,” as an experimental drama.
“What a great opportunity a big festival is, to see different kinds of films, discover films, and see what's going on in different countries cinematically and to meet filmmakers,” Yanc said.
Information about the festival’s lineup, show times, and ticket pricing, can be found on the Loft Cinema’s website.
