Cucalorus Film Festival, November 13-17, 2019
A film for everyone
The 25th annual Cucalorus Festival takes place November 13-17, 2019 in downtown Wilmington, North Carolina. The non-competitive festival showcases more than 150 films from all over the world and attracts an accumulated audience of 19,000 cultural travelers who come to celebrate the art-form and connect with peers. The festival’s spirited celebration has been recognized as a breeding ground for young artists, new ideas and future collaborations.
Festival programs focus on dance, music videos, emerging artists, social justice, works-in-progress, and international cinema. Voted “One of the Coolest Film Festivals in the World” (MovieMaker Magazine 2013, 2014, 2015), and “50 Film Festivals Worth the Entry Fee” (MovieMaker Magazine 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018), Cucalorus creates an opportunity for intimate engagement between audience and artist through the festival’s retreat-like atmosphere, resulting in friendships that extend far beyond the festival’s 5-day celebration.
Film Pass: $200
Grab a pass now, which includes access to all Film events, Nov 13-17, 2019!
2019 Film Selections
A Great Lamp
Saad Qureshi
Narrative Features
Set in a small riverside town in North Carolina, two sad vandals and an unemployed loner form an unlikely friendship as they await a fabled rocket launch. This experimental narrative...
A Line Birds Cannot See
Amy Bench
Shorts
Separated from her mother by smugglers at the border, a determined 12-year-old sets out across a desert with only a plastic sack for protection from the cold, survives starvation on...
A Normal Girl
Aubree Bernier-Clarke
Shorts
1.5% of people are born with anatomy that doesn't fit typical definitions of female or male. It is common practice for doctors to perform genital surgeries on intersex infants--often with...
A Period Piece
Sylvia Ray
Shorts
Cheered on by her best friend, a teen confronts her greatest fear - tampons.
Always in Season
Jacqueline Olive
Documentary Features
Always in Season explores the lingering impact of more than a century of lynching African Americans and connects this form of historic racial terrorism to racial violence today. When 17-year-old...
At Midnight
Shorts
A wedding becomes suspenseful when it's revealed that certain guests may have criminal intentions.
Beyond this moment
Alyona Amato, Erika Edwards
Shorts
Mother of 2 kids putting them to sleep and going to bed as well. She had a dream of her dancing and making art with her body. She woke up...
Black Magic for White Boys
Onur Tukel
Narrative Features
An aging magician is about to lose his small New York theater, but has a devilish plan to save it. A middle-aged man finds his sovereignty in jeopardy when he...
Brett Kavanaugh Is Ruining My Sex Life
Kristin Slaysman
Shorts
A dark comedy about a liberal couple struggling to reinvent their sex fantasy in the days following the Kavanaugh hearing.
Five Minutes
Sandra Dickson, Peter Gilbert, Chris Zaluski
Shorts
Baptiste Touissant’s dreams of opening a Cajun restaurant ended when a suicide bomber detonated only feet from him in Afghanistan. Baptiste, terrified of surviving his devastating injuries, begged his buddy...
Frances Ferguson
Bob Byington
Narrative Features
Frances Ferguson, the eponymously named character at the center of Bob Byington’s new film, is discontent. Like a lot of us, she does a bit of “acting out” and pays...
How Does It Start
Amber Sealey
Shorts
It’s 1983 and 12-year-old Rain wants sex, the only problem is she has no idea what that means. With her self-absorbed parents distracted by their recent divorce, Rain is left...
In Dog Years
Sophy Romvari
Shorts
Old dogs are celebrated in 10 short stories about love, loss and letting go. Raises questions about grief and awareness of mortality.
Jesus Shows You the Way to the Highway
Miguel Llansó
Narrative Features :: Convulsions
Special Agent DT Gagano dreams of leaving the CIA to open a business with his wife Malin. The night he’s about to present his resignation letter a strange cyber virus...
Knives and Skin
Jennifer Reeder
Narrative Features
The disappearance of a young girl in rural Illinois forces a group of teenagers and their parents to confront their fears and failures.
Koko-Di Koko-Da
Johannes Nyholm
Narrative Features :: Convulsions
As a couple goes on a trip to find their way back to each other, a sideshow artist and his shady entourage emerge from the woods, terrorizing them, luring them...
Lady Hater
Alexandra Barreto
Shorts
Sam, a self proclaimed “Guy’s Girl,” walks into the wrong room, and finds herself stuck in an all-female, goddess seminar. When she tries to leave and is called out as...
Let’s go to Antarctica!
Gonzaga Manso
Shorts
Carlos is a human being who at this very moment is on a holiday in Antarctica. The penguins, who do not have cameras, will forget all about Carlos.
Long Drive To Yadkin
Parrish Stikeleather
Shorts
A man walks into a barber shop for one last haircut.
Mom’s Clothes
Jordan Wong
Shorts
"I did the thing I was told to do, but it wasn’t what I wanted. I'm pretty strong but if you bully me enough, it'll wear me down." A nonfiction...
Other Black Boys
Nyles Washington
Shorts
A queer, black college student is forced to confront the masks he wears from day to day when an old friend comes to visit.
Push the Point
Bryan Burton
Shorts
A musical short film set between the worlds of fandom and pop culture, PUSH THE POINT follows four online gamers through their squad-based mission. Harder than defeating the red team,...
Revel In Your Body
Katherine Helen Fisher
Shorts
REVEL IN YOUR BODY originated as a creative concept when dancers Alice Sheppard and Laurel Lawson shared online a slow-motion iPhone video of them jumping on a trampoline while strapped...
Sick, Sick, Sick
Alice Furtado
Narrative Features :: Convulsions
Silvia and Artur’s teenage-romance starts abruptly and ends up all of a sudden after a serious accident. Silvia gets sick and her days turn into dark. Her mourning becomes an...
Sweet Sweet Kink: A Collection of BDSM Stories
Maggie M. Bailey
Shorts
Sweet Sweet Kink takes a sweet, sweet peek into the kinky world of bondage, dominance, and sadomasochism through four different stories of intimate connection, consensual exploration, and deep self-reflection.
Telling People You’re Native American When You’re Not Native Is A Lot Like Telling A Bear You’re A Bear When You’re Not A Bear
Joey Clift
Shorts
An animated informational video explaining that telling people you're Native American when you're not Native is a lot like telling a bear you're a bear when you're not a bear.
The Biologist
Robert Cummins
Shorts
A young biologist makes a discovery that will change the world. He must face the consequences as his discovery has harmful ramifications in the future.
The Minors
Robert Machoian
Shorts
A slice of life film about a Grandpa and his grandsons, the future and the past. Oh, and they started a band!
The MisEducation of Bindu
Prarthana Mohan
Narrative Features
When a bullied Indian teen forges her mother’s signature to test out of school, she discovers she must pay a test fee by 7th period, leaving her no choice but...
The Mozart of Fly Casting
Kenneth Price
Shorts
Maxine McCormick began fly casting when she was 9 years old. At 15, she is the reigning world champion of the sport.
The Phantom 52
Geoff Marslett
Shorts
Tom Skerritt stars in this animated short film about a lonely trucker waiting for a reply on the CB radio...a ghost that haunts the lonely highways...and a whale that sings...
The Real Thing
Julianna Villarosa
Shorts
Using physical media (16mm, VHS) destroyed by Coca-Cola, “The Real Thing” contrasts the famous ad “I’d Like To Buy The World A Coke” with The Coca-Cola Company’s most recent scandal:...
The Shadow of your Absence
Rodrigo Dorfman
Shorts
For the last ten years, filmmaker Rodrigo Dorfman has been making video messages for Latino immigrants in North Carolina. This is one of them: a rodeo, and a story of...
The Vision of Ulysses Davis
Alexia Oldini, Steven Gray
Shorts
Ulysses Davis constructed an idiom distinctly his own and his extraordinary body of work speaks vividly to the nature of his experience as an African-American artist and barber in the...
The World or Nothing
Ingrid Veninger
Documentary Features
The World or Nothing (El Mundo o Nada) is the first non-fiction feature film by award-winning Slovak-Canadian filmmaker, Ingrid Veninger. A portrait of 29-year-old Cuban twin brothers, Rubert and Rubildo,...
Things That Happen in the Bathroom
Edward Hancox
Shorts
In the intimate sanctuary of the bathroom, a lonely young queer yearns for love, and learns how to survive heartbreak. For Jak (John Calvin Pierce), the bathroom is a refuge,...