Buffalo Film: Festival celebrates its 20th anniversary with an eclectic lineup
By Elmer Ploetz (Images above: Honoree Gary Farmer and still featuring him from “Dead Man,” one of the films screening in BIFF)
Twenty years after its first edition, the Buffalo International Film Festival returns this week with 82 events, including over 200 films.
The events start with a panel, a party and two film on Thursday (Oct. 8) then runs through Oct. 15.
Among the highlights is the annual festival gala, where actor and musician Gary Farmer will be honors as the BIFF 2026 Lifetime Achievement Award winner and 20th Anniversary Festival Legacy Gala honoree on Saturday at 6 p.m. at the North Park Theatre. That event includes a screening of Jim Jarmusch’s “Dead Man,” which starred Farmer, a graduate of Buffalo’s Lafayette High School.
In preparation for the festival, we asked BIFF Artistic Director John Fink a few questions:
What is new or different this year?
John Fink
JF: We’re so excited for this year’s festival — the most exciting aspect is that we get to celebrate 220 new films at venues all over the city of Buffalo with new and old friends. The most exciting aspect is the community that develops around the festival.
This year we are screening films at the North Park Theater, Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center, Buffalo Toronto Public Media (WNED Studios) and — new for 2026 — Scene One Market Arcade 8.. Early on the festival screened films at the Market Arcade along with Squeaky Wheel’s microcinema when they were in the neighborhood so we’re excited to be back downtown!
Home base will still be the gorgeous, high tech North Park Theatre, which will host many of our larger premieres and events — we can’t say enough about how terrific all of our venue partners and want to thank them for their hard work to host so many guests and screenings in a short period of time.
How does the scale of this year’s festival compare to previous years? Number of films? Theaters?
This year our festival is slightly larger as we have a little more capacity with the addition of Scene One Market Arcade. We will be showcasing 220 films from 40 countries over eight days in four venues. We also will be hosting six parties this year at House of Charm, Bad Neighbors, Duende at Silo City, Twenty Six Allen, Mohawk Place and K:Dara. While the parties are open to the public, pass holders will receive a free drink at each party. (Our all-access Bison Pass is on sale right now for $90).
Any films you’re particularly interested in?
Everything! It’s hard to pick just one!
This year we considered 1,100 films for our line-up of 220 films, with our ultimate goal to include the best regional filmmaking in Western New York alongside festival favorites and new discoveries.
We have a several absolutely fabulous films straight from major festivals including a few we think may be awards contenders this year, including Possible Love (from Burning director Lee Chang-dong); Josephine (which won the jury and audience award for U.S. narrative feature at Sundance this year); Once Upon a Time in Harlem (a documentary with never before seen footage of luminaries of the Harlem Renaissance spending time together and sharing ideas); Take Me Home (winner of the Waldo Salt screenwriting award at Sundance) and several other festival favorites.
I’m in particular looking forward to our opening night film Little Audrey, which is a very local production that featured so much local talent in front of and behind the camera; our documentary centerpiece All American Girls, with author/Buffalo native Connie Porter joining us; and our closing night film, Buffalo native Zane Rubin’s fun Doc Meets World.
“All American Girls,” focuses on the American Girls phenomenon, .
We have several local feature productions making their world premiere, including M.Akram Shibly’s Thank You for Thinking of Me; Chris Sessions’ Partners: How Starbucks Baristas Started a Labor Revolution; and John Micheal Nolan’s Heartbreak Falls 2.
Thank You for Thinking of Me is a layered and nuanced Buffalo story about a mother and community organizer bonded by the challenges of the criminal justice system — it’s really a powerful film that we think will inspire necessary conversations. Partners offers a different take on the Starbucks Unionization efforts in Buffalo than Mark Mori’s Baristas Vs. Billionaires offered last year, filmed in close collaboration with the Starbucks union. Heartbreak Falls 2 is a beautiful and contemplative film — certainly inspired by Francis Ford Coppola and Michael Mann. It makes fantastic use of a mostly local cast and locations.
It’s always exciting to see so many aspects of Buffalo on the big screen, and I’m also really excited to share this year’s WNY STORIES shorts program, which features the not-to-be-missed One Morning in Buffalo about a father-daughter legal team fighting for justice for the victims of the 2022 Jefferson Avenue Tops shooting, along with five local shorts ranging from sports dramas and comedies to evocative personal essay films.
One of my favorite programs is our BIFF SHORTS: SATURDAY MORNING CARTOONS, which is a family-friendly block with a lot of local animated shorts from students at Daemon University, RIT and Villa Maria, which all have great animation programs. We do have more adult oriented animation from those students that have found their way into other blocks — so we truly have something for everyone!
On the late night/horror side of things, we’re excited for Sender, featuring Severance actress Britt Lower and horror royalty Jamie Lee Curtis (who also produced the film); our DANGER ZONE shorts, which feature two local premieres, The Business and Good Night Me; and two horror films made by young filmmakers: Still Ohio and Our Effed Up World.
For the arthouse crowd we’re kicking off the festival with our Decolonial and Art House Centerpieces on Thursday (Oct. 8) at Scene One Market Arcade — Aanikoobijigan (Ancestor/Great0Grandparent/Great-Grandchild) and Every Contact Leaves a Trace, both with attending filmmakers. We also have our BIFF X0 experimental shorts section, too, which features some really bold work for adventurous cinephiles.
Filmmaker Lynne Sachs has saved every business card anyone has ever given her. In “Every Contact Leaves a Trace” she tries to figure out their meaning.
Anything else our readers might be interested in?
We look forward to welcoming everyone to BIFF 2026 – it’s truly a citywide celebration and we’re so excited to celebrate our 20th anniversary!
For our signature festival we will we have around 200 film delegates (directors, writer, producers, actors) joining us and all events are open to the public, with some free events — it’s just like buying a movie ticket and we don’t have a dress code. Come as you are!
Our tickets are $13 (about the same and even a little less than most first-run tickets in town). We hope patrons that join us will ultimately have bragging rights to say they’ve seen a hot new film, filmmaker or star before everyone else. Behind the scenes we work all year on putting together BIFF for our community and we can’t wait to share these amazing films with our community and visiting guests.
I also want to encourage our community to keep an eye on more 20th Anniversary events. Once we wrap up we will have additional seasonal and pop-up events to celebrate BIFF and Buffalo filmmaking throughout the year through to our 2027 festival next fall. We are grateful to our filmmakers, partners and community for their support and we hope to see everyone at the movies!
