Festival of Cinema NYC

Festival of Cinema NYC returns to the Regal UA Midway in Forest Hills for the 10th Anniversary edition from August 7-16. The festival opens with the world premiere of Christopher Mormando’s crime drama Judge No Book and closes with Kristina Klebe’s stylish dramatic thriller Noxturne.

This year, the festival is putting a strong focus on 1st time feature filmmakers who are just launching their careers. Attendees can expect over 100 independent films, both feature length and short length, of all genres and topics including comedies, dramas, horror thrillers, documentaries, music videos, web & TV episodic projects, and animation films. In addition, the festival will once again be offering free film related workshops and seminars all week long at the Queens Library in Forest Hills, including a work in progress preview screening of the film Jewface written and directed by past festival winner and current Board Member Melissa Center.

The 10th Annual celebration is packed with special presentations. For the first time ever the festival is holding special $10 matinee screenings throughout the week from past Audience Choice Award winners followed by an in-depth Q&A with the filmmakers, while a presentation of past Audience Choice Short films will include live commentary by the filmmakers during their screening.
This year’s Special Presentation will feature the 15th Anniversary screening of A Very Harold And Kumar Christmas (2011) directed by Forest Hills Native Todd Strauss-Schulson, who will be in attendance for a moderated Q&A discussion following the screening.

Celebrating the best of FOC NYC’s first ten years, 4 winners of the Audience Choice feature films will be screened and followed by a sit down Q&A with the cast and crews from each film. Those films include Charles Caracciolo’s We Were All Nobody’s (2019), Samuel Tressler IV’s Leda (2021), Casey Nelson and Marchelle Thurman’s Black White and the Greys (2022), and Derek Shane Garcia’s A/way (2024). 5 winners of past Audience Choice short film winners will screen with cast and crew delivering live commentary while the film plays, following a non-commentary screening. Those films include Bec Fordyce’s The Karening (2021), Daniel Merino Villavicencio’S Sweet Pea & Glass (2022), Melissa Rodriguez’s Helado (2023), and Richie Ellis’ Loose Change (2025).