FFF25 Official Selections and Category Winners Announced

The Fargo Film Festival is proud to announce the slate of movies selected for the 2025 event. The Festival will be held March 18-22 at the Fargo Theatre. Congratulations to all the filmmakers; we look forward to sharing your talents with our audiences.

Selections for the 2-Minute Movie Contest will be announced in the coming weeks.

Animation 

Winner: Dragfox (Lisa Ott)

Honorable Mention: The Brown Dog (Nadia Hallgren and Jamie-James Medina)
Honorable Mention: The Death of James (Sam Chou)

Official Selections
Ana Morphose (João Rodrigues)
Au Revoir Mon Monde (Estelle Bonnardel, Quentin Devred, Baptiste Duchamps, Maxime Foltzer, Florian Maurice, and Astrid Novais)
Avenir (Katarina Fink)
Circle (Yumi Joung)
Loop Line (Renuka Shahane)
Marvelous Gift (German Acuña and Danna Galeano)
The Smallest Power (Andy Sarjahani)
Tiny (Ryan Haché and Ritchie Hemphill)

Documentary Feature 

Winner: Film Is Dead, Long Live Film! (Peter Flynn)

Honorable Mention: Call Me Mule (John McDonald)
Honorable Mention: For the Living (Marc Bennett and Tim Roper)

Official Selections
Bring Them Home (Daniel Glick, Ivan MacDonald, and Ivy MacDonald)
Champions of the Golden Valley (Ben Sturgulewski)
The Day Iceland Stood Still (Pamela J Hogan)
Dog War (Andrew Abrahams)
Rooted (Bridget Besaw and Par Parekh)

Documentary Short 

Winner: A Swim Lesson (Rashida Jones and Will McCormack)

Honorable Mention: The ABCs of Book Banning (Trish Adlesic, Nazenet Habtezghi, and Sheila Nevins)
Honorable Mention: I Am Ready, Warden (Smriti Mundhra)

Official Selections
Been There (Corina Schwingruber Ilić)
Beer Saves the World! (Kelly G Sallaway)
Big Moves (Sarah Grant)
Carl Ben Eielson: Over the Top of the World (David Kuznicki)
Dwight in Denmark (Cristopher Anderson)
Hold the Line (Daniel Lombroso)
Kowloon! (Erin Ramirez and Mona Xia)
Livestreams with GrandmaPuzzles (Emily Sheskin)
NITA: Hotbed in Deadwood (Justin Koehler)
Rectangles (Joshua Carlon)
Seat 31: Zooey Zephyr (Kimberly Reed)
She Marches in Chinatown (Della Chen)
Stud Country (Lina Abascal and Alexandra Kern)
Te Pito o Te Henua (Nils Cowan and Martin Kingman)
Then Comes the Body (Jacob Krupnick)
We Ride For Her (Prairie Rose Seminole and Katrina Sorrentino)
Weree (Tal Amiran)

Experimental

Winner: I Would’ve Been Happy (Jordan Wong)

Honorable Mention: Mast-Del (Maryam Tafakory)
Honorable Mention: Matta and Matto (Bianca Caderas and Kerstin Zemp)

Official Selections
14 Poems (Maxine Swann)
Born Days – How to Disappear (Louis Morton)
Despite (Kate Raney)
Rain (Vasilios Papaioannu)
Torii (Martin Gerigk)

Narrative Feature 

Winner: Sideways For Attention (Brady Bryson)

Honorable Mention: Lie of the Land (John Carlin)

Official Selections
Battersea (T.J. Sandella)
The Ladder (Emilio Miguel Torres)
The Long Run (Mylissa Fitzsimmons)
Strange Creatures (Henry Boffin)
The Strange Dark (Chris Messineo)
Taste the Revolution (Daniel Klein)

Narrative Short 

Winner: As Easy As Closing Your Eyes (Parker Croft)

Honorable Mention: Hearts of Stone (Tom Van Avermaet)
Honorable Mention: Room Taken (TJ O’Grady-Peyton)

Official Selections
528 (Mack Hastings and Shane Sleger)
All the Words on the Page (Hunter Gause)
Amarela (André Hayato Saito)
And Now I Lay Me Down (Rani DeMuth)
Artist Uncredited (Sven Fuhrken and Chris Hirschhaeuser)
Away with the Fairies (René Brar)
The Bingo Sisters (Andrew Przybytkowski)
Bloody Fury (Jordan Inconstant)
Camping in Paradise (Eirik Tveiten)
Fortune (Matthew Perkins)
Get You Better (Danica Jensen)
Good Boy (Colin Russell)
Have You Heard the One About the Couple In the Tent? (Joe Greening)
Heaven and Nature (Steven Fierberg)
The High & Lonesome Ladies (Megan Chumbley)
I Don’t Care If the World Collapses (Karim Shaaban Morsy)
Kind Mother (Clare O’Connor)
Knead (Timothy Michael Cooper)
Masterpiece Mommy (Dorothy Sing Zhang)
Nap (Javier Chavanel)
Neither Donkey Nor Horse (Robin Wang)
No Light / No Darkness (Margos Margossian)
Óbito (Fernando Amador)
On a Sunday at Eleven (Alicia K. Harris)
The Professional Parent (Erik Jasaň)
Punter (Jason Adam Maselle)
Revenge of the Language Master 1757B (Michael Beeson)
Sauna Day (Anna Hints and Tushar Prakash)
Strangers on the A Train (Rachel Kerry)
Sunflower Girl (Holly M. Kaplan)
The Therapy Room (Justin Schaack and Kristin Schaack)
The Ugly Chickens (Mark Raso)
Voyager (Pablo Pagán)
Wabi-Sabi (Josephine Green Zhang)

Student 

Winner: Where We Once Roamed (Madee Sabatier and Ruthie Weeks)

Honorable Mention: Deer Divide (Nate Marquardt and Chloe Prahl)
Honorable Mention: Slobopoly (Yinghui Li)

Official Selections
Alpha 27 (Nick Azzaro)
Ash Wednesday (Grace O’Brien)
A Better Place (Shih-Chun Hsiao)
Brooklyn (Timur Guseynov)
The Color of Fire (Seungee Chang)
Dress to Impress (Marsalis Lam)
Hasta la Raíz (Nuria Schettino González)
The Tale of Mari (Anya Vaughn)

FFF25 Cover Art

Every year, the Fargo Film Festival commissions an original piece of cover art from a local or regional artist. This year, the FFF Cover Artist is Allison King. The Fargo Film Festival is proud to reveal the official cover art for the 2025 program guide.

Molly Ringwald comes to the 2025 Fargo Film Festival


Join us on Saturday, March 22nd for a special screening of THE BREAKFAST CLUB followed by a conversation with Molly Ringwald live on stage during the 2025 Fargo Film Festival!

Molly Ringwald is an actor, singer and author. Her extensive film credits include Paul Mazursky’s “Tempest”, the iconic John Hughes films “Sixteen Candles”, “Pretty in Pink” and “The Breakfast Club”, the indie film “All These Small Moments” and Netflix’s “The Kissing Booth”. On stage, Ringwald has starred in numerous Broadway productions, including “Cabaret”, “Enchanted April” and “Sweet Charity” and her television credits include the hit series “Riverdale”, Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story” and “Feud: Capote vs. the Swans”.

Tickets go on sale Friday, September 6, 10 a.m. A special online only presale is Thursday, September 5, 10 a.m. – 10 p.m. Reserved seating tickets cost $69.50, $89.50 and $149. 50*. Additional fees may apply. Admission to THE BREAKFAST CLUB with Molly Ringwald is not included with Fargo Film Festival passes. The audience is invited to a Q&A with Molly Ringwald following the film. *A limited number of tickets includes a post-movie VIP meet-and-greet with Molly Ringwald.

She is the author of two bestselling books, “Getting the Pretty Back” and “When It Happens to You”, and the translator of the award-winning bestselling French novel “Lie With Me” by Philippe Besson and the memoir “My Cousin Maria Schneider” by Vanessa Schneider. Her essays have appeared in the “New York Times”, “The New Yorker”, “Vogue”, “Marie-Claire” and

Please note: this event will be ticketed separately from all other Fargo Film Festival programming. Admission to THE BREAKFAST CLUB with Molly Ringwald will not be included with Fargo Film Festival passes of any level.

BEFORE SUNRISE: An Evening at the Movies with Chuck Klosterman and Melissa Maerz

The Fargo Film Festival is pleased to announce a special, satellite event featuring two celebrated voices in the world of pop culture and media arts.

Join us Thursday, July 25 at 7:00pm for a screening of Richard Linklater’s BEFORE SUNRISE, followed by an onstage conversation with authors Chuck Klosterman (Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, Fargo Rock City) and Melissa Maerz (Alright, Alright, Alright, editor at Spin and Rolling Stone). With their unique expertise and insight, Klosterman and Maerz will take a deep dive into movies, music, and the voices that shaped a generation. A meet and greet with Klosterman and Maerz will be held before the film, beginning at 6:15pm.

Chuck Klosterman is the bestselling author of eight nonfiction books and two novels (Downtown Owl and The Visible Man). He has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, GQ, and Esquire. Klosterman served as the Ethicist for The New York Times Magazine for three years, appeared as himself in the LCD Soundsystem documentary Shut Up and Play the Hits, and was an original founder of the website Grantland with Bill Simmons.

Melissa Maerz has worked as an editor at Spin and Rolling Stone, a staff writer for Entertainment Weekly and the Los Angeles Times, and a supervising producer on HBO’s Vice News Tonight. She was a founding editor at New York magazine’s Vulture website. She lives in Portland, Oregon.

About BEFORE SUNRISE:
Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke star in BEFORE SUNRISE, the romantic classic from acclaimed director Richard Linklater. In the film, an American traveler and a French grad student meet on a train in Europe and decide to spend a day together in Vienna.

Submissions Open for FFF25

The Fargo Film Festival proudly and exclusively accepts entries on FilmFreeway, the world’s best way to enter film festivals.

With the exception of 2-Minute Movie Contest entries, films selected for the 2025 Fargo Film Festival must be provided in approved DCP format for exhibition.

The 25th Fargo Film Festival will be held March 18-22, 2025.

THANK YOU!

That’s a wrap on the 2024 Fargo Film Festival! On behalf of the entire team: THANK YOU! We are so grateful for the generosity of our sponsors who make this celebration of independent film possible. Over the course of five days, we screened 107 films (including two Oscar nominees) and welcomed more than 40 visiting filmmakers to the community. Thank you to our audiences for your passion and continued support.

Submissions for the 2025 Fargo Film Festival will open later in the spring.

Samuel-Ali Mirpoorian comes to the 2024 Fargo Film Festival

Director Samuel-Ali Mirpoorian will attend the 2024 Fargo Film Festival with his critically acclaimed documentary”Green Pastures.” The film is the recipient of the Prairie Spirit Award and the Best Documentary Feature award. The documentary screens as part of the Saturday Morning Session on March 23rd. Mirpoorian will participate in a Q&A after the film and will serve as a panelist in the Character Driven Storytelling luncheon panel on Saturday at noon at the Radisson Blu.

Greener Pastures directed by Samuel-Ali Mirpoorian

About the film:

Greener Pastures captures the day-to-day lives of four small, multigenerational family farms over the course of four years. Through an intimate, observational lens we examine the various farm stressors, policies and politics farmers must maneuver to survive, connecting the dots between mental health, industrialization, food production and climate change. It is a story of perseverance, patience and determination that tackles nothing less than the future of farming in America.



About Samuel-Ali Mirpoorian:

Samuel-Ali Mirpoorian is an award-winning Iranian filmmaker exploring societal themes at the intersection of time, isolation, health, science, and introspection.

During his undergrad and grad studies at Indiana University, Samuel was a recipient of the Kodak Motion Picture Film Bronze Award for Excellence in Filmmaking. He produced three doc-shorts that played and won awards at Academy Award-qualifying film festivals such as Tribeca, Heartland International, St. Louis International, and others; his work has been released via Peacock/NBC, The Atlantic, PBS, and others.

Samuel’s debut feature documentary, Greener Pastures, is set to premiere in 2023 and is executive produced by Emmy Award-winners, David J. Cornfield and Linda A. Cornfield (THE SOCIAL DILEMMA, WON’T YOU BE MY NEIGHBOR?, CHASING CORAL). Greener Pastures is also supported by the Catapult Film Fund, Doc Society, and Exposure Labs.

2024 Best in Show Winners

The Fargo Film Festival is proud to announce the winners of the Best in Show Awards for the 2024 Fargo Film Festival.

Best Picture: “Closing Dynasty” (Narrative Short)

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Best Director: Sean Wang for “Nǎi Nai and Wài Pó” (Documentary Short)

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Best Cinematography: Jeong-seok Park for “Children of Light” (Narrative Short)

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Pat Hansen Award for Best Screenplay: J.D. Shields for “Blue Hour” (Student)

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Best Actor: Jorge Martinez Colorado for “Coyote” (Narrative Feature)

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Best Actress: Jennifer Lafleur for “The Day Of” (Narrative Short)

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The Ruth Landfield Award is presented to “Show Her the Money” (Documentary Feature)

The Ruth Landfield Award honors films celebrating women of courage, conviction, and compassion.

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The Prairie Spirit Award is presented to “Greener Pastures” (Documentary Feature)


The Prairie Spirit Award honors films that reflect the unique strength of character that is the legacy of the Northern Plains.

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The Rusty Casselton Award is presented to “Mum’s Spaghetti” (Student)

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Congratulations to all of these talented artists from all of us at the Fargo Film Festival. Learn more about each of these titles in our 2024 Program.