Kim A. Snyder’s consequential documentary The Librarians is making its North Dakota premiere at the Fargo Film Festival. The award-winning film digs deep to expose how being a librarian, a role not typically considered threatening, can now be an alarmingly dangerous line of work.

The feature film originally premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, and is the 2026 Fargo Film Festival’s Best Documentary Award winner.

The Librarians screens at 7:00pm on Thursday, March 19th as part of the Fargo Film Festival. Academy Award nominated Director Kim A. Snyder will appear in person at the Fargo Theatre for a Q&A immediately following the screening.

Synopsis:

As an unprecedented wave of book banning largely addressing race and LGBT issues is sparked in Texas, Florida, and beyond, librarians under siege join forces as unlikely defenders fighting for intellectual freedom on the front lines of democracy. Filmmaker Kim A. Snyder (Newtown, Us Kids, 2025 Oscar-nominated Death by Numbers) takes us to an unexpected front line where librarians emerge as first responders in the fight for democracy and free access to information.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ykll4MWltsQ

The Fargo Theatre is proud to announce the North Dakota premiere of the feature film Brooklyn, Minnesota. The award-winning, Minnesota-made film is an entertaining and dramatic love letter to lake land.

Writers and directors Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen are now based in Brooklyn, but have ties to the state of Minnesota: Blank attended college in the Twin Cities, and Jensen originally hails from Detroit Lakes.

Brooklyn, Minnesota screens at 7:00pm on Friday, March 20th as part of the Fargo Film Festival. Filmmaker Erik Jensen will appear in person after the screening for a conversation about the making of the film.

Synopsis:

When the grandfather she never knew dies, headstrong 14-year-old Maisie and her single artist dad Kurt leave their Brooklyn bubble to go back to his childhood home. In Minnesota, channeling the Riot Grrrl spirit of her late mom, Maisie will upend family patterns, fall in love, and force her family to confront each other and themselves. Married filmmaking duo Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen (The Exonerated, Almost Home) direct their real life daughter Sadie Jensen-Blank in her first leading role. 

Also starring Oscar nominee Amy Madigan (Weapons, Field of Dreams) this family drama is “a story of profound forgiveness and a reminder for all of us to love even harder than we think possible.”

Trailer: https://vimeo.com/1045416953?fl=pl&fe=vl

The Fargo Film Festival is proud to announce the slate of movies selected for the 2026 event. The Festival will be held March 17-21 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: The Gnawer of Rocks (Louise Flaherty)
Honorable Mention: The Night Boots (Pierre-Luc Granjon)

Official Selections
9 Million Colors (Bára Anna)
Autokar (Sylwia Szkiladz)
Denmark (Robert Petrie)
The Finger Wife (Dan Lund, Taryn Stickrath-Hutt)
The Gun (Randall Christopher)
I Died in Irpin (Anastasiia Falileieva)
The Little Ancestor (Alexa Tremblay-Francoeur)
Murmuration (Tim Frijsinger, Janneke Swinkels)
A Night at the Rest Area (Saki Muramoto)
SnowBugs (Jenny Schuermann)

Documentary Feature 

Winner: The Librarians (Kim A. Snyder)
Honorable Mention: Arrest the Midwife (Elaine Epstein)

Official Selections
Ali Eats America (Greg Morris, Roush Niaghi)
Between Goodbyes (Jota Mun)
The Edge of Existence (Aaron Wheeler)
Kim Novak’s Vertigo (Alexandre O. Phillippe)
Unless Something Goes Terribly Wrong (Alex Wolf Lewis, Kaitlyn Schwalje)

Documentary Short 

Winner: Planetwalker (Dominic Gill, Nadia Gill)
Honorable Mention: I Wanted to Hear Your Voice (James Pellerito)
Honorable Mention: Tiger (Loren Waters)

Official Selections
At See (Serena Dykman)
A Great Love (Aisha Schliessler)
Ha Ha Ha (Josh Harding, Matt Klug)
The Invisible Enemy (Douglas Brian Miller, Mark Shapiro)
Like Father (Jared Callahan)
Middle Grounds (Christopher Boone, Kevin Smokler)
One Day I Will Hug You (Mohammed Fares Al Majdalawi)
Salt Cured Life (Cassidy Rast, Odin Wadleigh)
Scrap Works (Maksym Putintsev)
Shanti Rides Shotgun (Charles Frank)
Tiny Movements (Laura Sweeney)
We Were the Scenery (Christopher Radcliff)
Zastava Brothers (Pep Stojanovic)

Experimental

Winner: Purgatorio (Auden Lincoln-Vogel, Stephanie Miracle, Philip Rabalais)
Honorable Mention: Deluge (Meejin Hong)
Honorable Mention: Toil and Spin (Maureen Zent)

Official Selections
City In Observation (Audrey Whiteford-Woods)
Geography of Memory (The Swing) (Mary Trunk) 
God Is Delighted When We Are in Motion (Sophia Alloggiamento)
Jones Street (Silvia Turchin)
Monument (Jeremy Drummond)

Invited Films*

Grit & Grace (Derek Fletcher, Ian Harmon)
Razeh-del (Maryam Tafakory)

*Additional titles will be added to this category

Narrative Feature 

Winner: Silent Rebellion (Marie-Elsa Sgualdo)
Honorable Mention: Mad Bills to Pay (Joel Alfonso Vargas)

Official Selections
Bigfoot Woods (Elizabeth Chatelain)
Brooklyn, Minnesota (Jessica Blank, Erik Jensen)
The Floaters (Rachel Israel)
The Only Way Out Is Through (Kieran Thompson)
What We Dreamed of Then (Taylor Olson)
Words of War (James Strong)

Narrative Short 

Winner: No Skate! (Guil Sela)
Honorable Mention: Check Please (Shane Chung)
Honorable Mention: The Sentry (Jake Wachtel)

Official Selections
Advent (Rachel Bass)
Babka (Serena Dykman)
Blossom Needs a Ride Home (Tim Schwagel)
Brief Somebodies (Andy Reid)
Call Gloria! (Malena Filmus)
Choice (Marko Crnogorski)
Crazy for You (Greta Díaz Moreau)
Dustsceawung (Mateus Lana)
Extinguished Lives (Roberta Grossman)
Fan (Philippe Berthelet)
Gallina (Fernando Reinaldos)
The Heart of Texas (Gregory JM Kasunich)
Hide (Brenden Hubbard)
Nani (Mainak Dhar)
Poreless (Harris Doran)
Randy as Himself (Margaret Miller)
Skin on Skin (Simon Schneckenburger)
There Will Come Soft Rains (Elham Ehsas)
Two Sisters (Antonio De Palo)
Under (Nick Benjamin)
Vital (Amir Zargara)
Vox Humana (Don Josephus Raphael Eblahan)
Whale Math (D. Andrew Hartfield)
Who Are You, Nanu? (Anjini Taneja Azhar)
Winkie (Daniel Duranleau)

Northern Plains Voices

Winner: Bound for the Last Continent (Joshua Carlon)
Honorable Mention: Becoming Ruby (Quan Luong)
Honorable Mention: Pipestone Carver (Dana Conroy)

Official Selections
Chasing Tables (Justin Bergh)
Medora: Empress of the Badlands (Daniel Bielinski)
Unraveling the Ribbon (Gwen Briesemeister)

Student 

Winner: Typo (Alinta Burton)
Honorable Mention: Birds of a Feather (Katie Cobos)
Honorable Mention: To Write the Ending (Shaler Keenum)

Official Selections
Bittersweet (Jared Rosenthal)
Dead End (Claire Cohen)
Generation Well (Jack Serra)
Luca and Johnny (Antonio Martin Ducrot)
Mother Pearl (Angus Webb Ware)
Negative Space (Aaron Razi)
Rainbow Girls (Nana Duffuor)