Each year, the Fargo Film Festival commissions an original piece of art from a local or regional artist. The Fargo Film Festival is excited to share the official cover art for the 2023 program guide designed by artist Emma Hagemeier.

Mike Flanagan and Kate Siegel will participate in an on-stage conversation as part of the Fargo Film Festival’s Closing Night showcase at 7:00pm on Saturday, March 25. Seating is reserved for An Evening with Mike Flanagan and Kate Siegel. Tickets on the floor are $35 and tickets in the balcony are $25. Click the button below to purchase your tickets.

The Fargo Film Festival is proud to announce the slate of movies selected for the 2023 event. The Festival will be held March 21-25 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: Black Slide (Uri Lotan)

Honorable Mention: Period Drama (Anushka Tina Nair and Lauren Anthony)
Honorable Mention: The Record (Jonathan Lasker)

Official Selections
Beware of Trains (Emma Calder)
A Bite of Bone (Homani Yano)
The Color of Life (Preston Owen)
Ed’s Last Will (Lisa Wen Dou and John Wang)
Hey Toby Hey Owen: This Is Not Sponsored by Valvoline (Owen Dennis)
How Small! (Charlene Xu)
I’m Late (Sawako Kabuki)
Luce and the Rock (Britt Raes)
Night of the Living Dread (Ida Melum)
The Queen of the Foxes (Marina Rosset)
Runelight (Matt O’Donnell)
Steakhouse (Spela Cadez)

Documentary Feature 

Winner: Jesszilla (Emily Sheskin)

Honorable Mention: Big Crow (Kris Kaczor)

Official Selections
Dear Audrey (Jeremiah Hayes)
Iron Opera (Mike Scholtz and Marius Anderson)
Jack Has a Plan (Bradley Berman)
The Long Rider (Sean Cisterna)
Oyate (Brandon Jackson and Emil Benjamin)
Queen of Hearts (Chema Ramos)

Documentary Short 

Winner: Stranger at the Gate (Joshua Seftel)

Honorable Mention: Eco-Hack! (Josh Izenberg and Brett Marty)
Honorable Mention: Free to Care (Chris Temple and Owen Dubeck)

Official Selections
Bring Back the Whistle Dog (Bob Simpson)
CANS Can’t Stand (Matt Nadel and Megan Plotka)
Freedom Swimmer (Olivia Martin-McGuire)
In Search of Boozers and Schmucks (Hrag Yedalian)
Kylie (Sterling Hampton IV)
Long Line of Ladies (Shaandiin Tome and Rayka Zehtabchi)
The Merry Widow (Jason Jakaitis)
The Panola Project (Rachael DeCruz and Jeremy S. Levine)
Rockin’ Baker (Ringo Jones)
You’ll Be Happier (Daniel Lombroso)

Experimental

Winner: Light Leak (Nate Dorr)

Honorable Mention: Demi-Gods (Martin Gerigk)
Honorable Mention: House of the Unholy (Daniel Merlot)

Official Selections
blk (Na Forest Lim)
Country Roads (Ryan Clancy)
Every Diaspora Poem Is About Mangos (Eden Sabolboro)
Lii Bufloo Aen Loo Kishkishiw (Dianne Ouellette)
Ouroboros (Toko Shiiki)
Tear (Krzysztof Chodorowski)
2:26 p.m. (Arnaud Feret)
13th Ave Fargo Mine Cart (Raymond Rea)

Invited Films

AJ Goes to the Dog Park: Part One (Toby Jones)
Blue Room (Merete Mueller)
Liquid Gold: From the Midwest to the Mediterranean (Derek Chirstopher Fletcher and Tracy Briggs)
My Hatton (David Kuznicki)
The Thief Collector (Allison Otto)

*Additional titles may be added to this list in the coming weeks.

Narrative Feature 

Winner: Northern Shade (Christopher Rucinski)

Honorable Mention: Everybody Wants to Be Loved (Katharina Woll)
Honorable Mention: La Corriente (Jesús Lloveras)

Official Selections
All Is Vanity (Marcos Mereles)
Amerikatsi (Michael Goorjian)
Brutal Season (Gavin Fields)
Loren & Rose (Russell Brown)
Menina Casilda (Eric du Bellay)

Narrative Short 

Winner: The Voice Actress (Anna J. Takayama)

Honorable Mention: A Dire Strait (Liang-Chun Lin)
Honorable Mention: Kassandra (Ivar Wigan)

Official Selections
Aaron With 2 A’s (Michael Goldburg)
Act of God (Spencer Cook and Parker Smith)
All That Glitters (Dan Bronzite)
Babel (Alejandro San Martín)
Brutal (Sam McConnell)
Can’t Stop Me (Scott Piggott)
Chaperone (Sam Max)
Cruise (Sam Rudykoff)
The Diamond (Vedran Rupic)
Eating the Silence (Joël Jent and Ali Al-Fatlawi)
Escape (Oren Brimer)
The Ever Hours (Ella Vance)
The Family We Chose (Justin Schaack and Kristin Schaack)
The Hunt (Yann Reuzeau)
I’m Lina (Juli Suàrez)
Legs (Celine Cotran)
A Mind Cannot Touch (Geoffrey Prather)
Murder Tongue (Ali Sohail Jaura)
A Night in the Cósmico (Luis De Val and Diego Herrero)
Past Life (Rose O’Shea)
A Peculiar and Unfortunate Birth (S.J. Sánchez)
Red Line (Jake Bistrong)
Rerouted (Kelsey Andries and Noah Fallis)
Rips (Major Dorfman)
SONAR (James Hughes)
Stalking the Bogeyman (Markus Potter and Jack Dorfman)
Sunshine State (Kate Enge)
Triggered (Tara Westwood)
An Umbrella in Case It Rains (Andrew Howell)
Warsha (Dania Bdeir)
Western Exit (Scott Ballard)
Wild Card (Tipper Newton)
You Forgot Your Wallet? (Brandon Blackmon)

Student 

Winner: The Boy Who Couldn’t Feel Pain (Eugen Merher)

Honorable Mention: Living All of Life (Marlén Ríos-Farjat)
Honorable Mention: Wei Lai (Robin Wang)

Official Selections
Aperio (Patrick Hanser)
Black (Moritz Geraldo Scherzer)
The Concubine (Maks Michorczyk)
Dismay (Joanna Helena Szymańska)
Moles (Vanja Victor Kabir Tognola)
Negatives (Thomas Broadbent)
Sparrow Song (Christina Yoon)

Mike Flanagan and Kate Siegel will be welcomed as guests of honor for the 2023 Fargo Film Festival. An on-stage conversation with the artists will serve as the Festival’s Closing Night showcase at 7:00pm on Saturday, March 25. This will be Siegel’s first visit to the FFF. Flanagan attended in 2011 to premiere his debut feature Absentia.

Writer/director/producer Mike Flanagan is one of modern horror’s preeminent creators. With acclaimed feature films and episodic series, Flanagan has developed a signature artistic style and devoted fan base. His Netflix “Flanaverse” series include The Haunting of Hill House, The Haunting of Bly Manor, and Midnight Mass. Flanagan has directed many popular horror/thriller features including Doctor Sleep, Gerald’s Game, Ouija: Origin of Evil, Hush, and Oculus. In 2021, Flanagan received the Visionary Award from the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films.

Writer/actor Kate Siegel has been dubbed the “Queen of Netflix Horror” (Collider, Oct 2021), but her filmography is impressively diverse. Several of Siegel’s most celebrated performances are featured in collaborations with husband Mike Flanagan. Their shared projects include The Haunting of Hill House and Midnight Mass, for which Siegel received a Critics Choice Award nomination. Siegel co-wrote and starred in the Netflix thriller Hush, for which she received multiple genre award nominations.

Tickets for “An Evening with Mike Flanagan and Kate Siegel” will go on sale at 12:30pm on Thursday, January 19. Seating is reserved for this special event. Tickets on the floor are $35 and tickets in the balcony are $25. Tickets will be available for purchase at FargoTheatre.org or in-person at the Fargo Theatre box office. The box office is open in-person from 12:30pm-7pm Tuesday to Sunday.

Join Cary Elwes (Westley) for a behind-the-scenes look at life on and off the set of the classic film, THE PRINCESS BRIDE.

After a screening of the iconic movie, Elwes will engage in a moderated discussion revealing never before shared secrets and tales of inconceivable antics! Journey back to the lands of Florin and Guilder in an adventure filled with fencing, monsters, chases, and of course, true love.

A limited number of tickets includes a pre-show book signing, copy of Elwes’ best-selling book, “As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of THE PRINCESS BRIDE” and a post-show meet-and-greet. Tickets go on sale Friday, December 16, 10 a.m. A special online only presale Thursday, December 15, 10 a.m. – 10 p.m. Reserved seating $39.50, $59.50 and $149.50*. Additional fees may apply.

Elwes has been in a multitude of films and tv shows, including SAW, TWISTER, ROBIN HOOD: MEN IN TIGHTS, STRANGER THINGS, BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA, and LIAR LIAR.  He recently starred in Guy Ritchie’s OPERATION FORTUNE: RUSE DE GUERRE and he just wrapped MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: DEAD RECKONING PART 1 with Tom Cruise. He is currently working on Zack Snyder’s sci fi epic, REBEL MOON. 

Now Elwes is hitting the road to share with fans the personal stories behind the making of this piece of cinematic history. Don’t be a “Humperdinck”, make haste to see THE PRINCESS BRIDE: An Inconceivable Evening with Cary Elwes for a night you will always “tweasure”.

Please note: this event will be ticketed separately from all other Fargo Film Festival programming. Admission to THE PRINCESS BRIDE: An Inconceivable Evening with Cary Elwes will not be included with Fargo Film Festival passes of any level.

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 2023 Fargo Film Festival must be provided in approved DCP format for exhibition.

The 23rd Fargo Film Festival will be held March 21-25, 2023.

The organizers of the Fargo Film Festival would like to express our most sincere gratitude to all the people who helped make 2022 a spectacular event.

THANK YOU to festival sponsors, audience members, visiting filmmakers, Fargo Theatre staff, festival volunteers, and everyone else who contributed to this year’s edition.

In just a few weeks, we will begin accepting submissions for 2023, and we can’t wait to see what’s in store for us.

The 2022 Fargo Film Festival Program is available now. Click the image below to open the program guide to read descriptions of each film and to plan your festival experience.

Tickets and passes for the 2022 Fargo Film Festival are now on sale online: https://bit.ly/3C7acOQ

Want more of the Fargo Film Festival? Watch exclusive filmmaker Q&A’s moderated by FFF team members for the following films:

Charlotte
The Grand Bolero
Kendra and Beth
Please Hold
Vinyl Nation
When We Were Bullies

“21,” directed by Damian Gonzalez and Jeremy Weinstein, received first place in the 2022 Fargo Film Festival’s 2-Minute Movie Contest.

An encore screening of the movie happens at the closing night session, Saturday, March 19 at 7 p.m. at the Fargo Theatre.

Arthur Fanget’s “How Much?” received third place and Ryan Tynan’s “Kick Rocks” received second place.

Congratulations to all the moviemakers who submitted their work. We look forward to seeing you in 2023.

The Fargo Film Festival is proud to announce the winners of the Best in Show Awards for the 2022 Fargo Film Festival.

Best Picture: “The Letter Room” (Narrative Short)

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Best Director: Annie St-Pierre for “Like the Ones I Used to Know” (Narrative Short)

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Best Cinematography: Xavi Amoros for “Nsenene” (Documentary Short)

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Pat Hansen Award for Best Screenplay: KD Davila and Omer Levin Menekse for “Please Hold” (Narrative Short)

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Best Actor: Steve Laplante for “Like the Ones I Used to Know” (Narrative Short)

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Best Actress: Anna Dzieduszycka for “The Dress” (Student Film)

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The Ruth Landfield Award is presented to “We Burn Like This” (Narrative Feature)

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The Prairie Spirit Award is presented to “Glob Lessons” (Narrative Feature)

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The Rusty Casselton Award is presented to “Fourth of July” (Student Film)

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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 2022 Program.