Raise your hand if you have a comfortable nightly routine of turning on the TV and streaming a movie alone at home. You’re in good company.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with this convenient habit — and no shortage of content from streaming services. But the trend has consistently drawn people away from cinemas. According to a 2025 S&P Global Market Intelligence survey, only 17 percent of movie theatergoers can be considered frequent.
And that has bigger implications: Vermont filmmaker Cedar O’Dowd believes society loses something when people primarily watch movies at home.
“Sitting alone in your house and watching a movie will get you an entirely different experience than seeing it live with an audience and getting to talk to other people and seeing what other people laugh at,” O’Dowd said recently by phone.
The filmmaker is the coordinator of White River Indie Festival, an arts fest that runs Sunday, March 1, to Sunday, March 8, in various locations around White River Junction. Since its origin in 2004, the event has aimed to bring people together around films from outside the mainstream. This year, WRIF is expanding its programming, training its lens well beyond cinema while retaining its community focus.
In addition to more than 20 feature films and documentaries curated by new festival director Jordyn Fitch, the lineup includes workshops, public art displays, master classes, dance parties, puppet theater, trivia nights, and several opportunities for burgeoning filmmakers to connect and screen their work. The festival’s parent organization, Junction Arts & Media (or JAM), similarly centers opportunities for learning and strengthening communities through media.
Notably, a portion of the fest’s annual slate arrives through its Emerging Filmmakers project. Every year, creators from Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine and Québec are eligible to have their work screened, which can be huge for exposure and networking.
“It was one of … the first time[s] that I’d ever gotten a check for a film that I made,” O’Dowd said. Their short feature “I Have Something to Get Off My Chest,” which focused on a transgender man who recently underwent top surgery, was an Emerging Filmmaker selection in 2024.
“Just that little bit of encouragement made me be like, Wow, I’m a real filmmaker.”
WRIF hopes to inspire others and, above all, create film-nerd heaven on Earth. Read on for some highlights of this year’s festival.
Light River Junction
Nightly, 6-11 p.m., at various outdoor locations around White River Junction. Free.
The pandemic may not have invented the concept of outdoor, light-centric experiences, but it certainly perfected it. Born out of necessity during the darkest days of COVID-19, Light River Junction returns, utilizing projection art to glow up historic buildings and storefronts in downtown White River Junction. Among this year’s artists is Warren animator Hayley Morris, whose contributions to the 2025 docuseries “Octopus!” nabbed her an Emmy Award for Outstanding Motion Design. Morris also leads a stop-motion animation workshop on Friday, March 6.
‘The Trouble With Harry’
Tuesday, March 3, 3 p.m., at Briggs Opera House. $12-16.
In 1954, moviegoers fell in love with Vermont in Michael Curtiz’s holiday spectacular White Christmas. Too bad it was filmed entirely in Hollywood. The following year, prolific director Alfred Hitchcock delivered The Trouble With Harry, a film actually shot on location in several Vermont towns, which was highly unusual for the era (and still is in the Green Mountains). Somewhat of a departure from the Master of Suspense’s noir, espionage and thriller fare, The Trouble With Harry is a farcical black comedy in which several residents of fictional hamlet Highwater think they’re the one responsible for the untimely death of a neighbor. Dartmouth College film scholar Joanna Rapf hosts.
The JAM Movie: Live Screenplay Table Read
Tuesday, March 3, 6:30 p.m., at Northern Stage. Free. RSVP.
This summer, JAM will venture into new waters with its first-ever feature film production, and WRIF attendees can sit in on a live reading of the screenplay. The project expands on JAM’s high school summer film intensive, during which high schoolers and early college students come together to learn the ropes of filmmaking — a bit like Vermont filmmaker Jay Craven and his Kingdom County Productions’ student-made films. JAM’s forthcoming feature, Valley Transit, was written by the org’s executive director, Samantha Davidson Green. The story centers on two Upper Valley residents at different stages in their lives who meet on a public bus and become intertwined as they navigate major life transitions.
#Pitchfest 4.0
Thursday, March 5, 5:30 p.m., at Briggs Opera House. Free.
Welcome to the shark tank, WRIF-style! One of the festival’s highest-stakes events, #Pitchfest gives nascent filmmakers five minutes to pitch their idea for the next JAM-funded film. Though the festival doesn’t put too fine a point on what exactly it’s looking for, it does offer some clues on the website. Films that have strong ties to the Upper Valley tend to get the jury’s attention, as well as projects that seem feasible on a small budget. According to O’Dowd, a good pitch leaves the audience “eager for the thing you’re describing to exist.” This year, in addition to the juried prize, an additional winner will be chosen by the audience.
‘If I Had Legs I’d Kick You’
Friday, March 6, 7:30 p.m., at Briggs Opera House. $12-16.
Few actors excel at both comedy and drama. Rose Byrne is one of those people. Look no further than two of her projects released in 2025. She delivers a sidesplitting performance as stressed-out mom Sylvia on the second season of Apple TV’s “Platonic.” However, her turn as stressed-out mom Linda in Mary Bronstein’s If I Had Legs I’d Kick You is more likely to reduce viewers to tears — or a panic attack. A scarily real and vivid portrait of a woman on the brink as her child succumbs to a mysterious illness, Byrne’s performance is as hypnotizing as the boundary-pushing, hallucinatory movie itself.
Intimacy Choreography With Marci Diamond
Friday, March 6, 1:15 p.m., at Junction Arts & Media. $20; preregister.
Though the position of intimacy coordinator existed before the #MeToo era, the somewhat misunderstood role has since become a necessity for films and TV shows with nudity and sexual situations. Basically, they’re on set to be an advocate for actors’ safety and comfort, as well as a liaison for the director. But what qualifies someone to become an intimacy coordinator? According to SAG-AFTRA’s guidelines, intimacy coordinators should be competent in a slew of fields, including consent and sexual harassment training, bystander intervention, conflict resolution, and, among other things, movement coaching. This year, WRIF brings in professional intimacy coordinator, circus artist and Vermonter Marci Diamond to lay down the basics of the role.
‘A Useful Ghost’
Saturday, March 7, 6:15 p.m., at Briggs Opera House. $12-16.
In a conversation at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, Thai filmmaker Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke said, “My approach has always been to blend and juxtapose big and small, serious and silly, collective history and personal matter, composed and campy in my work.” He was there to present his first feature, A Useful Ghost, which New York Times critic Jeannette Catsoulis noted as “beginning as one thing and ending as quite another” and “a sad-sweet sex comedy [that weaves] together political allegory, supernatural mystery and more than one tender love story.” It’s one of those films that probably works best without knowing too much about it beforehand. Let’s just say this: possessed vacuum cleaner. ➆
This article appears in The Media Issue • 2026.
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