Films about love, social change or both are at the heart of this year’s White River Indie Film Festival, which straddles Valentine’s Day with its run Thursday to Sunday, February 13 to 16. Founded in 2004, WRIF offers 26 films and a full roster of events this year, all happening at Junction Arts & Media and Briggs Opera House in White River Junction.
A party on Friday in the opera house lobby pays tribute to the holiday, featuring music by Route 5 Jive and followed by a screening of A Photographic Memory. Documentarian Rachel Elizabeth Seed explores the life of her pioneering photojournalist mother, Sheila Turner-Seed, who died when the filmmaker was 18 months old.
For opening night, “We wanted something loving and kind that felt like a warm embrace, without being too romantic,” festival programmer Travis Weedon said. Seed’s doc, which won the Ralph Steiner Prize for Poetic Cinema at the 2024 Middlebury New Filmmakers Festival, fit the bill.
Weedon has been programming the fest since 2022. Over that time, “we’ve seen a huge boost in attendance,” he said, with audiences for the most popular screenings swelling from about 60 people to 180.
WRIF once had a reputation for “more serious, issue-driven … emotionally taxing” fare, Weedon noted. These days, he aims to balance such films with lighter ones that offer a “palate cleanse.”
On the heavy side, two films foreground Palestinian identity: the Oscar-nominated documentary No Other Land, about Israel’s occupation of the West Bank; and To a Land Unknown, a drama about two young Palestinian refugees desperate to find a route from Athens to Germany. The latter film, Weedon said, explores the Palestinian diaspora “in a way that is divorced from Israel” and the “narrative of victimhood or martyrdom,” giving viewers another vantage on the issue.
On the lighter side, love is front and center in the Belgian drama Young Hearts, about a teenager discovering he’s gay as he falls for his neighbor. Noémie Merlant, who starred in the French sapphic romance Portrait of a Lady on Fire, teamed up with its director for The Balconettes, a horror-comedy about three roommates whose fascination with their neighbor goes very wrong.
The comedy Universal Language reimagines Canadian identity through an unexpected lens. Weedon called it “a warm and quirky film, like Wes Anderson meets Roy Andersson.” Also in a satirical vein is On Becoming a Guinea Fowl, Rungano Nyoni’s absurdist portrait of a Zambian family confronting secrets as it buries one of its own, which production company A24 will release this spring.
Many of the films screen with local shorts. Among them is Brian Carroll’s “Endlessly an Observer,” about the late Corinth photographer Suzanne Opton, who chronicled the lives of U.S. service members. Her work is on display in the opera house lobby.
The indie spirit is strong at WRIF, which has a robust complement of offerings for filmmakers seeking support as well as inspiration. On Thursday, they can compete for funding at a #PitchFest event. Friday brings master classes on topics such as sound design and storyboarding, plus a lunch panel with local filmmakers Kiersten White, Julia Anderson and Carroll.
Whether you come for hard-hitting stories, heartwarming ones or both, this year’s festival offers plenty of opportunities to fall in love with indie film.
This article appears in Feb 5-11, 2025.
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