Nukhufest 2026 Top 10 Finalists, pictured left to right.

TOP ROW: A Family Guide To Hunting - Director: Zao Wang; COLOR IS NOT A CRIME - Street Activism in NYC - Director: Janneke Wade-de Jong; Ragamuffin - Writer/Director: Kaitlyn Mikayla; Kiddos - Director: Javier S. Chabat; SAVAGE SEASON. - Director: Nardeep Khurmi

BOTTOM ROW: Them That’s Not - Writer/Director: Mekhai Lee; Kill - Writer/Director: Folajimi Olutiola; Sorry I'm late (but I brought a choir) - Director: Håkon Anton Olavsen; Balloonerism - Director: Samuel Jerome Mason; Half A Life - Directors: Sanjit Majumdar + Ranju Majumdar

Courtesy of the Nukhu Foundation.

THE 2026 TOP 10 FINALISTS

The Finalists are presented alphabetically. List position does not represent current vote ranking.

• A Family Guide To Hunting, directed by Zao Wang, starring Margaret Cho, Kahyun Kim and Keong Sim. World premiere at the Tribeca Festival.

• Balloonerism, directed by Samuel Jerome Mason, created with Mac Miller's family as the visual companion to Miller's posthumous album. Screened at SXSW.

• COLOR IS NOT A CRIME - Street Activism in NYC, directed by Janneke Wade-de Jong, following fashion activist Erika Lucille Ewing and street artist Vincent Ballentine through art, activism and public space in New York.

• Half A Life, directed by Sanjit Majumdar and Ranju Majumdar and starring Finn Wittrock, about an immigration-document counterfeiter whose life is disrupted by local film students.

• Kiddos, directed by Javier S. Chabat, a Mexican coming-of-age story about friendship, belonging and the pressure to fit in.

• Kill, written and directed by Folajimi Olutiola, in which two screenwriters argue over whether the main character in the film they are writing should live or die.

• Ragamuffin, written and directed by Kaitlyn Mikayla, following a 12-year-old deaf motocross racer confronting identity and gender within her sport. The film premiered at Sundance and received a Best U.S. Short Special Mention at Palm Springs ShortFest.

• SAVAGE SEASON., directed by Nardeep Khurmi and written by Crystal Boyd, following a woman forced to confront adulthood, inherited expectations and the life she wants after the end of a seven-year relationship.

• Sorry I'm late (but I brought a choir), directed by Håkon Anton Olavsen, a Norwegian comedy that has screened at Tribeca, Clermont-Ferrand and Tallinn Black Nights and received multiple festival awards.

• Them That's Not, written and directed by Mekhai Lee, about a queer Deaf poet confronting her estranged father at her grandmother's repass. The film screened at SXSW and Palm Springs and received the Gold Hugo for Best Live Action Short at the Chicago International Film Festival.

The Top 10 will screen repeatedly throughout the week in two Finalist programs before coming together for the only complete theatrical presentation of all ten films on Closing Night, Thursday, September 17 at 7:30 PM.

Audience voting remains open through September 19 at 8 PM ET. The highest-voted Finalist will be named the 2026 Best Nuvee and receive the Nukhu Foundation's $3,000 Development-to-Distribution Grant and handcrafted Nukhu ball.

OPENING NIGHT BRINGS NEW YORK FILM POLICY, JOURNALISM AND THE TOP 10 TOGETHER

Nukhufest opens Friday, September 11 with a day of New York-centered independent film before an evening focused on the future of film culture in the city.

At 6 PM, filmmaker and Nukhu founder Sanjay Singh moderates WHO STILL PAYS ATTENTION? Journalism, Cinema, and the Fight for Audience Attention, a conversation with journalist and filmmaker Valerie Complex, genre journalist and Blerdy Massacre co-host Xero Gravity, and film writer, curator and former Turner Classic Movies host Tiffany Vazquez.

Complex's film journalism career includes bylines at Deadline, Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, Collider, Condé Nast and Harper's Bazaar. The panel will examine how criticism, journalism, algorithms, social platforms and changing audience behavior are reshaping how films enter the culture and how independent filmmakers find meaningful attention.

At 8:30 PM, the Nukhufest Opening Night ceremony begins with a welcome from members of the Nukhu Foundation Board of Directors and special remarks from Kwame Amoaku, Deputy Commissioner for the Film Office at the NYC Mayor's Office of Media and Entertainment.

Amoaku serves as a principal advisor on film and television production policy in New York City and oversees the City's Film Office. His career in film and television spans more than three decades across directing, producing, writing, cinematography, acting and location management.

Opening Night then presents Finalist Program A: Them That's Not, A Family Guide To Hunting, Half A Life, SAVAGE SEASON. and Balloonerism.

Participating filmmakers will also be in attendance during the festival, including Half A Life directors Sanjit Majumdar and Ranju Majumdar, who are scheduled to attend their Cinema Village screenings, and Kill writer-director Folajimi Olutiola, who has confirmed plans to participate in screenings and filmmaker Q&As.

28 PROGRAMS ACROSS SEVEN DAYS

The Top 10 is one part of a larger week designed to give audiences multiple ways into independent film.

The Cinema Village schedule includes thematic short-film programs, feature presentations, filmmaker Q&As, documentary showcases, animation and experimental work, New York stories, international films, industry workshops and special programs drawn from Nukhufest's complete 2026 Semi-Finalist field.

Among the weeklong programs are New York Stories, connecting films about immigration, Bed-Stuy community, Bronx identity, street activism, New York Fashion Week and city culture; Other Worlds: Animation, Experiment & Possible Futures, followed by a filmmaker conversation with Jordan Flaherty of Space to Breathe and filmmaker Mark Reyes; feature presentations of Era Oculta - Hidden Era and the award-winning Brazilian documentary BRICK BY BRICK; the complete six-episode season of The Red Rob Roy Show; Festival Circuit Spotlight, bringing together projects connected to Sundance, SXSW, Tribeca and other festivals; and the closing-day Nukhu Community Showcase, presented out of competition.

Every Semi-Finalist selected for the 2026 competition has an opportunity to reach the Cinema Village screen.

"This year is really about connecting all of the pieces that independent filmmakers are usually expected to navigate separately," said Sanjay Singh, founder and festival director of Nukhufest and President of the Nukhu Foundation. "We have work that has already been recognized at Sundance, Tribeca, SXSW and major international festivals sharing a theater with films our audience discovered directly through Nukhu. Around those screenings, we're bringing in journalists, producers, community organizers, filmmakers and people working directly inside New York's film infrastructure."

"The goal is not simply to put films on a screen," Singh continued. "It's to fill the room, create meaningful encounters between filmmakers and audiences, and connect discovery to the relationships, knowledge and support that can help independent work continue after the screening ends."

FROM MAKING THE FILM TO GETTING IT SEEN

On Sunday, September 13, Nukhufest turns its attention to what happens after picture lock with Wide Release: Legal, Distribution & Marketing, a 90-minute workshop presented by GreenHause and led by Gautam Singhani.

Singhani is a New York-based line producer and post-production supervisor with more than a decade of experience across development, production, post and distribution. He serves as Co-Chair of the Post Production Committee at the Producers Guild of America and is an active member of the Post New York Alliance.

His credits include the Oscar-nominated The Barber of Little Rock, Emmy-nominated Allen v. Farrow, BAFTA-nominated Becoming Cousteau, Lil Nas X: Long Live Montero, and the Emmy-nominated immersive Apple Vision Pro film Bono: Stories of Surrender.

The workshop addresses legal delivery, premiere and festival strategy, distribution agreements, aggregators and streamers, self and hybrid distribution, marketing assets and the practical materials filmmakers need to move a finished project toward release.

COMMUNITY AS FILM INFRASTRUCTURE

On Wednesday, September 16, Nukhufest brings together leaders from filmmaker communities serving distinct constituencies for COMMUNITY IS INFRASTRUCTURE: How Filmmakers Build, Share, and Sustain the Ecosystems Behind Independent Film.

Moderated by filmmaker, multidisciplinary artist and Nukhu Foundation board member LaChelle Chrysanne, the panel features Brittany Franklin, founder of Minorities in Film; Brandon Nick, creator of Film Festival Friends and co-founder of The Each-Other Project; documentary producer Kitty Hu, co-founder of Shoes Off Media and steering committee member of the Asian American Documentary Network, A-Doc; and producer-director Prerana Thakurdesai, co-founder of Bitchitra Collective, a network of more than 450 women and non-binary documentary filmmakers of Indian heritage.

The conversation will examine how filmmaker communities build trust, distribute opportunities and resources, sustain participation and collaborate across different identities and missions without losing what makes each community valuable.

ONE FINAL NIGHT WITH ALL TEN FINALISTS

Nukhufest's Cinema Village run concludes Thursday, September 17 with a special extended Closing Night beginning at 7:30 PM.

For the first and only time during the theatrical week, both Finalist programs come together in a single event presenting all ten 2026 Top 10 Finalists.

The competition then continues online until September 19 at 8 PM ET.

Two nights later, filmmakers, Finalists, supporters and the Nukhu community reunite at Studio Exhibit on Manhattan's Lower East Side for the Nukhufest 2026 Awards Ceremony + Festival Finale. The September 19 event culminates in the live announcement of the 2026 Best Nuvee and presentation of the Nukhu Awards Ball.

Awards Ceremony tickets are $25 and capacity is limited.

TICKETS ARE ON SALE NOW

Nukhufest 2026 runs September 11 through 17 at Cinema Village, Theater #1, 22 East 12th Street in Manhattan.

Cinema Village program tickets are $10 per block, allowing audiences to choose individual screenings, panels, workshops and special events throughout the seven-day festival.

VIEW THE COMPLETE SCHEDULE + BUY TICKETS:
https://www.nukhufoundation.org/nukhufest/schedule

WATCH THE 2026 FINALISTS