5 Greater Boston film festivals to check out this winter

This winter ushers in leadership changes, milestones and optimism within Greater Boston’s independent film exhibition scene.

In its first year with nonprofit status, West Newton Cinema Foundation received approval from Newton City Council for a just under $2 million Community Preservation Act matching grant to support ongoing restoration of the 1937 moviehouse, installed two 4K projectors and upgraded its sound in all six theaters. A new liquor license allows viewers to sip wine, beer and cocktails with their popcorn.

In a December email to its supporters, JCC Greater Boston announced it will acquire Boston Jewish Film, which had been an independent nonprofit since 1989. “BJF will continue to operate its signature programs, including the annual Boston Jewish Film Festival, the Boston Israeli Film Festival, and related screenings and conversations, supported by the JCC's infrastructure and strategic vision,” said the statement from JCC president and CEO Lily Rabinoff-Goldman.

Kathy Tallman will step back from her position as the executive director and CEO of the Coolidge Corner Theatre this winter. During her 12-year tenure, Tallman oversaw a $15 million capital campaign and renovation to the beloved beacon of independent cinema. Two longstanding members of the creative and leadership team, Beth Gilligan and Mark Anastasio, will step up their roles. Gilligan will become the new executive director and CEO and Anastasio the artistic director.

This winter’s milestones also come in the form of looking at a past film with new perspectives. Boston-area filmmaker Irena Fayngold released the documentary "Hineini: Coming Out in a Jewish High School" in 2005. At that time, the main character Shulamit Izen was the only openly gay student at Gann Academy, a private Jewish high school in Waltham. The film follows Izen’s efforts to create a gay-straight alliance there while also considering her relationship to Judaism. For years after the film’s release, Fayngold said she would encounter young people who saw and remembered her film.

On Feb. 12, The Vilna Shul in Boston hosts a 20th anniversary screening and post-film panel discussion about “what has and hasn't changed” for LGBTQ+ equality and Gender and Sexuality Alliances in Jewish schools. Jaimie Krass, the president and CEO of nonprofit Keshet, which advocates for LGBTQ+ Jewish equality, will moderate a conversation with Idit Klein and Susie Tanchel, both featured in the film, as well as current Gann Academy student and GSA co-leader Liana Galper.

Below are additional film offerings to consider this winter.

When: Jan. 17-19 & Jan. 24-25

Where: West Newton Cinema, Brattle Theatre, Regent Theatre

Highlights: Wondering what to do with kids ages 3-12 over a long winter weekend? This fest of animated and live-action international films has you covered. (Youngsters have the option to listen to English translations over headphones.) Some films, like “Blue Fiddle,” might even get the kids to practice their instruments more. Because that’s no trouble for 10-year-old Molly (Edith Lawlor), who longs to play the fiddle as well as her father in order to awaken him from a coma. Set on the Irish coast, music making takes on mystical powers, calling up the charms of 1994’s “The Secret of Roan Inish,” also shot in County Donegal.

This fest endeavors to encourage both reading and moviegoing, so adaptations make up nearly three-quarters of this year’s lineup, according to Belmont World Film’s executive director Ellen Gitelman. Based on a fantasy book by German author Sabine Bohlmann, in “A Girl Named Willow,” young Willow (Ava Petsch) inherits a forest from her witch ancestors. She must team up with three other magically powerful girls to save the forest from destruction. “We are Greenland: Soccer is Freedom” anticipates Boston’s World Cup hosting with a celebratory documentary about players with a dream of earning recognition for their home country, Greenland, to compete in the World Cup. Two of the eight shorts in “Pet Projects,” “Cardboard” and “Snow Bear,” are shortlisted in the Best Animated Short Academy Award category. Several other features and shorts programs round out the program, including shorts narrated by actors Sophie Okonedo and Jessie Buckley.

Good to know: Animator David Feiss returns to host animation workshops inspired by his work on the “Minions” and “Hotel Transylvania” series. He and storyboard artist Paul McEvoy worked together on “The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants” and serve as the festival’s artists-in-residence. Open to kids ages 5-12 (one suggests ages 9 and up), the three workshops take place on Jan. 24 at the Belmont Media Center.

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When: Jan. 30-Feb. 8 & Feb. 22

Where: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Highlights: Last year, this fest featured “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” the “Women, Life, Freedom” political movement thriller that drew global critical praise and sent Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof into exile. A similar fate may befall Iranian New Wave filmmaker Jafar Panahi, who faces imprisonment for making “It Was Just an Accident,” though he reportedly remains committed to living in Iran and nurturing its next generation of filmmakers. Showing this year in the midst of acquiring a slew of international awards (and after Panahi made an in-person appearance at the Coolidge in late 2025), “It Was Just an Accident” unites a group of ex-prisoners around avenging their possible jailer. Despite grim stakes, the plot unfolds as a bumbling farce, each of the five “regular” people representing a different point on the wheel of emotion. Try as they might to reason with authoritarianism, they can’t, though this film suggests merit in openly questioning the system.

Tense mystery imbues three other contemporary narratives screening this year, “The Things You Kill” (Canada’s Academy Award submission for Best International Feature), “Black Rabbit, White Rabbit” (a convergence of seemingly unrelated tales) and “The Great Yawn of History” (a fabulously titled allegorical treasure hunt). Two Abbas Kiarostami titles shown in previous years, a restoration of 1997’s “Taste of Cherry” and a 15th anniversary screening of “Certified Copy” with the always radiant Juliette Binoche, also screen. Shortlisted for a Best Documentary Feature in the upcoming Academy Awards, the filmmakers behind “Cutting Through Rocks” decided to keep filming long after their motorcycle riding, midwife main character becomes the first woman elected to her village’s city council. Sara Khaki and Mohammadreza Eyni recently told the Pure Nonfiction podcast, “it became crucial to see how she used her power.”

Good to know: Aliyar Rasti, the writer, producer and director behind “The Great Yawn of History,” has made several music videos and worked in documentary filmmaking. He studied script writing and directing under Asgar Farhadi, whose work has frequently appeared in this festival.

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When: Monthly, February-May

Where: ArtsEmerson’s Bright Family Screening Room

Highlights: This winter’s program, co-presented by Boston Asian American Film Festival (BAAFF) and several other partners, offers broad insights on Chinese and Asian American representation and experiences in the U.S. as well as abroad. The series kicks off on Feb. 6 with an author talk and movie excerpt. Jeff Chang will discuss his 2025 book, “Water Mirror Echo: Bruce Lee and the Making of Asian America,” about the martial arts phenom whose life was cut short at age 32. Chang dug into Lee’s diaries and interviewed family members to weave biography and cultural history into one cohesive narrative. The event includes clips from Bao Nguyen’s 2020 documentary about Lee, “Be Water.”

On March 7, the one-man comedy special “Chris Grace: As Scarlett Johansson” riffs off the now infamous casting of Johansson as a Japanese manga character in 2017’s “Ghost in the Shell.” Simultaneously silly and serious, Grace peels back the symbolic layers on the proclamation that an actor can play any role, regardless of identity. On April 4, “Family Matters” expands on Ke-yin Pan’s excellent short film “My Sister,” which screened at the 7th Taiwan Film Festival of Boston. Structured from four points of view, with each family member named after a different season, the film explores their independent turmoil as well as how heightened expectations and miscommunication affect their relationships to each other. At the final event on May 16, the brief but moving history of Boston’s Chinatown as told by Cynthia Lee, “Love Chinatown” (which opened last year’s BAAF), screens with another short documentary, “Hong Far Low,” about director Aaron Wong’s family restaurant, one of the first in Boston’s Chinatown. Conversations follow all screenings.

Good to know: On Feb. 21, to mark the Day of Remembrance for Japanese Americans incarcerated during WWII, the documentary “Third Act” screens, which Tadashi Nakamura made about his father, filmmaker and American concentration camp survivor Robert Nakamura. A reception follows.

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When: Feb. 11-16

Where: Somerville Theatre and online

Highlights: What to do after celebrating 50 fantastic years of sci-fi on film? You connect your tinfoil hat to the nearest electrical source and start planning SF51, of course. That’s what the team behind the longest-running genre fest in the U.S. did in preparation for this year. Well, maybe not exactly that. But they did comb the skies for 10 feature films and 31 shorts from 47 countries. The films touch on dream consciousness, alien incursions, unlikely kinships as well as time travel, according to festival founder Garen Daly. (Though Daly announced his retirement after SF50, he said he is temporarily filling in, along with seasoned programmers Angela Burgess and Suzzanne Cromwell, until new director Melissa Starker can fully join the fold.)

Daly bills the feature “After Us, the Flood” as a “time travel, climate change mystery” and “The Infinite Husk” as a “sci-fi gritty noir.” “Husk” director Arron Silverstein will introduce his film. Panels and parties are also on the docket. As ever, the 24-hour Marathon ends the fest (noon on Feb. 15 to noon on Feb. 16) with a line-up of a dozen features, plus goofy contests, spicy candy, and eau du sleeping bag. (The fest sells merch but no trademarked scents as far as I know.) Expect classics like “Attack of the 50 Foot Woman,” cinematic delights like David Lynch’s “Dune” on 70mm and the U.S. premiere of “The Atomic Screen,” or “‘The Atomic Cafe’ made with 2025 sensibilities,” said Daly.

Good to know: For SF50 last year, several folks told me why they have attended for decades and then some. Festival office manager Sue Janowitz met her husband at an early fest. (He had the good sense to walk out on the same movie as her.) Sounds like a match made in a simulated post-physical state.

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When: Feb. 27-March 1 in-person; March 2-16 online

Where: ArtsEmerson’s Bright Family Screening Room

Highlights: Contemporary films from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania make up this annual festival, which began in 2018. Festival chair Aija Dreimane said that in the last two years, audience size has doubled. She pointed to 2024 animated sensation “Flow” as part of the uptick. The fest hosted one of the film’s team members just days before he traveled to the Academy Awards, where the movie won Best Animated Feature; festival goers watched and celebrated.

In this year’s lineup, several films touch on coming-of-age themes, including opening night’s “Fränk” from Estonia. Dreimane said the unflinching story about a 13-year-old boy who flees domestic violence and finds an unlikely friendship blew the programming team away. Director Tõnis Pill is expected to attend the festival. The documentary “To be Continued. Teenhood" catches up with the five Latvian first graders featured in 2018’s “To be Continued.” Though director Ivars Seleckis cannot attend the festival (he is 91 years old and one of the oldest working filmmakers in Latvia, Dreimane said), co-director Armands Začs and cinematographer Valdis Celmiņš will attend. The festival will offer the original documentary virtually in advance to refresh people’s memories of the children before they become teens.

Dreimane and festival volunteer Renate Krūmala Kenney attended the world premiere of "Escape Net," which Dreimane said “has blown up in Latvia, reaching 100,000 viewers in just its first few weeks.” It’s based on the true story of Dzidra Uztupe-Karamiševa, whose love of basketball fuels her desire to escape Stalinist-era Riga and form the most dominant women’s team in European history. They are hoping to feature the film at the festival, but at press time, it was not yet confirmed. From Lithuania comes “Renovation,” Gabrielė Urbonaitė’s debut feature about a young woman who feels pressure to settle down but begins to doubt she’s in the right romantic relationship. The Emerson alum, who returned to Lithuania after her studies, will attend the festival. Several other films round off this program, which includes virtual screenings once the in-person festival concludes.

Good to know: In 2025, I moderated the largest panel in my professional history – 12 people involved in Baltic filmmaking whose work was being shown. This year, I’ll attempt that magic trick again on Feb. 27. I encourage attendance because it’s open to the public and gives audience members a chance to put names to the talent who will appear at other events throughout the weekend.

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