HOW TO REGISTER FOR MVFF EDUCATION SCREENINGS:
Check out the list of MVFF Education film programs, and select the in-theater and/or online film screening(s) you would like your class(es) to attend or view.
- Click on the REGISTER NOW button, and fill out the form to let us know your film selections and how many students will take part.
- You may choose more than one film, but you must fill out a separate registration form for each one.
- Once we receive your registration(s), we will contact you to confirm the details of your order, finalize any in-theater screening times, and assist with any additional details or questions.
- Make a note of which theater you will be attending:
SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER • 1118 4th St, San Rafael, CA 94901
SEQUOIA CINEMA • 25 Throckmorton Ave, Mill Valley, CA 94941
BACKROOMS
SPECIAL SCREENING WITH DIRECTOR KANE PARSONS
Director: Kane Parsons | US 2026 | 105 min | Grades 11-12
IN THEATER *SOLD OUT*:Friday, October 9 • 9:45 AM – 12:00 PM | Smith Rafael Film Center • San Rafael
Conversation with Special Guest KANE PARSONS
Six years ago, director Kane Parsons was a Marin School of the Arts high school student submitting his own short film to MVFF. He returns to this festival for a conversation on that journey, from young filmmaker to feature director, with the next generation of Bay Area student filmmakers.
A strange doorway in the basement of a furniture showroom pulls a man into an endless, disorienting network of empty rooms and into a reckoning with his own life. Adapted from director Kane Parsons’ own viral YouTube series, Backrooms channels the eerie, liminal aesthetic that made the web series a phenomenon into a full theatrical horror experience, distributed by A24. Parsons taught himself the visual effects behind the series on free software as a teenager the same do-it-yourself drive that, at 20, made him the youngest director in A24’s history.
BRAVE CAT
Director: Gabriel Osorio Vargas | Chile 2026 | 93 min | Grades 3 – 6 | In English
Key Themes: Courage, perseverance, chosen family/friendship, harmony with nature
IN THEATER: Friday October 2 • 10:30am – 12:00pm (Includes tentative 20-30min Q&A) | Smith Rafael Film Center
IN THEATER *SOLD OUT*: Friday, October 2 • 10:00 AM – 11:55 AM (Includes tentative 20-30min Q&A) | Smith Rafael Film Center • San Rafael
Kona is a young cat who dwells in the forest with her loving mother and her wise grandma. All forest creatures live together in harmony except for the solitary human who scouts the countryside with his ill-tempered hunting dogs, capturing animals for a traveling circus. When he snares her mom, Kona embarks on a quest that takes her through the forest, over snowy mountains, and down to the ocean’s shore on a quest to find her parent. While she begins her journey alone, she soon finds help and companionship from Colin, an adorable—if pesty—pup, and brave Bernard, a runaway circus bear.
Oscar®-winning Chilean animator Gabriel Osorio’s beautifully imaginative settings (inspired by the Patagonian landscape) and intricate handmade production design weave a family-friendly tale of bravery, determination, and forgivenes
BRIAN
Director: Will Ropp | US 2026 | 94 min | Grades 11 – 12 & College
Key Themes: Mental health, emotional regulation, resilience through humor, self-acceptance, coming-of-age, community/belonging
Advisory note: Contains sexual content, strong language throughout, and depictions of a character’s mental health struggles. Recommended for mature high school audiences (Grades 11–12).
IN THEATER: Wednesday October 7 • 10:30 AM – 12:25 PM (Includes tentative 20-30min Q&A) | Smith Rafael Film Center • San Rafael
Not available online
“Today is going to be a good day,” repeats Brian (Ben Wang) to his reflection in the mirror each morning before the usual day of disappointments and misunderstandings begins. Prone to frequent outbursts due to his mental health issues, the optimistic high-schooler and his good intentions often derail into comical calamity amidst run-ins with his brother, classmates, teachers, and therapist, who are all too familiar with his emotional flare-ups. When he accidentally self-sabotages his dreams of performing in the school play, Brian finds a new calling: running for senior class president. The movie soars on a murderers’ row of crackling performances from some of comedy’s finest talents, anchored by a superb, star-in-the-making Wang.
Armed with a sharply realized script from Late Night scribe Mike Scollins that deftly balances uproarious jokes with earned heartfelt insight, director Will Ropp’s breakout hit of SXSW delivers one of the most memorable coming-of-age films in years.
IN WAVES
Director: Phuong Mai Nguyen | France 2026 | 91 min | Grades 10th – 12th
In French with English subtitles
Key Themes: Young love, grief and loss, illness, self-discovery, art/memory as coping
IN THEATER: Monday, October 5 • 10:00 AM – 11:51 AM (Includes tentative 20-30min Q&A) | Smith Rafael Film Center • San Rafael
Not available online
Some things arrive in waves: sunlight, joy, the pounding surf, but also loss and grief. Director Phuong Mai Nguyen’s animated adaptation of AJ Dungo’s award-winning 2019 graphic novel unfolds as a story of young love between two teenagers: AJ, a shy skateboarder and aspiring artist (voiced by Will Sharpe), and Kristen (Stephanie Hsu), a self-confident surfer. The usual fears of parental reproach and peer pressure challenge their growing intimacy that is further tested by the emergence of a life-threatening illness.
Nguyen’s exquisite visual sensibility is on display on multiple levels: through the vibrant colors of present-day SoCal life, the black-and-white line drawings from AJ’s sketchbooks, and the soft tones of an imagined past life among a group of native Hawai’ians living at the water’s edge. A soundtrack from French composers Oklou and ROB beautifully complements the imagery to an exquisitely indelible effect.
MISS REPRESENTATION: RISE UP
Director: Jennifer Siebel Newsom | USA 2026 | 87 min | Grades 10 – 12
Key Themes: Gender equity, online harassment and misogyny, media literacy, digital citizenship, activism
IN THEATER: Thursday, October 8 • 10:00 AM – 11:50 AM (Includes tentative 20-30min Q&A) | Sequoia Cinema • Mill Valley
Not available online
A hostile environment confronts girls online with every scroll, click, and swipe. In this digital landscape, relentless harassment, manipulated content, and deepfakes target their mental health, privacy, and self-esteem, while algorithms actively steer young men toward an aggressive online “manosphere” that normalizes anti-female hostility. Serving as a follow-up to Jennifer Siebel Newsom’s 2011 documentary Miss Representation, this film brings together emerging female voices with insights from leaders including Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Amy Klobuchar, and Gretchen Carlson. Together, they expose how technology, politics, and corporate decision-making fuel a digital culture where misogyny continues to thrive. Ultimately, the film amplifies the voices of women demanding accountability from governments and tech companies while safeguarding the future of the next generation of female leaders.
SAD GIRLZ
CLASS OF MVFF • COLLEGE TITLE ONLY
Directors: Fernanda Tovar | Mexico/Spain/France 2026 | 90 min
In Spanish with English subtitles
Key Themes: Friendship, trauma, girlhood, allyship, resilience
IN THEATER: Monday, October 5 • 10:30 AM – 12:20 PM (Includes tentative 20-30min Q&A) | Smith Rafael Film Center • San Rafael
Not available online.
Fernanda Tovar, in her narrative debut feature, crafts a moving coming-of-age drama about friendship, teenage girlhood, and trauma. Rocío García gives a standout performance as La Maestra scraping by as best she can to understand how to be a good ally to her friend Paula. Friends and swimmers Paula and La Maestra navigate life with the same confidence they show in the pool. Dreams cast a quiet spell over the early stretches of the film, though its premonitory title, Sad Girlz, suggests that the girls’ carefree world will not remain untouched. One night when they go to a party, something happens to Paula. As their journey deepens and complicates their bond, these two remarkable young women provide a sense of warmth that makes Sad Girlz linger in the heart long after the credits roll.
SPLISH SPLASH FOREVER!
Director: Natasha Beller | Switzerland 2025 | 87 min | Grades 5 – 8
In Swiss German with English subtitles
Key Themes: Youth civic activism, friendship, community, perseverance
IN THEATER: Wednesday, October 7 • 10:00 AM – 11:47 AM (Includes tentative 20-30min Q&A) | Smith Rafael Film Center • San Rafael
Not available online.
Pre-teens Pola and Polly are inseparable friends who spend the long summer days at the local pool (Splish Splash water park) where Polly’s mom runs the concession stand. When the pool shuts down for lengthy repairs, Polly’s family departs Switzerland for Canada in search of steady work, leaving Pola heartbroken about losing her BFF and angry at her village for closing the coolest spot in town. With the help of Rosalie, the smartest (and geekiest) girl in her class, Pola plots to reopen Splish Splash, recruiting friends – and former enemies – to her side. Her grassroots-style civic activism goes all the way to the top, and even Mayor Petrović-Stucki can’t get the girls off her back or out of her office.
Featuring some wildly creative costumes, musical dance numbers and fabulous young talent, Splish Splash Forever! is an upbeat and infectiously inspiring story of activism, kid-style, and the enduring power of friendship.
STREET SMART
Director: Catherine Hardwicke | United States 2026 | 108 min | Grades 11 – 12 & College
Key Themes: Humanizing Unhoused Youth, Trauma and Mental Health, Freedom and Survival, Found Family
Content Advisory: This film explores mature themes including family conflict, homelessness, and loss, and includes substance abuse and strong language.
IN THEATER: Friday, October 9 • 9:30 AM – 12:00 PM (Includes 20-30min Q&A) | Sequoia Cinema • Mill Valley
Not available online.
Street Smart follows Ali (Isabelle Fuhrman), a teenager who leaves a difficult home life behind and takes a bus across the country to Venice Beach with nothing but her guitar. Alone and without money in a new city, Ali finds unexpected support from a group of young people experiencing homelessness who welcome her into their circle. Through their friendship, resilience, and shared moments of joy, the film offers a compassionate, rarely seen look at the lives of unhoused youth and opens the door to meaningful conversations about housing insecurity, community, and what it means to find a family of your own. Directed by Catherine Hardwicke (Thirteen, Lords of Dogtown) and co-written with author Nic Sheff, whose memoir Tweaked inspired the film Beautiful Boy, Street Smart draws on Sheff’s lived experience and Hardwicke’s longtime connection to the Venice Beach community.
Pair this screening with the MASTERCLASS WITH CATHERINE HARDWICKE: FIX IT IN PREP (Friday, October 9, 12:30–2:00 PM).
MASTERCLASS WITH CATHERINE HARDWICKE: FIX IT IN PREP
CAFILM EDU @ MVFF Workshop / Masterclass | Grades 9 – 12 & College
Ideal for aspiring filmmakers and media arts classes. Free for students and educators.
Director Catherine Hardwicke (Thirteen, Lords of Dogtown, Twilight, Street Smart) leads a free masterclass for students and educators on how great films are planned before the cameras roll.
IN PERSON: Friday, October 9 • 12:30 PM – 2:00 PM | Outdoor Art Club • Mill Valley
In this masterclass, Hardwicke walks through her process scene by scene, showing how storyboards, shot lists, rehearsals, and close collaboration with department heads shape a film’s visual language. Using examples from across her career, she shares practical, behind-the-scenes stories about the choices that define a film’s look and feel, from color palettes and wardrobe to working with actors on set.
Pair this masterclass with the free Education screening of Hardwicke’s latest film, STREET SMART (Friday Oct. 9th 9:30 AM – 12:00 PM • Sequoia Cinema)
SHORTS: STAY FREE
Total Program 66 min | Grades 11 – 12
Key Themes: Small-business/community life, mental health
IN THEATER: Tuesday, October 6 • 10:00 AM – 11:26 AM (Includes tentative 20-30min Q&A) | Sequoia Cinema • Mill Valley
Available Online
“But go easy Step lightly Stay free.” As we grow older, we tend to abandon all inherent free spirit and audacity. This collection of short documentary films brings those feelings flooding back, allowing us to live vicariously through these bold, intrepid, and resilient characters.
In THE RIGHT FIT (US 2025, 12 min), Max Mollring and Nicolas Collins introduce the owner of a one-of-a-kind small business in San Rafael. Intimate and observational, Hao Zhou’s AT THE STAGE WHEN (China 2026, 15 min) follows a young urban couple experiencing societal pressure around parenthood. Composed of black-and-white 35mm photographs, A TOWN CALLED NEEDVILLE (US/Canada 2026, 5 min) traces filmmaker Audrey Lane’s inpatient stay at an all-women’s mental health facility in Texas. A collaboration between Ukrainian painter Alla Hurenko and directors Natalie Shirinian and Elizabeth Baudouin, ROOM OF THE ABSOLUTE (US, Ukraine 2026, 18 min) is a time capsule and portrait of resilience in the face of relentless destruction in Ukraine. It is 1980 in Yuba City, California, in Reaa Puri’s HARVEST PARTY AT CAMP TWO (US 2026, 16 min), and a group of Young Punjabi Sikh farmworkers throw the biggest party their small town has ever seen.
SHORTS: ALL THE YOUNG PUNKS (YOUTH WORKS)
Total Program 89 min | Grades 9 – 12
Key Themes: Coming-of-age, identity, belonging, grief
IN THEATER: *SOLD OUT*: Thursday, October 8 • 10:30 AM – 12:20 PM (Includes tentative 20-30min Q&A) | Sequoia Cinema • Mill Valley
Available Online
“All the young Punks, Laugh your life ‘Cause there ain’t much to cry for.” Disappear into corner stores, and shark-filled waters, or love at first sight to find something new. Learn the language of the birds as you meet your match and find your people, or just your insides outside of you. These dynamic youth-produced shorts explore grief, community, and coming of age to tell stories both personal and universal. Card Trick (Sam Moffett, US, 4 min), I Love My Guts (Jahan Zubair, US, 5 min), Cicada (Matthew Glazunov Oleksandrovich, Ukraine, 2), A Bay To Live On (Jacob Stoelting, Lily Robbins, Dominic Kim, Gideon Palestrant, US, 5 min) It’s my fault (Collective Work, Germany, 2 min), My Mother Told Me Not to Talk to…Strangers (Joshua Najera, US, 3 min), The Doll (Julia Sonata, Germany, 3 min), Happy Birthday (Logan Robert Bermudez, US, 1 min), Purge (Jiahn Son, South Korea, 13 min), Making Space (Collective Work, Romania, 1 min), Constellations of the Sea (Addie Akina Knoll, US, 13 min), Windward (Luna Barreiro, Renn Smith, Flynn Rossington, Alex Powell, US, 5 min), Chirp Talker (Audrey He-Qing Cheng, Taiwan, 4 min), We are The Land (Jude Beccaris, Riedy, Larkin Archibald, William Uhlhorn-Thornton, US, 6 min), Chasing Dragonflies (Jaba Keh, US, 10 min), Out of the Blue (Vivian Nguyen, US, 3 min), Grow Up (Dari Justin, Australia, 4 min), Oppression (Collective Work, Romania, 1 min).
SHORTS: COLLEGE ANIMATION SHOWCASE #2
Total Program 64 min | Grades 1 – 5
Key Themes: Big Dreams, outer space, imagination, family, friendship
IN THEATER: Friday October 2 • 10:00 AM – 11:07 AM (No Q&A conversation) | Sequoia Cinema
IN THEATER : Friday, October 9 at 10:00 AM- 11:30 AM (Includes 20-30min Q&A) | Sequoia Cinema
IN THEATER *SOLD OUT*: Friday, October 9 • 10:30 AM -12:20 PM (Includes tentative 20-30min Q&A) | Smith Rafael Film Center • San Rafael
Available Online
A new wave of female and nonbinary animators are on the move from college and university campuses into the professional world. This family-friendly showcase of superbly crafted shorts includes works from CSU Long Beach, UCLA, CalArts and UC Santa Cruz, addressing kid-friendly topics like animals, family, friendship, big dreams and outer space.
Films include: When You Give a Cat a Lemon (Mei Lin Lee-Stahr and Calleigh Hoang, 2025, 2 min), These Are Totally Real Animals (Marissa Brennan, 2025, 2 min), To Be Loved (Amarise Defranco, 2025, 4 min), Seagull Coffee (Sally Pan, 2026, 4 min), Family Dinner (Huayi Yu, 2025, 4 min), Mouseling (Katharine Doescher, 2025, 4 min), Together Apart (Claire Seckler, 2025, 6 min), A New Normal (Asavari Kumar, 2022, 2 min), Sticker (Jisoo Chong, 2026, 2 min), Stand Alone (Soyeon Kim, 2025, 5 min), Ikari (Tamao Inanabe, 2024, 3 min), I’m Stuck in a Mascot Suit in Another World (Grace Valencia, 2025, 4 min), Noodle Fight (Claudia Liu, 2026, 4 min), Little Green Men (Tyler Munoz, 2024, 9 min), Lucky Penny (Jaimi Qiu, 2025, 2 min), Happy Portrait (Pearl Lu, 2026, 2 min), Cat and Mouse (Kaya Evelyn Glasner, 2026, 5 min).