Programmers' Picks: Andy Spletzer on SIFF 2025
The Gloria of your Imagination
Perhaps my favorite doc in the entire Festival, director Jennifer Reeves takes found footage of a single mom in 1963, filmed in three different therapy sessions, and creates a movie about gender inequality, consent, self-doubt, and honesty.
Jean Cocteau
This portrait of the influential poet/filmmaker/playwright/creative spirit is as informative as it is inspiring and will make you want to create art after you leave the theater.
Suburban Fury
I love me an unreliable narrator, and this one is a mother of four who tried to assassinate President Ford. Sara Jane Moore tells her own story in this subjective documentary.
Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass
After a 20-year drought, the Brothers Quay have made another feature film, and this mix of creepy puppet animation and surreal storytelling is worth the wait.
ALT Shorts: Dead Reckoning
This year, so many of the shorts have water and ocean themes, and the nautical term “dead reckoning” is in the opening of the movie My Dad Asked Me What Acid Felt Like, one of many fun experimental shorts in this year’s program.
Billy
The story of a young filmmaker with undiagnosed schizophrenia who ended up going to prison for murder, as told through a treasure trove of his short films and autobiographical videos.
Unclickable
Ad fraud on the internet is ubiquitous and hurts big and small businesses alike, so you’d think the two giant corporations who deal with online ads (Google and Meta) would want to do something about it…until you learn that they profit whether an ad is real or not. Infuriating.
The Librarians
Some parents think that if a school library even contains a book that offers progressive views on sexuality and race, that’s enough to turn their kids “woke.” As it turns out, these parents have been succeeding in turning state governments into censoring agents, and it’s up to the latest action hero for free speech to stand up to them: the school librarian!
Invention
There is something odd and engaging in this laid-back detective story about a young woman trying to learn about her late father’s health marketing schemes and one invention in particular. It’s got the mellow, surreal feel of a Haruki Murakami story.
