For four days this fall, the stretch of North Charles Street around the historic Charles Theatre will feel like the center of the independent film world. The New/Next Film Festival, presented by Baltimore Public Media and curated by co-founder and director of programming Eric Allen Hatch, returns October 1–4, 2026, for its fourth and largest edition yet: more than 160 films, including 35 features and over 125 shorts, screening across all five of the Charles’s screens.
This year’s lineup includes six world premieres and five U.S. or North American premieres, a remarkable haul for a festival that launched in 2023. It opens Thursday, October 1, with Eternity One, Baltimore artist Marnie Ellen Hertzler’s documentary portrait of a disappearing Chesapeake Bay island community, featuring an original score by Baltimore dream-pop icons Beach House. It closes Sunday, October 4, with The Projectionist, Alexandre Rockwell’s story of a haunted old man confronting his past through the lens of a forgotten movie theater. Rockwell will be in Baltimore along with cast members Vondie Curtis-Hall, Kasi Lemmons (Eve’s Bayou, Harriet), and Karyn Parsons (The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air).
World premiere features include Riptides, an uproarious dark comedy by Alex Karpovsky (HBO’s Girls) starring Steve Little; You Don’t Know My Name, a deeply personal documentary by Tommy Franklin; and The Tower, a DIY regional-cinema marvel by Auden Lincoln-Vogel and Philip Rabalais. North American premieres include Ana Baldini and Roly Witherow’s acerbic Lisbon-set comedy Kiss and Be Friends, Theodore Schaefer’s interlocking narrative triptych The Arrow at Rest at Every Instant of its Flight, and Mylissa Fitzsimmons’ sensory-rich coming-of-age study MacKenzie. Making their U.S. debuts are Big Break, a horror-comedy from director Ian Faria and comedy group Simple Town, and The Ground Beneath Our Feet, Yrsa Roca Fannberg’s Cannes Critics’ Week–winning portrait of a Reykjavik retirement home.
Read full article: Two Blocks, Five Screens, 160 Films: New/Next Film Festival Returns to Station North – BmoreArt
