Victory Int'l Film Fest

10/09/2026

Our friends are hosting a horror film festival at Showplace Cinemas East next week.

THE HORROR HAVEN SCHEDULE IS COMING TOGETHER!

We’re hard at work putting together the official screening schedule for the 2026 Horror Haven Film Expo, and seeing everything finally fall into place is pretty damn exciting.

Two days. Two theaters. Features, shorts, and independent films from some incredibly talented filmmakers.

We’re working to make sure every block flows right and gives our filmmakers and audience the best experience possible.

October 14–15, 2026
Showplace Cinemas East
Evansville, Indiana

The FULL SCREENING SCHEDULE will be announced very soon.

Don’t wait for the schedule to grab your tickets. Get yours now:

https://filmfreeway.com/HorrorHavenFilmExpo/tickets

Start making your plans.

HORROR LIVES HERE.

09/25/2026

Congratulations to our Audience Choice Award Winner, Colin Millsap!

University of Southern Indiana
University of Southern Indiana College of Liberal Arts

From the boxing ring to the big screen: "The Champ" earned a USI student the Audience Award at Evansville's Victory International Film Festival. 🏆 See link below ⬇️

📸 Provided by University of Southern Indiana

09/15/2026

And the WINNER is... 🎉

We are absolutely blown away by the incredible artistry, vision, and storytelling on display at the 2026 Victory International Film Festival! Choosing our champions this year was no easy task, thanks to the breathtaking work submitted by filmmakers from around the globe.

A massive congratulations to all of our incredible winners, nominees, and everyone who shared their cinematic magic with us this year. You continue to push the boundaries of film, and we are so proud to include you into our best year yet! 🏆

👇 Explore the full list of 2026 winners below! 👇

GRAND PRIZE WINNER
Meeting Your Maker

BEST FEATURE FILM
Sincerely, Ric

BEST NARRATIVE SHORT
Kiloran Bay

BEST HOOSIER FILM
The Knife Thrower's Daughter

BEST DOCUMENTARY
Listen

BEST ANIMATED FILM
Saba

BEST COMEDY
Ladylike

BEST HORROR
The Humbug

BEST EXPERIMENTAL FILM
A Crime Across Four Landscapes

BEST INTERNATIONAL FILM
Nightfaces

BEST STUDENT FILM
Cora Dale - A Rediscovered Harmony

BEST MUSIC VIDEO
Love - OK Go

BEST MICRO-BUDGET MUSIC VIDEO
Drunk in the Graveyard -The Chugs

BEST DIRECTOR
Aisling Byrne - Mary Is Missing

BEST EMERGING FILMMAKER
Alanna Longo - Am I A Bad Person?

BEST ACTOR
Alan Cu***ng - Kiloran Bay

BEST ACTRESS
Coco Jourdana - Fault

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
David Clancy - This Belongs to All of Us

BEST SCORE
Michael Bruce - Kiloran Bay

AUDIENCE CHOICE
The Champ

09/13/2026

Sincerely, Ric won Best Feature Film at the Victory Int'l Film Fest in Evansville, IN.

A very special weekend and a pretty great way to see the film on the big screen at the Victory Theatre.

09/07/2026

Step into the lives of real people through our Documentary Shorts showcase—a gripping lineup featuring the World Premiere of a new work by IU instructor Wyatt Fritz alongside the Academy Award-qualified sensation ‘A Short Documentary About a Giant Pencil’, delivering unfiltered glimpses into human resilience and extraordinary truths that challenge the way you see the world.

A Short Documentary About A Giant Pencil
A Lake of the Isles homeowner and a Minneapolis chainsaw sculptor shape meaning (and a twenty foot tall pencil) from the twisted trunk of a fallen oak tree.
But this pencil isn’t meant to last. Every year, thousands gather to sacrifice a part of the pencil in a sharpening ceremony, and in the process renew the collective promise to “do something.

Glacier's Requiem
In isolation on Iceland’s Snæfellsnes Peninsula, Nigerian-born modular synthesis artist Colloboh transforms glacial and oceanic recordings into sonic compositions – uncovering a dialogue between ice and sea that reshapes his understanding of consciousness, ecological collapse, and humanity’s place within both.

A Mystical Ornithology
In this lyrical portrait, ornithologist, poet, and professor Drew Lanham invites us into his South Carolina farm, where birdwatching becomes both refuge and revelation. As he listens for absent songs in the spring air, Drew not only reckons with loss and memory but also takes action—cultivating his land as a sanctuary, an underground railroad for winged migrants. His reflections move beyond science into wonder, blurring the line between human and bird. For Drew, they are more than names on a list—they are companions, teachers, and a last wild hope.

Contact
CONTACT is a short documentary film directed by Jonathan Walley that chronicles the transformation of an entire skatepark into a playable musical instrument—where the skate, BMX, art, and music scenes collide.

Dos Hermanas
This preliminary archaeological survey was conducted by Indiana University (IU) Anthropology PhD Candidate Pamela Lara Tufiño in Dos Hermanas Cavern (Los Arados, Dominican Republic) on May 20th, 2025. The goal of this project was to contribute to IU's data on the geographic distribution and material analysis of pre-Columbian ceramics in the Dominican Republic. Pamela is a Research Associate with IU's Center for Underwater Science, and her project was funded by The Explorers Club and IU's School of Public Health.

ABEL
Abel Berumen, an accomplished Mexican-American photographer, woke up blind one day as a result of a rare disease called Pseudoxanthoma Elasticum. This film, made seven years after the unexpected event, reflects on the paradox of his disability: how his loss of vision has enabled him to truly see.

09/07/2026

Pushing the boundaries of traditional narrative, this curated selection of Experimental Shorts showcases boundary-pushing visions, abstract storytelling, and unconventional techniques. Don't let the genre label fool you, some of this year's most compelling films lives right here in this block. Plus 'The Ride' is narrated by Ron Perlman! These films challenge standard perceptions of cinema through avant-garde editing, striking visual poetry, and immersive sonic landscapes that redefine the moving image.

A Crime Across Four Landscapes
When a small-town crime goes awry, the evidence is scattered across four picturesque landscapes in the American South - inviting viewers to piece together what happened.

The Ride
A ’76 Plymouth reflects on its journey, witnessing decades of human life, capturing moments of freedom, temptation, and redemption as it changes hands from one owner to the next.

How Now, House?
How Now, House? investigates our yearning to leave traces behind through the prism of one house in Rotterdam. Using archives, personal memories and the philosophy of time, the film questions whether a space can ever really belong to one person, or time period, at all.

A Stable Marriage
A woman's sexual fantasy is fulfilled -- with surprising ramifications.

Because of (U)
Laura is trapped in a toxic relationship with a famous rapper. After a violent argument, her reality starts to warp, straddling the line between the familiar and the distorted, the everyday and the hallucinatory.

An Alternate Pond
A man takes his boat out on a pond. A conversation with a fish becomes a meditation on the lives we didn't live. Surreal imagery blurs the line between waking and dream as the film explores regret, aging, and the search for peace within the only life we have.

The Right to Be Forgotten
Deep underground, embedded in old muddy rock, the oracle is waiting. A big bright square tells the story of our present on repeat. Slowly it descends over small motionless people stuck in the middle of a world consuming itself. How do you want to be forgotten?

Tuktuit : Caribou
An experimental documentary created with handmade and manufactured emulsions exploring the close and enduring connections between Inuit, caribou, lichens, and land use. Lichen developers help bring the images to life, while caribou hide is processed into gelatin to make handmade emulsion. Filmed primarily on the land in Nunavut where caribou struggle to maintain their lifeways amidst burn events, habitat disruption and changing conditions.

09/07/2026

Step outside the boundaries of the known universe with a visionary collection of sci-fi and fantasy shorts exploring speculative tomorrows, alternate dimensions, and modern myth. From dystopian dispatches to quiet magical realism, this short film block brings together boundary-pushing storytellers who bend physics, reshape history, and breathe new life into the impossible. ‘The Man I Wave At’ has been Oscars Qualified, and a special celebrity appearance by Annabel O’Hagan from Fallout.

Brujo
In a rural post-modern world, grieving parents are offered a chance to speak with their dead daughter through a cutting-edge device—but soon the lines between faith and technology begin to blur.

Lost Touch
Amelia is the sole survivor on a damaged spaceship. Caught in the gravitational pull of a planet, she struggles with grief and isolation. When a mysterious presence appears, she is torn between the past and the future.

The Man That I Wave At
A man has an existential crisis trying to work out who the mysterious man is that he waves at.

The Door
A small-town sheriff investigating a missing person discovers a freestanding door that tempts her with the life she once refused.

In the beginning
A spaceprobe called beresheet, legless birds of paradise, hamster cull and humanity trying to make the world make sense.

Please and Thank You
When an AI apocalypse begins, a virtual assistant risks everything to save her well-meaning user for one simple reason: he’s polite to technology. If it fails, they'll both be assimilated. A darkly funny fable about manners, survival, and the last glimmer of humanity worth saving.

Leonardo
Inspired by the Vitruvian Man and the Leonardo DiCaprio syndrome, “Leonardo” imagines a near future in which Néstor, after losing his partner, seeks comfort in an artificial replica of her. What begins as a desperate attempt to revive their relationship seems to work... until an unexpected event changes everything.

Long Distance
An astronaut prepares for a flight into space, and a diver
descends into the depths.
The further apart they are, the closer they are.

CAN I PUT YOU ON HOLD
A man struggles with the crushing bureaucracy of immigration as he waits on hold with his immigration lawyer, trying to keep hope alive for his future with his fiancée, only to face a devastating setback that forces him to reconsider everything.

09/07/2026

From our backyard to the big screen. This lineup of short films showcases highly anticipated cinema crafted right here in Indiana. This block is a special treat that includes THREE World Premieres!

Bloom
After failing to beat his own record for America's tallest sunflower, Ukrainian immigrant Alex Babich makes a push for a Guinness World Record—all while balancing the needs of his family and the challenges of nature in Northeast Indiana.

Everything's Loud: The Making of Compression
Follow the very personal journey of making an independent film. This is the story of Compression, a feature film from Evansville, IN directed by Jakob Bilinski, and starring Emily Jean Durchholz. In this documentary, directors Elijah Bolin & Jake Clark retell the madness of principal photography and capture the emotional experience of the film's award-winning festival run.

Fawn
A child participates in the ritual of hunting a deer with her family. In a dissociative haze, she begins to see their true nature.

The Knife Thrower's Daughter
A documentary exploring the surreal life of 74-year-old Mary Hurst, who performed as a human target in her family's traveling Wild West show starting at age four. Driven by her larger-than-life cowboy father, “Wild Bill” Cody, the story shifts from a quirky 1950s Appalachian travelogue into a cautionary tale of trauma and reality. Rejecting a victimhood narrative, Mary finds solace in animals and prepares to crack her bullwhip one final time, backed by archival ephemera, surreal animation, and a warped Americana score by Califone.

09/06/2026

We’ll have new merch for sale at the festival this week! Thanks to Burnt Prairie Print Shop for the t-shirts!