One year after a tragic school shooting, a team of high school slam poets and their English teacher work together to overcome their collective and individual trauma to compete at a national poetry competition. Directed by Jo Rochelle, herself a former teacher, and filmed at a high school in Bremerton, WA, Dead Deer High is a profound look at modern school life.

Director Jo Rochelle and writer/producer Joshua Dean attending.
Director: Jo Rochelle
Fiction, 2026
102 min, USA

 

In 1983, noted author Ta-Nehisi Coates remembers learning that a 14-year old boy was murdered in the corridor of his Baltimore middle school. Revisiting the case as an adult, he learns the truth about the three innocent teenagers who were convicted and sentenced to life. After 36 years in prison, it was revealed that false testimony led to their imprisonment. Dawn Porter’s When a Witness Recants explores the collateral damage the handling of this case had on the community, the wrongfully accused, and the young witnesses pressured to betray them.

Director: Dawn Porter
Documentary, 2026
112 minutes, USA

In Gaza in 2007, Yahya, a student working at Osama’s falafel shop, reluctantly agrees to sell drugs with his boss. Enter Abou Sami, a crooked cop who enlists them in numerous schemes that end in tragedy. Two years later, Yahya is cast in Gaza’s first action movie, a propaganda film produced by Gaza’s Ministry of Culture. Inspired by both Western and Middle Eastern Cinema, Arab and Tarzan Nasser’s feature is a thrilling, pointed, tragic, and satirical look at life under occupation.

Directors: Arab Nasser, Tarzan Nasser
Fiction, 2025
87 minutes, Palestine

Juliette Binoche is one of the world’s greatest actors. Akram Khan is as acclaimed a choreographer and dancer as the world has known. In 2007, together, they decided to teach one another their profession–and passion–live and on stage in a show called In-I Motion, where both Binoche and Khan use each other’s discipline to help expand their own, and learn about themselves and each other as well. Binoche steps behind the camera to capture the cathartic rehearsals and the incredible performance.

Director: Juliette Binoche
Documentary, 2025
124 minutes, France

#WhileBlack follows citizen journalists like Diamond Reynolds and Darnella Frazier, whose cell phone videos from Minneapolis changed the conversation around policing and accountability overnight. Millions watched their footage, but almost no one saw what came next.

Once the videos went viral, Diamond, Darnella, and others went into hiding to escape online trolls, media attention, and police surveillance — while Silicon Valley benefited from the explosion in user engagement their videos generated. The film pulls back the curtain on what it actually costs to document the truth in real time, and what happens when everyday people become the record-keepers of history.

As Minneapolis once again finds itself at the center of national debate over footage, surveillance, and state power, #WhileBlack feels especially urgent—asking who really benefits from citizen journalism today, and who is left to carry the burden when a moment meant to inform the public becomes profit-generating content for the internet.

Directors Sidney Fussell and Jennifer Holness attending

Directors: Sidney Fussell, Jennifer Holness
Documentary, 2026
84 minutes; USA, Canada

Directors and Guests Attending! 
Directors Ashley Tyner, William Tyner

At the intersection of East 38th Street and Chicago Avenue in Minneapolis, three community organizers—Jeanelle Austin, Toshira Garraway, and Robin Wonsley — embark on interweaving journeys after George Floyd’s murder to care for their communities, find inner healing, and forge a path towards Black liberation.

For these activists, this fight is vital to reimagining Minneapolis and changing decades-long issues that have resulted in violence and poverty in the Black community. Austin is a memorial caretaker at George Floyd Square, a place of protest that remembers George Floyd and others killed unjustly from state-sanctioned violence, and and she hopes that her work archiving Black history will be a living monument; Wonsley decides to run for city council and strives to change the city’s corrupt police department; and Garraway is the leader of Families Supporting Families Against Police Violence, trying to bring justice to the victims’ families. The People’s Way is both a record of their work at this critical juncture and a clarion call to action.

Documentary • Human Rights • MN Made • Politics • Social Justice • Women Directors

This MSPIFF screening at the Capri includes a pay
what you can option HERE.

Regular Individual Ticket Pricing:

*Student tickets available at the box office with Student I.D.
$2.00 online ticket fee applies to all Non-Member orders. No online ticket fees for MSP Film Society Members.
All sales are final, and non-refundable.

MORE on MSPIFF: Films, Full Festival Schedule, Tickets/Passes, Accommodations, Press/Industry

 

Thanks to our partner, MSP Film, for bringing the Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival to the Capri for the TENTH YEAR. Bravo!

Dir. Brittany Shyne

Shot in gorgeous black and white, director Brittany Shyne creates an intimate and beautiful documentary about Black farmers in the American South, their legacy and challenges ahead. Shyne’s miraculous and dreamlike debut won the U.S. Documentary Grand Jury Prize at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival.

A century ago, Black farmers owned and worked over 16 million acres of land in the South, most driven away through oppressive laws. Unable to access the same federal monies that white farmers may receive, Black farmers struggle against nearly every challenge, and the few that remain are determined to hand this legacy down to their children. Shyne’s directorial debut is a poetic and moving tribute to these incredible farmers, and she gets up close, reveling in the little details of their lives.

Regular Individual Ticket Pricing:

*Student tickets available at the box office with Student I.D.
$2.00 online ticket fee applies to all Non-Member orders. No online ticket fees for MSP Film Society Members.
All sales are final, and non-refundable.

MORE on MSPIFF: Films, Full Festival Schedule, Tickets/Passes, Accommodations, Press/Industry

 

Thanks to our partner, MSP Film, for bringing the Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival to the Capri for the TENTH YEAR. Bravo!

Executive Producer Ahmed Farah Attending

In a windy Somali village, a newly assembled family must navigate between their different aspirations and the complex world surrounding them. Mamargade is a jack-of-all-trades in Paradise, a town in the war-torn Somali countryside. With his son, Cigaal, and sister, Araweelo, he’s trying to make ends meet in a country rife with violence and uncertainty. Mo Harawe’s debut feature was the first Somali film to be an official selection at Cannes.

Cigaal is a gifted child, clearly in need of additional schooling to help him realize his potential. Mamargade toils selflessly, taking on virtually any job–including gravedigger, a necessary gig in a land targeted by U.S. drone strikes–to see that his son’s education continues. Araweelo has her own troubles–she’s trying to start a clothing shop, but no local bank will loan money to a divorced woman, and her infertility means that her husband has his sights set elsewhere. Love, trust and resilience will power them through their life paths.

Regular Individual Ticket Pricing:

*Student tickets available at the box office with Student I.D.
$2.00 online ticket fee applies to all Non-Member orders. No online ticket fees for MSP Film Society Members.
All sales are final, and non-refundable.

MORE on MSPIFF: Films, Full Festival Schedule, Tickets/Passes, Accommodations, Press/Industry

 

Thanks to our partner, MSP Film, for bringing the Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival to the Capri for the TENTH YEAR. Bravo!

Director/Producer/Writer Rashad Frett Attending!

30-year-old Ricky has been in prison half his life. Newly released, and having been locked up from age 15, he navigates post-incarceration back at home in East Hartford, Connecticut. Rashad Frett’s stunning and compassionate debut feature won the best directing award at the Sundance Film Festival and showcases a dynamic performance from Stephan James as Ricky.

Sentenced when he was just a teenager, Ricky has not experienced any of the rites of passage that most young men experience in freedom. He’s a handsome young man, trained as a barber, who knows nothing about modern technology, dating, and navigating the world in general. His religious mother exerts pressure on him, his parole officer pushes him, his own anger and self-regard punish him daily, and he just hopes he can find a place in this world.

Drama • Family • Social Justice

Regular Individual Ticket Pricing:

*Student tickets available at the box office with Student I.D.
$2.00 online ticket fee applies to all Non-Member orders. No online ticket fees for MSP Film Society Members.
All sales are final, and non-refundable.

MORE on MSPIFF: Films, Full Festival Schedule, Tickets/Passes, Accommodations, Press/Industry

 

Thanks to our partner, MSP Film, for bringing the Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival to the Capri for the TENTH YEAR. Bravo!

Directors Attending! Selina Lewis Davidson and Macky Alston

Two filmmaking friends, Selina, a Black woman, and Macky, a white man, head south together to explore their roots and the insidious legacy of slavery. Visiting with family in Louisiana, Selina discusses the secret histories of her family, while Macky, in Georgia, confronts his family’s inherited privilege. What emerges is an eye-opening story of hope and redemption.

Documentary • Social Justice • Women Directors

Tickets to this MSPIFF @ the Capri film ONLY are FREE to North Minneapolis residents.

Northsiders: provide your zip code when you check in at the front desk.

Regular Individual Ticket Pricing:

*Student tickets available at the box office with Student I.D.
$2.00 online ticket fee applies to all Non-Member orders. No online ticket fees for MSP Film Society Members.
All sales are final, and non-refundable.

MORE on MSPIFF: Films, Full Festival Schedule, Tickets/Passes, Accommodations, Press/Industry

Thanks to our partner, MSP Film, for bringing the Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival to the Capri for the TENTH YEAR. Bravo!