It’s summer! Time for coming-of-age romance in all forms, whether it’s horror in a small town in Australia, queer and questioning crushes in a small town in Oregon, family pressures in a Paris suburb, or even tragedy on a private island in Greece. It’s a season to find out who you really are, and every town on the map offers indie filmmakers a vehicle to explore this classic setup for authentic storytelling.
BURT
When You Can Watch: June 1
Where You Can Watch: Film Independent Presents
Director: Joe Burke
Cast: Catlin Adams, Burton Berger, Oliver Cooper
Why we’re excited: Two days with two guys, one of which is 69-year-old singer/songwriter Burt (Burton Berger) and the stranger claiming to be his son, Sammy (Oliver Cooper, Project X). Cooper also co-wrote the script with director Joe Burke (Four Dogs) with a dry wit and understated humor that mixes dreams and music with Parkinson’s disease and the neverending task of paying rent. Berger is the picture of a struggling artist, not giving into cynicism but also maybe too trusting and vulnerable to underhanded schemes. Not everyone in Burt’s life embraces Sammy’s arrival the way he has, and it becomes clear that Sammy has more than one reason for making an appearance at this point in time. Though the script is fictionalized, Burt is inspired by Berger’s own life. Burke met Berger at a Malibu restaurant fifteen years ago and felt compelled to bring his story to screen. “He’s special,” Burke told Arizona’s Family, “his music is special, his soul is awesome.”
THE BIRTHDAY PARTY
When You Can Watch: June 5
Where You Can Watch: Select Theaters and Streaming
Director: Miguel Ángel Jiménez
Cast: Willem Dafoe, Vic Carmen Sonne, Emma Suárez
Why we’re excited: Spanish filmmaker Miguel Ángel Jiménez (Window to the Sea), adapts Panos Karnezis’s 2007 novel into this lavish tragedy set in the 1970s. Come away to a private Mediterranean island, where the daughter of filthy rich Marcos Timoleon (Spirit Award winner Willem Dafoe, The Lighthouse) is about to have the worst day of her young life. The birthday girl (Sofia, played by Vic Carmen Sonne, The Girl with the Needle) receives a hodgepodge of party guests that reads more like a networking mixer for billionaires than the friend group of a 25-year-old girl. Everyone here is under the thumb of her father, including – as we are about to understand to a heartbreaking degree – Sofia herself. Even Sofia’s step-mother, Olivia (Emma Suárez, Julieta) has attended the party with her lawyer, hoping to extricate herself from this family at last. But as one pivotal day unfolds, secrets and schemes unravel, pitting father and daughter against one another in a life-changing confrontation.
THE LITTLE SISTER
When You Can Watch: June 5
Where You Can Watch: Theaters
Writer/Director: Hafsia Herzi
Cast: Nadia Melliti, Park Ji-min, Amina Ben Mohamed
Why we’re excited: Nadia Melliti won Best Actress at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival for her first role as Fatima, the 17-year-old French-Algerian student starting university in Paris. French-Tunisian actress and filmmaker Hafsia Herzi (You Deserve a Lover) adapted the script from an autofictional novel by French-Algerian author Fatima Daas about coming of age as the youngest daughter of a Muslim family in the Paris suburbs. As Fatima explores her competing interests, identities and values, she has to make decisions about how she will handle her own life. “I want to shine a light on people we rarely see on screen,” Herzi told Variety. “I’ve rarely seen a proudly Queer North African character on screen, even though I know so many women like her. I had to tell her story.”
LEVITICUS
When You Can Watch: June 15
Where You Can Watch: Film Independent Presents
Writer/Director: Adrian Chiarella
Cast: Joe Bird, Stacy Clausen, Jeremy Blewitt
Why we’re excited: Australian filmmaker Adrian Chiarella’s debut feature tackles homophobia and conversion therapy in a romantic coming-of-age horror story. Joe Bird (Talk to Me) and Stacy Clausen (True Spirit) play Naim and Ryan, 17-year-olds in small town Australia. When the classmates kiss for the first time, it both opens up a world of excitement and a world of hurt – personified in the healer who arrives to cure them of their attraction. The ensuing ceremony seems to deal less with healing and more with summoning supernatural forces to test and execute punishment on either boy who succumbs to temptation. The only safe move is to stay away from each other, since the avenging angels that haunt the young lovers do so by taking on their own form. Though Naim never knows if the object of his desire is actually Ryan or the imposter spirit (and vice versa), the intensity of their feelings makes it impossible to stay away.
GAIL DAUGHTRY AND THE CELEBRITY SEX PASS
When You Can Watch: June 22
Where You Can Watch: Film Independent Presents
Director: David Wain
Cast: Jon Hamm, Zoey Deutch, Miles Gutierrez-Riley
Why we’re excited: David Wain (Wet Hot American Summer) highlights the personality and distinctive features of Los Angeles in his latest zany comedy about a small-town hairdresser (Zoey Deutch, Nouvelle Vague) whose soon-to-be husband has just invoked a celebrity sex pass to sleep with an icon he might never expect to meet in Kansas. Now in order to save her relationship, Gail has to even the score. Accompanied by her gay best friend Otto (Miles Gutierrez-Riley, Smile 2) and accruing teammates along the way, Gail scours LA in a quest for Jon Hamm and the kind of payback only he can offer. Gail’s wedding is only two weeks away, and the usual jitters are heightened by Gail’s LA adventures, including run-ins with paparazzi, CAA, a former Mad Men costar, and – perhaps inevitably – assassins. Can Gail question everything and reach a result that is truly satisfying?
MADDIE’S SECRET
When You Can Watch: June 23
Where You Can Watch: Film Independent Presents
Writer/Director: John Early
Cast: John Early, Eric Rahill, Kate Berlant
Why we’re excited: Comic actor John Early (Search Party) wrote, directed and starred in this comedic tribute to TV movies and glowy nostalgia. Inspired by an LA screening of one such movie of the week starring Tori Spelling and Kellie Martin, Early embraced the potential of low budget production to explore the strange new world of food influencing (and fulfill his lifelong dream to play a classic ingenue). Maddie Ralph (played by Early) is a great chef – at home. She is too intimidated to cook for anyone but her husband (Eric Rahill, Friendship) and best friend, Deena (Kate Berlant, Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood). But a chance video post goes viral, throwing Maddie in the spotlight at the trendy content creation company where she works. Now promoted to onscreen talent, Maddie must face her stressful new career alongside her old struggle with bulimia. Film Independent members Tyler Boehm and Chris Quintos Cathcart are executive producers.
GIRLS LIKE GIRLS
When You Can Watch: June
Where You Can Watch: Film Independent Presents
Director: Hayley Kiyoko
Cast: Maya da Costa, Myra Molloy, Zach Braff
Why we’re excited: When pop star Hayley Kiyoko recorded her song, Girls Like Girls in 2015, she told US Weekly, “I loved the idea of how all these guys always are stealing other guys’ girls and I was like, ‘There’s no female anthem for a girl stealing another guy’s girl,’ and that is the coolest thing ever.” Now Kiyoko’s directorial debut picks up the thread, following a music video in 2015 and a YA novel in 2023. The coming-of-age love story focuses on Coley (Maya de Costa, Under the Bridge) who is 17 and newly bereaved. Moving to rural Oregon to live with her estranged father (played by Zach Braff, Spirit Award winning Garden State), she is starting over. But meeting the popular and glamorous Sonya (Myra Molloy, He’s All That) awakens new feelings in both of them, introducing a summer of discovery.
THE INVITE
When You Can Watch: June 26
Where You Can Watch: Theaters
Director: Olivia Wilde
Cast: Seth Rogen, Olivia Wilde, Penélope Cruz, Edward Norton
Why we’re excited: After her Spirit Award winning Booksmart, Olivia Wilde’s venture into marital sex comedy features four well-known faces in indie cinema. One night, one apartment, for a dinner party that is probably not the real reason for said invitation. Wilde (Don’t Worry Darling) and Spirit Award nominee Seth Rogen (The Studio) play a couple in a shaky marriage. Intrigued by the overheard pleasures of their upstairs neighbors, Angela (Wilde) takes advantage of the fact that her teenage daughter is away and invites the couple over for dinner. Enter Pina and Hawk (Spirit Award winner Penélope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona and Spirit Award nominee Edward Norton, Birdman), the comparatively suave and exciting therapist and ex-fighter, respectively. The evening unfolds with tension that gives way to a comedic exploration of long-term relationships, and taking the bitter with the sweet. Film Independent members Alex Astrachan and Chelsea Barnard are executive producers.
ROMERÍA
When You Can Watch: June 26
Where You Can Watch: Theaters
Writer/Director: Carla Simón
Cast: Llúcia Garcia, Mitch Martín, Tristán Ulloa
Why we’re excited: The family drama from Spanish filmmaker Carla Simón (Alcarràs) stems from her frustration and pain in reconstructing her own family history. Growing up in the 80s and 90s as an orphan of AIDS put Simón in an odd relationship with extended family, and with herself. In Romería, Marina (newcomer Llúcia Garcia) is an easy-going teen on a fact-finding mission in order to complete her university grant application. With her mother’s diary as a guide, Marina meets extended family on Spain’s Atlantic coast and begins to uncover secrets, including details about her parents that were previously unknown. Simón credits the visual medium of film for her own healing in recreating her personal story. “When you can’t shape your identity through others, you can invent it through creation,” she told Cannes. “Cinema is there for that: creating images that don’t exist.”
PROGRAMMER’S PICK: CORONER TO THE STARS
When You Can Watch: May 20
Where You Can Watch: Film Independent Presents
Directors: Ben Hethcoat, Keita Ideno
Cast: Thomas Noguchi, George Takei, Janice Hahn
Why we’re excited: From Film Independent Lead Programmer Jenn Wilson–
Ben Hethcoat and Keita Ideno’s first foray into feature documentary territory is a fascinating tale of LA’s most famous coroner, Dr. Thomas Noguchi who served as Chief Medical Examiner-Coroner from 1961-1982. Dr. Noguchi worked on some of LA’s most notorious death investigations including Marilyn Monroe, Natalie Wood, Robert F. Kennedy, William Holden, and the Manson Murders. Despite his exemplary work, Noguchi stirred up controversy when he would give press conferences and release the truthful details of celebrity deaths; something that offended the Hollywood Studio System who was secretive about such information. Dr. Noguchi survived one early attempt by the LA Board of Supervisors to remove him, but he didn’t survive the second attempt. Despite his demotion, he dutifully served LA County as a medical examiner for several years after. Hethcoat and Ideno’s film is an intriguing exploration of a man of science and truth stuck in an extremely political office that shifts with the tide of opinion.
KEY
Film Independent Fellow or Member
Film Independent Presents Screening, Q&A
Microbudget
Filmmaker or Lead Characters of Color
Film Independent Spirit Award Winner or Nominee
Female Filmmaker
LGBT Filmmaker or Lead LGBT Characters
First-time Filmmaker
LA Film Festival Winner or Nominee
Featured Image – The Birthday Party; Courtesy Fasten Films
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