29th Brooklyn Film Festival Announces Lineup, Opens with ‘A Mosquito In The Ear’

The 29th Brooklyn Film Festival (BFF), themed “The Invitation” and taking place May 29-June 7, 2026, revealed the lineup of films from 30 countries.

The festival will open with the New York Premiere of A Mosquito In The Ear directed by Nicola Rinciari and starring Jake Lacy, Nazanin Boniadi and Ruhi Pal. The film follows Andrew and Daniela as they travel to Goa, India to retrieve their newly adopted 4-year-old daughter, Sarvari. However, their world begins to crumble when Sarvari refuses to leave the orphanage that she calls home behind. The couple’s attempts to safely ferry their new child from India back to the US proves to be an untenable task that is filled with chaos, intermarital conflict, and adventure around every corner.

In total, BFF will show 130 features and shorts from 30 countries, including 26 World Premieres, 14 US premieres, 22 east coast debuts, and 40 first-time screenings in NY. The full lineup includes 11 narrative features and 7 documentary features, highlighted in this release. The festival will also present 50 narrative shorts, 17 documentary shorts, 24 animated films, and 21 experimental films.

Over the course of the festival, BFF will present 34 two-hour film programs, across three venues: including 100 Sutton Studios in Greenpoint, the Wythe Hotel in Williamsburg, and a new partnership with the BRIC Arts Media House in Downtown Brooklyn, The online portion of the festival will be available 24/7 from May 29-June 7. Tickets and passes for theater screenings can be purchased in advance, online at the Brooklyn Film Festival website.

This year marks the return of the BFF Exchange, the festival’s industry event, hosted June 3rd and 4th at the Feirstein Graduate School of Cinema in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. The Exchange will host two days of panels and tabling, including a short film pitch contest for both documentary and narrative films with prizes for winning filmmakers.

Alongside the Exchange and film slate, BFF will offer additional events with festival partners throughout Brooklyn. Highlights include: A collaborative event on Artists’ Cinema with E-Flux on June 1, a special screening of documentary shorts curated by VICE Sports on June 2, and a curated selection of queer films to be screened on June 6 during Brooklyn Museum’s First Saturdays’ programming.

Below are the narrative and documentary feature films in this year’s lineup.

NARRATIVE FEATURES

A MOSQUITO IN THE EAR by Nicola Rinciari | USA | New York Premiere
Andrew and Daniela, eager to form a family, travel to Goa to bring home their newly adopted child, who is not willing to leave India and the orphanage where she lives to become their daughter.

CRYSTAL CROSS by Richie James Follin | USA | New York Premiere
A troubled Christian singer and a suicidal man, who looks strikingly like Jesus, take a doomed but beautiful road trip across America.

GLORIOUS SUMMER by Helena Ganjalyan, Bartosz Szpak | Poland | New York Premiere
In a serene, sun-drenched world, three young girls spend their days in carefree play, mindfulness exercises, and idle contentment. But beneath the smiles and cheerful surface, anger and resentment that have been suppressed for years start to surface.

IF I GO WILL THEY MISS ME by Walter Thompson-Hernández | USA | New York Premiere
Twelve-year-old Lil Ant transforms his working-class neighborhood beneath the LAX flight path into a living mythology, where family members become gods and the sky is crowded with endless departures. As he searches for connection with his god-like yet conflicted father, he finds support in his close-knit community that helps him reconcile myth and reality.

LUNAR SWAY by Nick Butler | Canada | US Premiere
Cliff is a young man looking for love in all the wrong places in a small desert town. When his birth mother, Marg, arrives unexpectedly they start to connect. But her secrets soon catch up with them.

THE MECHANICS OF BORDERS by Hubert Caron-Guay | Canada | East Coast Premiere
A reserved young man takes to the road to the southern U.S. to bring his free-spirited older sister back home.

NUCLEAR BOY by Joren Molter | Netherlands | US Premiere
The lonely, 17-year-old chemistry fanatic, Aike, in his desperate urge to be seen, tries to build a nuclear reactor in his mother’s shed, with all the radioactive and catastrophic consequences that entails.

SNAKE OIL SONG by Micah Van Hove | USA | New York Premiere
Chino’s life on the outskirts of the Amazon is consumed by one thing: hunting the anaconda that ate his dog. When an American journalist hires Chino to travel to a dangerous area, an encounter with illegal gold miners causes Chino’s life on the river to unravel.

TONY ODYSSEY by Thales Banzai | USA – Brazil | East Coast Premiere
Tony and his best friend, Ivy, plan to rob the bar where he’s trapped in servitude, stealing a reality-altering drug that launches them into a psychedelic odyssey. As they navigate surreal visions and shattered memories, Tony searches for answers and the power to rewrite his fate.

VALENTINA by Tatti Ribeiro | USA | New York Premiere
After receiving a series of tickets she can’t afford to pay, Valentina decides to confront her local city council. What should be a straightforward task is quickly derailed by a crippling combination of laziness, debt, bureaucracy, partying, and imposing members of a close-knit family. Valentina is a hybrid film — part narrative-comedy and part documentary.

1001 FRAMES by Mehrnoush Alia | Iran | New York Premiere
In the studio of a well-known director, female actors audition for the role of Scheherazade in “A Thousand and One Nights”. But the women gradually realize that the director has more in mind than just casting the leading role.

FEATURE DOCUMENTARIES

BLOOD & GUTS by Carlye Rubin, Katie Green | USA | New York Premiere
The lines between real life and reel life are muddied in the story of the Adams, an unconventional family who makes independent horror films. While they may vomit blood onto one another, lack boundaries and make frequent use of the f-word, they also face what every family must: change.

CELTIC UTOPIA by Dennis Harvey, Lars Lovén | Sweden | New York Premiere
After 100 years of partial independence, a bold new wave of young Irish artists redefine folk music and reflect over the impact of their colonial history.

CLOVERS by Jacob Hatley, Tom Vickers | USA | New York Premiere
The denizens of a strip-mall casino in Asheboro, North Carolina endure two tumultuous years.

FREEING JUANITA by Sebastián Lasaosa Rogers | USA | New York Premiere
Juanita has been unjustly detained in Reynosa, Mexico for over seven years, accused of a crime she didn’t commit and forced to confess in a language she didn’t understand. With the help of their Maya Chuj community and a network of Maya interpreters, Ana and Pedro, Juanita’s aunt and uncle fight for Juanita’s freedom and demand justice from the Mexican authorities.

MÀQUINA by Joaquim Adrià Pujol | USA | New York Premiere
When a father consumed by alcoholism agrees to join his son on a journey through psychedelic-assisted addiction treatment in Colorado, their road trip across the American West in an aging Winnebago becomes an unflinching exploration of codependency, memory, and hope.

ROCKET GIRL by Agnes Swiercz | Poland | New York Premiere
An intimate portrait of Eleni, a young girl navigating adolescence while pursuing her passion of building rockets. The film weaves together an honest depiction of the awkward and timeless coming of age story, with a peek into the competitive, male dominated and intense community of Rocketry.

YOUR ATTENTION PLEASE by Sara Robin | USA | New York Premiere
As lawmakers debate the Kids Online Safety Act, Gen Z launches a global “Offline Club” movement, and a high school dares to go phone-free. What emerges is not a doomsday story, but a hopeful one: proof that the attention crisis is not inevitable and that a cultural shift is already underway.