Paul Walter Hauser and Sydney Sweeney in Americana. Courtesy of LIONSGATE
(LONG BEACH ISLAND, NJ) -- Lighthouse International Film Festival (LIFF) will screen Lionsgate's Americana as their opening night film on Thursday, June 5, 2025 with writer-director Tony Tost in attendance. The film stars Sydney Sweeney, Paul Walter Hauser and Halsey and tells the story of a gallery of dynamic characters clashing over the possession of a rare Native American artifact set in a modern-day western. This marks the festival's 17th year running from June 4-8, 2025 on Long Beach Island.
A gallery of dynamic characters clash over the possession of a rare Native American artifact in this wildly entertaining modern-day western. After the artifact falls onto the black market, a shy waitress with big dreams (Sydney Sweeney) teams up with a lovelorn military veteran (Paul Walter Hauser) to gain possession of it, putting them in the crosshairs of a ruthless criminal (Eric Dane) working on behalf of a Western antiquities dealer (Simon Rex). Bloodshed ensues when others join the battle, including the leader of an indigenous group (Zahn McClarnon) and a desperate woman fleeing her mysterious past (Halsey). The film is written and directed by Tony Tost and produced by Alex Saks.
Festival tickets and passes are available for purchase online.
Other festival highlights include Uta Briesewitz’s closing night film, American Sweatshop starring Lili Reinhart; centerpiece films Omaha (Greenwich Entertainment, starring Tony Magaro), Slanted (SXSW Jury Award for Best Narrative Feature) and Fantasy Life (Matt Shear, Bob Balaban, Amanda Peet, Judd Hirsch, Zosia Mamet).
Filmmaker and actor Jason Alexander will be the festival’s keynote speaker with an intimate conversation discussing filmmaking and his storied career on Saturday, June 7th with a special 25th anniversary screening of Jason Alexander’s film Just Looking with Q&A to follow on Friday, June 6th.
Additional special events include masterclasses with Oscar Nominated Producer Michael Jackman of Conclave and Sam Lipman- Stern, Director and Executive Producer of HBO’s Telemarketers.
The jury for this year’s festival includes filmmaker Sam Lipman-Stern (HBO's Telemarketers), Oscar winning director Cynthia Wade (Freeheld), filmmaker Elegance Bratton (The Inspection, Move Ya Body), Oscar winning producer Kim Magnusson (Election Night) among others.
FESTIVAL HIGHLIGHTS:
Closing Night Film: American Sweatshop; Director: Uta Briesewitz, USA/DEU, 100 min. EAST COAST PREMIERE. Daisy toils in a cottage industry of agencies that evaluate harmful and offensive pictures and videos uploaded to social media. With detached caution and a deranged sense of humor, they examine the millions of posts that get “flagged for review." But one particularly violent video grabs hold of Daisy, luring her out of this office, away from the safety of her keyboard and into a dangerous world as she obsessively seeks to hold someone accountable. Courtesy of Brainstorm Media
Centerpiece: Omaha; Director: Cole Webley, USA, 83 min. Set against the backdrop of the 2008 economic crisis, Omaha follows a struggling father (John Magaro) who embarks on a road trip across the American West with his two children, Ella and Charlie, in search of hope and a better life. What begins as a seemingly spontaneous family journey gradually reveals deeper layers of both grief and resilience, as Ella starts to sense that her father’s intentions may be masking a more profound truth. Expected to attend: Director Cole Webley
Centerpiece: Slanted; Director: Amy Wang, USA, 102 min. EAST COAST PREMIERE. Winner of the SXSW Jury Award for Best Narrative Feature. Chinese American teen Joan Huang just wants to fit in at her high school, but when she hastily undergoes an experimental medical procedure to become Caucasian, the consequences could be devastating in this biting speculative fiction satire. SXSW Grand Jury winner. Starring Shirley Chen, Mckenna Grace, Vivian Wu, Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, Amelie Zilber, Fang Du
Centerpiece: Fantasy Life; Director: Matt Shear, USA, 91 min. After losing his job as a paralegal, Sam Stein suffers a panic attack and stumbles into a job babysitting his psychiatrist's three granddaughters. The girls' mother, Dianne, is an actor whose once-promising career has stalled; she's in a difficult marriage to David, a rock bassist. When David goes abroad on tour, Dianne and Sam discover an easy rapport as well as a shared history of mental illness. Sam joins Dianne's family to babysit for the summer on Martha's Vineyard, and he ends up in a house with the woman he pines for, her husband, the three kids, and all four grandparents, including his psychiatrist. Expected to attend: producer Emily McCann Lesser
NARRATIVE FEATURES COMPETITION:
A Simple Machine; Director: Mark Hoffman. USA, 97 MIN. WORLD PREMIERE. Nick Allander has a marketing job, a serious relationship, and a problem: he’s drowning in debt. But before he and his partner, Marie, can take the next step in their relationship, Nick decides to simplify his life and devotes himself to fixing up an old bike. After secretly leaving his apartment to save on rent, Nick’s frugal strategies come to a head, forcing a difficult choice between committing to the woman he loves or devoting himself to a simpler existence. Expected to attend: director/writer Mark Hoffman, actor Richard Blackmon
Best Man; Directors: Ryan & Anthony Famulari. USA, 105 MIN. WORLD PREMIERE. John has been a struggling actor in LA for years. When his brother asks him to be the best man at his wedding and offers to help him find a stable career back home, John resolves to make one last push for Hollywood stardom. His newfound determination pays off professionally, but it strains his relationships. He lands a new manager and finds some acting success, but loses his girlfriend and puts his relationship with his brother on thin ice. And when John finally lands the audition of a lifetime, he learns that it's on the same day as his brother's wedding. Faced with an impossible choice, John decides to take the audition, miss the wedding, and lose his relationship with his brother in the process. At the audition, John delivers the performance of his life, but it’s not enough. John sacrificed everything for his dream, but is left with nothing. Expected to attend: director/writer Ryan Famulari, director/writer/actor Anthony Famulari
Norma Dorma; Director: Lorenz Suter. CHE, 87 MIN. INTERNATIONAL PREMIERE. Nothing feels normal for Norma. Her little son Lenny is growing so fast since her partner Henri disappeared. Norma struggles between work and her child. At night, her missed Henri is haunting her. Norma knows it must be more than «just a dream». One morning she wakes up mysteriously pregnant, caught between hope and fear. In her search for answers, Norma meets Mikka, a sleep researcher tied to Henri’s past. Mikka opens her eyes for another world. Norma climbs to surreal heights to see her family reunited. But the idyll of her dreams bring her closer to the abyss. On Norma‘s path of discovery she trips from familiar places into stranger lands than she could ever have imagined - not in her wildest dreams. Expected to attend: director/writer Lorenz Suter, actor Marina Guerrini and DOP/writer Stefan Kunzler
Resentment; Director: Noah Millman; USA, 83 MIN. WORLD PREMIERE. A man walks into a bar to talk about a film. Another man waits in ambush to force him to confess. A woman watches to see that he doesn’t. Over the course of a long, booze-filled night, everyone is going to say what someone doesn’t want to hear. A taut, witty chamber drama inspired by the Mike Nichols classic, “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf,” “Resentment” asks what it would happen if we finally let go of our resentments, and tried to live with the truth, however ugly it might sound. Starring Lawrence Gilliard, Jr. (The Wire, The Walking Dead), Patch Darragh (Succession) and Jen Ponton (Dietland). Expected to attend: director/writer Noah Millman, actor Jen Ponton
River Returns; Director: Masakazu Kaneko. JPN, 108 MIN. US PREMIERE. In the summer of 1958, a riverside village is regularly threatened by typhoons. There, a boy named Yucha learns the local flood legend from a Kami-Shibai (paper theater) storyteller. He tells of a broken-hearted girl who drowned herself in a river pool deep in the mountains. It is said that her grief has caused great floods every few decades ever since. A great typhoon is approaching. Yucha sets off for the pool deep in the mountains, which even adults fear, in the hope of stopping the flood and soothing the girl's sorrow.
Sometime The Wolf; Director: William Garcia Bigelow. USA, 92 MIN. WORLD PREMIERE. In this psychological debut film from writer/director William Garcia Bigelow, the lives of an expecting suburban couple are disrupted by a random act of violence. In the aftermath, Hal (Boris Granolic) and Rosalyn (Marisela Grajeda Gonzalez) navigate practical realities and growing tensions, exposing latent mental illness and a fractured domesticity. Sometime The Wolf offers a quiet, voyeuristic look into a modern life as it contends with an uncertain future. Expected to attend: director/writer William Garcia Bigelow
Thirsty; Director: Emily Art; USA, 112 MIN. A tenacious defense attorney embarks on a high stakes campaign to beat the incumbent mayor of Oakland. As election day approaches, she must reconcile the seduction of the political game with her own moral compass or risk losing it all. Starring Jamie Neumann, Kyra Sedgwick, and Thora Birch and Sung Kang. Expected to attend: director/writer Emily Abt
You Are Not Alone; Director: Marie-Hélèe Viens & Philippe Lupier. CAN, 105 MIN. Leo, a lonely, anxious pizza delivery guy, stumbles upon John, a mysterious taxi driver seeking lonesome souls. This unusual encounter throws the young man into a dizzying delirium, disrupting his blossoming romance with Rita. As the leaves start falling from the trees, days are getting shorter, and the cold is settling in… Luckily, the first flames of love warm Leo’s heart, awakening in him an unexpected power. But beware: if you play with fire, you might get burned. Expected to attend: directors Marie-Helene Viens & Philippe Lupien
DOCUMENTARY COMPETITION:
Among the Palms The Bomb, Or: Looking For Reflections In The Toxic Field Of Plenty; Directors: Lukas Marxt & Vanja Smiljanić Marxt. AUT/USA, 85 MIN. EAST COAST PREMIERE.The highest asthma rates among children in the United States, chronic nosebleeds, the haunting memories of Native American tribal genocide, the echoes of military atomic bomb tests during the Manhattan Project, the massive monocultural farming culminating in cataclysmic fish and bird die-offs, and the exploitation of illegal immigrants, are just a few of the narratives that come together and define the Salton Sea. The Historic Wendover Airfield Museum in Utah, a former military base that in 1944/45 played a pivotal role in the development of the Atomic Bomb, is the starting point of the film. The film’s overarching mission is to ignite a collective awareness of the ongoing environmental and socio-political catastrophe that has remained concealed for years. Expected to attend: directors Lukas Marxt and Vanja Smiljanic Marxt
Been Here Stay Here; Director: David Usui. USA, 86 MIN. Christianity and climate change collide on Tangier Island, where a close-knit Christian fishing community faces an existential threat as rising seas encroach upon their shores. Their centuries-old way of life, sustained by faith and the rhythms of the Chesapeake Bay, is now at a poignant crossroads—one that may force them from the only home they’ve ever known. Expected to attend: director David Usui
Kid Racers; Director: Cynthia Hill. USA, 86 MIN. WORLD PREMIERE. This is a documentary about five American families and the high-speed, high-stakes world of youth racing. Filmed in the final weeks of a grueling season, the film captures the last races at Millbridge Speedway, where 9-year-old drivers chase a championship—and parents double as coaches, mechanics, and mentors. Expected to attend: director Cynthia Hill, producer Sandra Davidson
Shuffle; Director: Benjamin Flaherty.USA, 81 MIN. Winner of the Documentary Feature Grand Jury Prize at SXSW, this film follows three individuals whose lives depend not on getting into treatment, but on getting out alive, and in the process, shines a light on the insurance-fueled cycle of addiction treatment fraud spreading across the country. With the filmmaker serving as narrator, using his own experience as a roadmap, these personal stories provide the framework for a more public investigation with the help of an FBI informant, an insurance analyst and the former Executive Director of a Philadelphia-based treatment facility. Shuffle unravels a web of public policy and private interest preying on a desperate population for the sake of profit. Expected to attend: director Benjamin Flaherty, producer Carra Greenberg
Solitary Road; Director: Johan Palmgren. SWE, 76 MIN. INTERNATIONAL PREMIERE. There is a road in the middle of the wilderness far North of the Arcitic Circle. It was built 1955 and was supposed to lead from Kiruna, Sweden, to Bardufoss, Norway. The work was interrupted and now there is only a short fragment of a road of 20 kilometres between the mountains, without connection to the general road system. Along the road there are five villages, where time has stopped. There is no electricity nor any water. The villagers have transported old cars over the ice of Torneträsk from Kiruna to this unique place. The cars date from the 60´s and 70s. In this film we follow the everyday life along the road. Small stories and events are mixed with deeper portraits of people living close to the wild and untamed nature. Expected to attend: director Johan Palmgren
Thaw; Director: Robin Hauser, USA, 88 MIN. EAST COAST PREMIERE. Egg freezing is now a global phenomenon, used by women all over the world. But its outcomes can’t be known until years later, when the eggs are thawed and fertilized. Thaw follows three American women navigating difficult choices about their biological clocks, and questioning what “choice” actually means in this new era of eggs on ice. Expected to attend: director Robin Hauser, editor Jennifer Steinman Sternin
The Little Things That Run The World; Director Doug Hawes-Davis. USA, 105 MIN. WORLD PREMIERE. Life on Earth is in the middle of a major re-alignment of species composition. The smallest of creatures - insects - hold the fabric of all life together. They are the most numerous of all animal groups on the planet. But insects are declining at an alarming rate throughout the world, threatening innumerable species, whole ecosystems, and even our food systems with collapse. This is story about untangling the mysteries as to why something so ubiquitous - and seemingly endless - could be on the cusp of disappearing entirely. It is also the story of heroic efforts to save these most vulnerable of creatures. Expected to attend: director Doug Hawes-Davis
The Shepherd's Keeper; Director: Hadara Oren. ISR, 69 MIN. INTERNATIONAL PREMIERE. Bedouin shepherd communities (Palestinians) who live in the magical spaces of the Jordan Valley have to deal with a variety of pressures and threats, mainly due to Israeli Settlers and the IDF. The film follows the complexity of the ‘human layer’, that disturbs the peacefulness of the desert and awakens ancient struggles. All this, against the backdrop of, and perhaps in contrast to, the wonderful scenery of the desert.
In addition to extraordinary screenings of hot new films from Sundance, SXSW, Toronto, Berlin, Cannes, Venice, etc., LIFF also offers engaging panels, masterclasses, and networking events. Elevating the festival experience, LBI's epic beach and bayside catered parties make for a weekend of fun, uniting filmmakers from the United States and around the world. Located in close proximity to NYC and Philadelphia, LIFF is an ideal destination for both filmmakers and film lovers alike.
Lighthouse International Film Festival’s (LIFF) vision has always been and continues to be to illuminate the universality of the human experience and thereby bridge the world’s cultures, through film. Driven by the belief in the values of inclusion, diversity and equity for 17 years, LIFF has consistently programmed films that are daring, courageous, and present a multicultural view of the world and the crucial issues facing us today. LIFF’s goal is to be accessible to exciting new talents and voices, seeking to discover hidden gems and programming that is dynamic and engaging.
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