PREVIEW: Fourth Annual Hudson Film Festival Kicks Off This Week
08/06—08/09 @ Various Venues, Hudson
**This review originally appeared in our August 2026 print issue**
Photos provided
“We found that some of our most provocative programming over the years has had satirical elements which then led to great conversations at our after-parties.”
This August, the Hudson Film Festival will be returning to the county seat of Columbia County for its fourth year. Running from Thursday, August 6 to Sunday, August 9 at various theaters around Hudson, the 2026 lineup features an exciting slate of feature-length narrative and documentary films along with four short film blocks showcasing 18 different films.
Sonia Marcela Freeman, John Maybee and Sarah Peters, the co-founders of The Hudson Film Festival, connected through their shared affection for their home state of New York as well as their work as publicists for Fox Searchlight Pictures (now known as Searchlight Pictures).
On a work trip to the famed Telluride Film Festival, Freeman, Maybee and Peters began to ideate about starting a film festival of their own back at home.
“I had the idea that Hudson would make for a fantastic film festival and I was a bit surprised with the arts community in and around Hudson that there wasn’t one yet,” Maybee explained.
“We sort of saw this gap, both in where festivals are, as well as who they serve,” Freeman added. “The infrastructure of Hudson and the surrounding area has a lot of opportunity for filmmakers but there was this little space missing of who could be the connection between all the venues, the local businesses and the local talent.”
After many a Zoom call, the trio launched the first Hudson Film Festival in the summer of 2023. Their years of experience in the film industry, as well as their connects from their time working with studios like Searchlight, A24, Focus Features and Warner Bros., allowed them to secure the American debut of Rebecca Miller’s film She Came To Me starring Peter Dinklage, Marissa Tomei and Anne Hathaway — a damn impressive get for the inaugural year of the festival.
Since the inaugural festival, the focus for Freeman, Maybee and Peters has been growing the event in a sustainable way.
“Each year we’ve added just a little bit more and we fine tuned our programming so that we’re addressing what the community wants to see,” Freeman said. “We also want to keep in mind our goal of exposing our audience to films they might not [be able to see] on a regular basis.”
At this year’s festival, the co-founders, who also serve as the selection committee, were able to secure a pair of exciting international features to screen for the Hudson community.
Filipiñana, the first feature film from Filipino filmmaker Rafael Manuel, debuted at this year’s Sundance Film Festival and festival goers will now have a chance to see the much-talked about film.
“I don’t want to give anything away, but it is such a surprising treat,” Freeman said about the film. “[Manuel] has such a unique vision and voice.”
“It has a great visual aesthetic,” Maybee added.
Filipiñana will open the festival on Thursday night, August 6 at Hudson Hall. The screening will begin at 7 p.m., followed by an after-party at Basilica Hudson.
How To Divorce During the War, a co-production between Lithuania, Luxembourg, Ireland and Czechia from director Andrius Blaževičius, follows a couple trying to navigate their divorce amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
“Both of these films are satires which provides an unexpected viewing experience,” Maybee said about the pair of international features. “We found that some of our most provocative programming over the years has had satirical elements which then led to great conversations at our after-parties.”
How To Divorce During the War will be screening at Time & Space Limited on Sunday, August 9 beginning at 1 p.m.
Two other narrative feature films will be screened at this year’s festival. On the evening of Friday August 7, Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away will be playing at Hudson Community Theater at 6 p.m.
Since I’ve been going through the entire Miyazaki filmography with my two-year old son, we’re going to take a quick moment for “The Dude’s Five Favorite Miyazaki Films”: 1) Spirited Away 2) Princess Mononoke 3) Ponyo 4) Howl’s Moving Castle 5) Porco Rosso. Am I hiding my own rankings behind a toddler so the anime nerds don’t yell at me? Yes, yes I am. I didn’t actually show my son Princess Mononoke because I’m not a psycho.
The festival will close with a screening of Pillion, aka Heated Rivalry but Ilya Rozanov is a biker played by Alexander Skarsgård. That’s reductive and I’m only half kidding but go see this movie; it’s fucking hysterical.
In addition to the narrative features, Hudson Film Festival will also be screening three documentary features on Saturday, August 8 at Time & Space Limited.
“In all three [documentaries], the subjects have used art as either a form of protest or education or as a means to highlight a seldom looked at segment of the community,” Freeman explained.
Comparsa will kick things off at 1 p.m. and will be immediately followed by a screening of Barbara Forever at 3 p.m. and finally, American Pachuco: The Life of Luis Valdez will close proceedings with a 5 p.m. screening.
Throughout the festival, 18 short films, divided into four thematically themed blocks, will be screened on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
“We started out in year one by attaching the short films to the front of the feature films,” Freeman explained. “We found that some people were talking about the shorts even more so than the features.
“Last year was our first time experimenting with a shorts block and it was an incredible turnout so we decided to double down and do four different short film blocks this time around.”
Thursday night, following the screening of Filipiñana, the first block “Connection and Desire,” headlined by Gaël Kamilindi’s Taxi Moto, will play at the aforementioned after-party at Basilica Hudson. Friday night’s block, “The Unexpected and Unpredictable,” will play at Hudson Community Theater following the screening of Spirited Away. The two other short film blocks “Growth and Courage” and “The Darker Side: Kisses, Crimes and Cults” — the latter of which features the Academy Award-winning short Two People Exchanging Saliva — will play at the Saturday night after-party at Basilica Hudson.
In addition to the vast programming, Hudson Film Festival has partnered with Stockade Works and Mental Health Association of Columbia-Greene to present the second annual Free Youth Film Workshop. Focused on scouting and on-location shooting, 30 students will be filming during a four-hour intensive course led by film industry professionals and a compilation of their work will screen during the festival.
Hudson Film Festival also partnered with XFR Collective to present a rare collection of work from the “Monday/Wednesday/Friday Video Club.” The club was an artists’ co-op and store that operated during the ‘80s and ‘90s and left behind 51 Bankers Boxes worth of material including performance art, documentaries, wedding videos and much more. XFR Collective has worked to preserve these works and will be screening the finished project at the festival.
To learn more about Hudson Film Festival and purchase tickets to any and all of the screenings, visit https://www.hudsonfilmfestival.org.
