Brooklyn Film Festival Announces 28th Edition: PAUSE

Brooklyn Film Festival has announced its 28th edition titled Pause. BFF, a Canadian Screen Award qualifying festival, received 3,270 films from 130 Countries for its 28th edition, and will program the selected films into 43, two-hour program blocks. The 2025 film lineup will include 160 film premieres. Details will be announced soon on the festival's website.

This year, BFF will be staged from May 30-June 8, in-person at Windmill Studios in Greenpoint. Additional screenings will be held on June 2 through June 5 at the Wythe Hotel Cinema in Williamsburg. BFF will also run online via the festival's website from May 31-June 8 (24/7).

BFF divides films into six categories: Feature Narrative, Documentary Feature, Short Narrative, Short Documentary, Experimental, and Animation. Among all selected films, BFF awards 30 films/filmmakers and gives away prizes totaling $50,000 in total value (cash, products, and services).

BFF's selection criteria, a 28-year-old set of rules, constitute the true festival's trademark: participating films cannot be older than two years; films are selected from submissions only; all films in the festival participate in the award competition. Even the smallest film can win the top festival award: the Grand Chameleon.

Pause is the theme of the 28th Brooklyn Film Festival. “In a world of distractions, pop-up notifications, infinite scrolling with fabricated truths, content that demands constant attention, what if the solution isn't more noise, but a Pause,” said festival Director, Marco Ursino. “The 28th BFF plans to grab the audience's attention amongst the chaos, and underscore the relief associated with smart, honest, quality screen time and the clarity that comes from taking a break, finding focus, and tuning in.”

The 2025 campaign is being developed by design and creative studio Otherway. Reflecting the festival's theme, Javier Passerieu, Otherway's US President, shared, “We're excited to partner with the Brooklyn Film Festival—an organization that, like us, champions creativity and craft. As we open our NYC studio, we're looking forward to forging deeper connections with the local creative community.”

About the Programmers

Feature Narrative Programmer: Michael Barringer is a writer, director, and educator based in Brooklyn. Michael was the narrative shorts programmer for 2022/2023, and narrative feature programmer since 2024. He teaches screenwriting and film production at ESRA International Film School and Atlantic Acting School, and he recently successfully pursued an MFA in directing at the Feirstein Graduate School of Cinema at Brooklyn College.

Feature Documentary Programmer: Sam Plakun has over a decade of experience in the documentary film space, working primarily in programming, festival management, marketing and outreach. For seven years, Sam served as the Program Manager for The DC Environmental Film Festival and has held positions with DC/DOX Film Festival and the DC Shorts Film Festival. Her industry experience has earned her a spot on award juries for numerous festivals, including the Bozcaada International Festival of Documentary, Indie Street Film Festival and the Green Film Network. Sam earned a degree in Media Arts for Social Justice from Pitzer College, a member of the Claremont Consortium in Southern California, now a proud resident of Washington, D.C.

Short Narrative Programmer: Aniko Kovecsi is a New York-based film programmer and festival manager. She has worked with film festivals internationally as managing director, programmer, grant evaluator and screening committee member, including at Verzio Documentary Film Festival (Hungary), NewFest (New York),and New York Film Festival, among others. Aniko studied and holds qualifications in human rights, liberal arts and arts management from Central European University, Bard College and New York University. She has a passion for shorts and nonfiction film and is interested in the correlation of visual arts, difficult history, and memory, particularly in Indigenous and LGBTQ+ contexts. Aniko is also an art educator and has taught courses at the New York Historical Society and Blinken Open Society Archives.

Short Documentary Programmer: Aidan Cronin is a Brooklyn-based Director, Cinematographer and Programmer. His written and directed work examines the cyclical banality of our continued existence, while his cinematography experiments with repurposing antiquated film cameras, camcorders, and lenses to create impressionistic and nostalgic imagery. His work has screened at festivals including Sundance, Atlanta, New Orleans, Palm Springs, and Chicago Underground, and has received accolades from festivals such as Brooklyn, Yale, Ivy, Onion City, Charlotte, NFFTY, and AIFVF. Aidan is the Co-Founder of the Ithaca Experimental Film Festival, where he currently serves as one of its Festival Directors and Programmers.

Experimental Programmer: Sarah Bex Rice is a media archivist, writer and video artist that has worked in many different capacities with filmmakers and festivals both local and worldwide, including the Edinburgh Film Festival, Glasgow Film Festival and Indie Street Film Festival

Animation Programmer: Julia Cowle is an independent filmmaker, illustrator, and comedy writer based in New York City. Her animation work has screened throughout the US and internationally, and her illustrations have appeared in various magazines and exhibits. She designed company-wide concert blasts for Columbia Records artists such as Bruce Springsteen, John Legend, Little Mix, Russ and Leon.

About BFF