Braving the Night at Regal Cinemas at Sherman Oaks Galleria

ANIMATED SHORT BRAVING THE NIGHT TO COMPETE AT THE 2026 LA FEMME INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

Braving the Night, a dramatic animated short that explores love, memory and the shifting bond between a father and daughter, will screen at the 22nd LA Femme International Film Festival on Saturday, October 24, at 2 p.m. at the Regal Sherman Oaks Galleria. The film made its world premiere at the Oscar-qualifying HollyShorts Film Festival in August.

Braving the Night follows Samantha Culwin from the age of six, when vivid nightmares begin to haunt her. Her father, Rick, is always there to help her confront the frightening dreams, joining her inside the imagined worlds that terrify her. As the story unfolds, however, their roles are revealed to be strikingly different from what they first appear: Samantha has been helping Rick confront his own darkness as Alzheimer's gradually erodes his memory.

Directed by Joshua Kushner and Luisa G. Carranza, the film was written by Daniel Feldman and Kushner and produced by Carranza, Feldman and Kushner. Pablo Croissier composed the music; Eduardo P. Ambriz served as animator; and Gerard Zarra edited the film. The voice cast includes Joel Novoa (Cobra Kai), Katja Glieson (Terminium City), James Tyler Johnson (Rebound, The Org), Michelle Kushner, Isabella Gallagher, Elena Feldman, Greta Feldman, Joel Novoa, Christian Gallagher and Bianca Feldman.

"This film grew out of a question I couldn't shake: What happens to the love between a parent and child when memory starts to slip away?" said Kushner. "Seeing people close to me face Alzheimer's, I kept coming back to the small, quiet moments families share as they try to hold onto each other."

Kushner is a Los Angeles-based writer, producer and first-time director whose storytelling career spans more than a decade of writing feature-film and television scripts. His producing credits include the Whitney Houston biopic I Wanna Dance with Somebody, the award-winning independent drama Disfluency and the upcoming animated adventure Guttermuckers. His directorial debut reflects his passion for character-driven storytelling and his longtime fascination with the intersection of memory, imagination and human connection.

Feldman is a physician, author, screenwriter, and producer whose work spans medicine, fiction, children’s literature, and film. His writing is often informed by his experiences as a physician and father, with a focus on family, fear, resilience, and the ways people respond to uncertainty and loss.

Dr. Feldman is the author of the novel Breathless and a creator of The Princess and the Penguin children’s book series. He is also a screenwriter and producer of Braving the Night, a short film about memory, family, and Alzheimer’s disease. The film was inspired in part by his own family’s experience with the disease, as both of his grandmothers lived with Alzheimer’s.

He continues to practice medicine while writing and developing film projects. Across his work, he is most interested in telling stories about people facing difficult situations and the relationships that help carry them through.

ABOUT LIGHTSPAN ENTERTAINMENT

Lightspan Entertainment was founded by two former college dormmates from East Lansing, Michigan - a doctor and a lawyer who later traded Michigan winters for Los Angeles sunshine. For more than a decade, they have been writing, inventing and building worlds together. With their debut project, Braving the Night, Lightspan is bringing those stories out of a shared Google Drive and onto the screen, with more original projects to follow.

Tickets at www.lafemme.org