2026 Special Screenings
Click here for the full 2026 MFF Schedule
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 19 / Douglass Theatre
7:15 pm– 9:30 pm (doors open 6:30 pm)
GEORGIA RISING: A RURAL HEALTH STORY
Directed by Tabitha Walker
Georgia Rising: A Rural Health Story explores the complex struggles of rural healthcare in Georgia by sharing the stories of three medical providers and their creative approaches in caring for people in their hometown communities. The documentary highlights the significant health disparities in rural Georgia, marked by hospital closures, provider shortages, and higher rates of chronic disease. It also showcases innovative solutions like tele-health, community health centers (FQHCs), and state tax credits, with organizations like the Georgia Rural Health Innovation Center at Mercer University and the Georgia Heart Hospital Program working to build resilience and improve access for underserved communities facing challenges like transportation and insurance gaps.
This is a free event, but tickets must be reserved in advance.
THURSDAY, AUGUST 20 / Douglass Theatre
7:30 pm– 10:00 pm (doors open 7:00 pm)
The Thursday Special Screening will be preceedeb by a reception in the Douglass Theatre Annex. All Access pass required.
DEFEND THE SACRED, PRESERVE THE PAST
Directed by Jason Salsman, Muscogee (Creek) Nation Communications Department
Special Guest: RaeLynn Butler, Secretary of Culture and Humanities at the Muscogee (Creek) Nation.
This short film shows the Muscogee Nation’s fight for justice at the sacred site of Hickory Ground, a ceremonial and burial site, where ancestors were dug up to make way for the construction of the Poarch Band of Creek Indians’ Wind Creek Casino in Wetumpka, AL. Leader of Hickory Ground Mekko George Thompson shares his heartfelt account of what this struggle has meant to him and it’s foray into the legal realm. The film closes, with a different approach to handling and preserving the past, with a thoughtful and intimate visit to the British Museum in London from Muscogee leaders. The two films converge to show the irony of the Muscogee people having to travel an ocean away to receive respect for the past and what’s sacred.
AANIKOOBIJIGAN [ANCESTOR/GREAT-GRANDPARENT/GREAT-GRANDCHILD]
Directed by Adam Khalil and Zack Khalil
Trapped in museum archives, Ancestors bend time and space to find their way home. History, spirituality, and the law collide as tribal repatriation specialists fight to return and rebury Indigenous human remains, offering a revealing look at the still-pervasive worldviews that justified collecting them in the first place.
AANIKOOBIJIGAN [ANCESTOR/GREAT-GRANDPARENT/GREAT-GRANDCHILD] documents the emotional and vital work of MACPRA (Michigan Anishinaabek Cultural Preservation and Repatriation Alliance). This alliance, made up of repatriation specialists representing all Michigan tribes, fights to bring their Ancestors and funerary objects home from settler colonial institutions like museums, libraries, and archives.
Adam and Zack Khalil’s monumental and formally daring film follows the pressing struggle to rebury Indigenous human remains that have been held in sterile storage, laying bare the history of Indigenous collections and the battle to recognize and enforce the laws intended to facilitate their repatriation to the communities they were originally stolen from. Using an essayistic approach alongside vérité portraits, the film celebrates the courageous individuals who carry out this hard and emotionally draining labor of return.
FRIDAY, AUGUST 21 / MUSEUM OF ARTS AND SCIENCES
7:00 pm–10:00 pm
FULLDOME IMMERSIVE SHOWCASE*
Enjoy a night of exploring art galleries, drinks, food, and immersive special screenings! The Friday Special Screenings feature two Fulldome Immersive blocks. *Open to MAS members and All Access pass holders.
SATURDAY, AUGUST 22 / DOUGLASS THEATRE
7:00 pm–9:30 pm (doors open 6:30 pm)
DONNIE DARKO
Directed by Richard Kelly
Q&A with Special Guest Mary McDonnell
Language, Violence, Some Drug Use
After narrowly escaping a bizarre accident, a troubled teenager is plagued by visions of a man in a large rabbit suit who manipulates him to commit a series of crimes.
MARY MCDONNELL is a two-time Oscar-nominated actress known for bringing powerful and complex female characters to the film and television landscape.
McDonnell most recently starred as Madeline Usher in the hit Netflix Miniseries The Fall of the House of Usher, written and directed by Mike Flanagan. She has been nominated for a Critics Choice Award for her portrayal of the powerful matriarch of the Usher family.
McDonnell recently starred as “Commander Sharon Raydor” on TNT’s hit series, Major Crimes, where she earned an Emmy Nomination for her portrayal of a woman at the pinnacle of her career navigating leadership in the traditionally male-dominated field of law enforcement. The series was honored by multiple community organizations including the LAPD, LAPD Reserve Foundation, GLSEN, Imagen Foundation and Covenant House.
McDonnell starred in Syfy’s AFI and Peabody award-winning Battlestar Galactica in her critically-praised performance as ‘President Laura Roslin’ (2008 Saturn Award - Best Actress on Television). An allegory of 9/11 and the War in Iraq, the series was widely acclaimed for its examination of the issues of war and human rights, and in 2009 McDonnell appeared on a panel at the United Nations to discuss the parallels between the show and real-world issues of terrorism, race relations and gender equality.
McDonnell’s Broadway credits include Tennessee Williams' Summer and Smoke, the title role in Wendy Wasserstein's Pulitzer Prize-winning The Heidi Chronicles and Emily Mann’s Execution of Justice.
Extensive film credits include Oscar and Golden Globe nominations for her portrayals of “Stands with Fist” in the Academy Award-winning film Dances with Wolves and as a paraplegic soap opera star in John Sayles' Passion Fish. Other films include Lawrence Kasdan’s Grand Canyon and Mumford, Sneakers opposite Robert Redford and Sidney Poitier, cult classic film Donnie Darko, and Independence Day.
In 2015 McDonnell received the Gina Award from Women in Film, and the Leadership Excellence Advocacy (LEA) Award in 2017 from Women in Cable Telecommunications. In 2018 McDonnell was honored with the Pell Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts, presented by Trinity Repertory Company. Currently McDonnell is producing projects for TV and film.
The Saturday Special Screening will be followed by an Afterparty at The Rose Room (378 2nd Street). All Access pass required, must be 21+.
SUNDAY, AUGUST 23 / DOUGLASS THEATRE
7:00 pm–9:30 pm (doors open 6:30 pm)
FOUR RATIONAL PEOPLE
Directed by Tristan Cook
A moderated Q&A will follow the film led by Lawrence Dutton of the Emerson String Quartet.
Goethe once said that a string quartet is like “a conversation between four rational peiple,” and for the members of the Emerson String Quartet, that conversation is coming to a bittersweet ending as they embark on their final season of a fifty-year history that includes 9 GRAMMY Awards and thousands of concerts. Interweaving vivid memories of the Emerson Quartet’s past with delicate observations of life on the road in the weeks and days before disbanding, Four Rational People explores the group’s difficult decision to walk away from the things that they cherish most in life: the music they play and the friends they hold dear. At once a frank examination of the tyranny of aging and a cri de cœur to pass the torch to a new generation of artists, Four Rational People culminates with one final Emerson Quartet performance for the ages, leaving all to ponder what happens to us after the final curtain.