Collins Road Theatres was positively buzzing the weekend of April 4-6, and not just because A Minecraft Movie had premiered. The Cedar Rapids Independent Film Festival (CRIFF) returned to screen a new slate of original, Midwest-made films inside an unpresuming Marion shopping center.
As the lights dimmed for my first film of the fest, I immediately fell in love with the animated short Hunky Dory by LeMars filmmaker Steven Vander Meer. Stunning hand-drawn dinosaurs stomped, factories churned and bees buzzed around a casket, setting nature’s beauty alongside humanity’s mundanity. The beautiful folk hymns of Béla Fleck’s My Bluegrass Heart accompanied the images.
It wasn’t the last time I’d be awed and delighted during the 25th anniversary CRIFF.
Another short film standout was Stronghold, about a foster care worker named Fran. When the foster home is forced to close, Fran tries to find teenager Leo’s mother and place him in her custody before starting a new chapter of her own in Iowa with her daughter. With the demands of a tough, tragic story, the acting in the film rises to the occasion. It’s exceptional from all sides.
Director Meghann Artes was raised in Clear Lake and attended the University of Iowa. Amid strict restrictions on abortion access, the film forces viewers to consider the difficult realities of motherhood and the overwhelmed foster care system.
CRIFF 2025 also included two discussion panels, the first being “Representation and Identity in Independent Cinema.” The panel followed a slate of films that tackled subjects ranging from trans identity and the drag community in Des Moines (Garden of Des Moines, dir. Teri Underhill) to Black artistry and spoken word poetry in Iowa City (The Negro Artist, dir. Nikolas Ira Heftman).
During the discussion panel, Underhill shared that Garden of Des Moines was not accepted into another Midwest film fest because it was considered “too political.” At one point in the documentary, Underhill has her subjects address the camera: If they could say anything to Gov. Kim Reynolds, what would it be? A premonitory shout of “Retire!” stood out.
In The Negro Artist, Heftman follows author Caleb Rainey and his journey of finding and forging a community around spoken word poetry within Iowa, as well as his work with the Iowa Youth Writing Project and Des Moines Poetry Workshop. It is especially beautiful to see Rainey bring this art form into the classroom with IC Speaks, guiding Black students to find their own voice within a UNESCO City of Literature.
On Saturday night, the festival presented The Eddy Awards Ceremony to honor the films in their respective categories. Among the winners were Hunky Dory, which was awarded gold for Professional Freestyle; Stronghold, taking gold for Professional Narrative Short; and The Negro Artist, winning silver for Professional Documentary.
Sunday, the last day of the festival, was entirely devoted to student films. Several Iowa colleges were highlighted in the programming, including Loras College in Dubuque, Augustana College in the Quad Cities, Hawkeye Community College in Waterloo, Coe College in Cedar Rapids, and the University of Iowa in Iowa City.
Pluto — created by UI students, including director Lua Rasga — centered on an alien coming to Earth and connecting with a suicidal student. The comedic sci-fi short foregrounded gorgeous displays of colorful lighting and dynamic shot compositions of downtown Iowa City. From Loras College, director and EDM producer Than San submitted EDM is Plastic? challenging judgments on the emptiness of the genre while explaining how an EDM DJ operates their equipment.
There was another round of awards for the student films, including the presentation of a $1,000 Student Scholarship by Collins Road Theatres owner Bruce Taylor (dubbed the “real-butter wrangler” in reference to his theater’s signature popcorn with real butter). The winner: Than San.
Upon his acceptance, the young filmmaker declared he would be donating the funds to his home country in response to the Myanmar earthquake. “[My family] is safe but the city is in bad shape.” The $1,000 would go a long way, he said.
The second panel discussion was a “Student Filmmaker Forum,” asking students in the audience about their goals and fears surrounding the film industry. Naturally, generative AI came up. “A human touching a story is always going to be better than a robot,” said Jacob Daniels of Mediaverse Studios in Marengo.
It was nothing short of a delight to witness youth and adult filmmakers mingling and applauding one another. The opportunity to show your film in a cinema, on the silver screen itself, is unforgettable, and you could clearly feel that excited energy permeating throughout the venue.
The festival’s enthusiastic young interns are crucial to its success, according to CRIFF founder Scott Chrisman, who teared up as he reflected. Chrisman said he asks each applying intern two questions: What is your favorite movie, and what is your dream job? The answers help him determine which behind-the-scenes role is the right fit. Interns have helped guide the direction of the fest over the past quarter century.
This year, organizers scheduled the festival to start earlier in the day on Friday — a somewhat risky choice that was rewarded. CRIFF Director Eric Freese said people were lined up in the theater on Friday afternoon, and by the evening screening, even the overflow room was packed. When it was time for Davenport director Stephen Folker to screen his film My Heart Remembers, Freese decided to expand seating into the VIP lounge to accommodate the remaining guests.
The next morning, again, the theater was packed. Amongst the bustling groups of families and teens chomping real-butter popcorn, Chrisman saw “a lot of familiar faces.” Freese added that the turnout and palpable excitement were “a testament to the quality of work produced over one or two years across the state. There are really talented indie filmmakers based right here.”
This article was originally published in Little Village’s May 2025 issue.
