Over the past four years, Iowa City audiences have enjoyed early access to some of the year’s most critically acclaimed movies during the Refocus Film Festival. Now in its fifth year, Refocus is offering a lineup that it’s calling “bigger and bolder” than ever.
The four-day festival will be hosted by FilmScene Oct. 22-25 across multiple downtown Iowa City venues. The 2026 program showcases 22 new feature films, including several Cannes Film Festival winners and potential Oscar contenders, as well as seven short films and eight “restored or re-loved” classics.
Refocus will also welcome multiple filmmakers for in-person events and host two live podcast recordings. As a film festival dedicated to the art of adaptation — and one that takes place alongside the Iowa City Book Festival — several authors will be in attendance throughout the weekend.
FilmScene Executive Director Andrew Sherburne called the fifth edition of the festival a “major milestone” and said that he looks forward to seeing it grow.
“It's fun to look at how the festival has grown in such a short amount of time,” he said. “I think the first year we had just over 2,000 guests, and we're hoping for 5,000 guests this year.”
With increasing interest from attendees, the festival is expanding its footprint this year to include the Masonic Lodge, where it will host several screenings and book readings. Sherburne said the additional space allowed for more creativity and flexibility when deciding what to program.
Ben Delgado, programming director for Refocus, said the success of the festival over the years has made it possible for it to play bigger titles that are making their way through the fall film festival circuit.
“We've got a lot of things that maybe wouldn't have happened in years past,” Delgado said. “But now that we're a little more established, a little more well connected and people are getting wind of what the festival is and its importance in the overall festival landscape, it's really been a boon to what films we can get.”
Among the buzziest new films coming to Iowa City are the queer epic La Bola Negra from the writer-director duo Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi, the tender drama All of a Sudden from Japanese director Ryusuke Hamaguchi and Hirokazu Kore-eda’s coming-of-age manga adaptation Look Back.
The festival kicks off with the Midwest premiere of Andrew Haigh’s introspective drama A Long Winter, based on Colm Tóibín’s short story of the same name. Haigh will be in attendance on opening night and will receive FilmScene’s 2026 Cinema Savant award the following day at a screening of his 2015 film 45 Years.
Haigh will join the ranks of Terry Gilliam, John Waters, Charles Burnett and Werner Herzog as the latest recipient of FilmScene’s highest honor.
“The Cinema Savant is a regular honor that we give out, and I think Andrew will be the youngest winner of that award,” Sherburne said. “His cinema is just so filled with humanity, and he really treasures these human relationships and brings them to life with such empathy and curiosity.”
Another guest filmmaker coming to Refocus is Jane Schoenbrun, the writer-director behind the surrealist slasher Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma and the 2024 psychological horror I Saw the TV Glow. Schoenbrun will be in attendance for a reading of their debut novel, Public Access Afterworld, on Oct. 24. Their visit to Iowa City marks the first stop on their book tour, which Delgado said is “pretty special.”
“Recognizing what the festival is and the importance of the convergence of cinema and literature in this community, I think they noted it as an important stop for them,” he said. “We actually end up being kind of a pre-tour, first stop on the tour before the book even comes out.”
The list of special guests at this year’s festival also includes folks from the Blank Check film podcast. Host Griffin Newman and producer Ben Hosley will close out the festival with a screening of The Garbage Pail Kids Movie, followed by a live podcast recording with TV writer Emily Yoshida.
Delgado said other notable guests include director Tomasz Mielnik, who will present his absurdist comedy Gregorius, the Chosen One. Author Kerian Goddard will discuss the film adaptation of his book I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning, and Pilar Quintana, a University of Iowa International Writing Program alumna, will return to Iowa City for a screening of La Perra, an adaptation of her novel that took home the prized Palm Dog award at Cannes this year.
Although most movies will play multiple times throughout the weekend, Delgado said there is a one-night-only event that audiences won’t want to miss — and that’s Faust. The 100-year-old silent movie from German filmmaker F.W. Murnau will be presented with a live score by ten thousand lakes (xkl) in the Masonic Lodge, a location Delgado called “suitably creepy for Faust.”
With dozens of films and events to choose from, Sherburne said it can be overwhelming to know what to see. That’s why he encourages attendees to simply explore.
“I'll make a pitch for just walking in blindly to anything on the schedule. For me, that's one of the most joyful parts of going to a film festival,” he said. “That's one of the hallmarks of a festival experience. It’s that act of discovery, that you aren't there just to see the films that you know, but you're there to see the things that you don't know.”
Ticket reservations open throughout the week for Refocus passholders. Individual tickets go on sale to the public on Oct. 9.
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FilmScene and Refocus Film Festival are sponsors of Iowa Public Radio.
