Before the 4th of July rolls in, BAM holds their own all-American celebration, BAMcinemaFest. This year’s lineup, announced earlier this month, includes Boots Riley’s Sorry to Bother You, Bo Burnham’s Eighth Grade, and Debra Granik’s absorbing drama Leave No Trace, as well as other films by American indie directors that wowed audiences at festivals such as Sundance, SXSW, and True/False. In total, 25 features are set to bow at the festival, of which 3 are world premieres. Tickets for the event, which runs June 20-July 1, 2018, are on sale now and going quickly.

Enjoying its 10th year, BAMcinemaFest has become one of the most eagerly anticipated events of New York City film calendar. A showcase for both emerging and established American independent filmmakers, its alumni include Desiree Akhavan (Appropriate Behaviour, 2014), Sean Baker (Tangerine, 2015), Sophia Takal (Green, 2011), Benh Zeitlin (Beast of the Southern Wild, 2012), Alex Ross Perry (The Color Wheel, 2011, Queen of Earth, 2015, & Golden Exits, 2017), Azazel Jacobs (Terri, 2011), Joe Swanberg (Drinking Buddies, 2013 & Uncle Kent 2, 2015), Trey Edward Shults (Krishna, 2015), Lena Dunham (Tiny Furniture, 2010), Lucy Walker (The Crash Reel, 2013), and Jay and Mark Duplass (Cyrus, 2010).

Joel Potrykus’s Relaxer

Notable names among 2018’s festival class include Gus Van Sant (Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot), Joel Potrykus (Relaxer), Andrew Bujalski (Support the Girls), artist Leigh Ledare (The Task), and documentary filmmaker Penny Lane who brings her found footage documentary about Morgellons, The Pain of Others.

It’s clear BAMcinemaFest’s programmers mined Sundance’s NEXT section when assembling their slate, as four films that aired in that category are included. Films in NEXT are considered Sundance’s most innovative offerings (we wrote a little about the section’s programming over here). As for what you get at BAMcinemaFest, screening are Qasim Basir’s hallucinatory A Boy. A Girl. A Dream, Bridey Elliot’s pitch-black comedy Clara’s Ghost, Crystal “The Wolfpack” Moselle’s narrative debut Skate Kitchen, and Josephine Decker’s Madeline’s Madeline, which is the fest’s closing night feature and stars Miranda July and Molly Parker.

This year’s fete also serves up 3 world premieres. BAMcinemaFest audiences will be among the first to cast their eyes on Aaron Schimberg’s Chained for Life; Michael Koresky, Jeff Reichert and Farihah Zaman’s Feast of the Epiphany; and Whitney and Lev Kalman’s Two Plains & a Fancy, a spa-Western-comedy. All 3 appear to be highly unconventional. Feast of the Epiphany‘s story is broken into two halves and blends documentary and narrative elements, and if Chained for Life is anything like Aaron Shimberg’s debut feature Go Down Death, it should be a mind-bender.

Documentaries are well-represented at BAM’s fest. Standouts in this realm include Stephen Maing’s Sundance Special Jury Prize winner, Crime + Punishment, which goes behind the scenes with the NYPD, and Bing Liu’s debut feature-length doc Minding the Gap. Liu’s film, which also premiered at Sundance, focuses on the troubled lives of his longtime skateboarding buddies.

The festival also offers a dynamic shorts program, and a free outdoor screening of Kasi Lemmon’s Eve’s Bayou (1997). Co-presented by Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy, Lemmon’s film can be viewed on June 28 in Brooklyn Bridge Park.

All of the feature-length titles at the fest will be followed by Q&As with the film’s director and/or members of the cast. For more details on who will be in town and how to get tickets visit BAM’s website.

If you can’t make it to BAMcinemaFest, don’t fret, many of the films in the festival have distribution locked and should be opening in theaters in the coming months. Among them are A Boy. A Girl. A Dream (release date TBD), Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot (July 13 select theaters, July 27 everywhere), Eighth Grade (July 13), Leave No Trace (June 29 select theaters), Madeline’s Madeline (August 10 NY, August 18 LA), Shirkers (Fall 2018), Skate Kitchen (August 10), Sorry to Bother You (July 6 limited, July 13 everywhere), and Support the Girls (August 24). You can sample some of these below.

Pictured above (l to r): Sorry to Bother You, Eighth Grade, Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot, Leave No Trace, Madeline’s Madeline, Minding the Gap