Mother River

2024 • USA • 52 min • Kate Stapleton

Filmmaker in Attendance, Subject in Attendance, Family Friendly, Michigan Premiere, First Time Filmmaker

The Inner Sea is an unconventional love story–a story about music, adoption, the journey of a lifetime, and a bright blue 40 foot school bus. This film explores the complex issues of identity that result from the decision to place a child for adoption. It is also a film that explores the role that art plays in suffering, and healing.

2025 • USA • 94 min • Stephen McGee

Filmmaker in Attendance, Family Friendly, Michigan Premiere, Staff Pick

Detroit endured six decades of massive disinvestment, losing its primary industry in what is often described as the largest economic withdrawal in U.S. history. Its industry collapsed, its skyline dimmed. Yet the city’s spirit refused to vanish. Some call what followed the greatest comeback story in the nation. Others insist Detroit never left at all.
Now, through the eyes of a two-time Emmy Award–winning filmmaker and the voice of a celebrated poet, comes a story told from the ground up. Drawn from a twenty-year archive of over three million photographs and thousands of hours of unseen footage, this cinematic journey redefines an iconic city through the lives of the people who lived it. 

2024 • USA/Mexico • 16 min • Marc Chavez and Octavio Aceves Coutiño

Has Subtitles, Subject in Attendance, Filmmaker in Attendance, Michigan Premiere, Family Friendly, Representative in Attendance

Over 400 years ago, a major disturbance disrupted nature’s law along the West Coast, reshaping coastlines, Indigenous life, and traditions. Now, a new wave emerges, allowing Indigenous communities to thrive in harmony with nature. Haagua portrays the deep bond between Great Great-Grandmother Ocean and her great-grandchildren, where surfing is more than a sport—it is a cultural revival, reconnecting with ancestral ways of life.