A six-hour documentary tracking dissident Russian journalists forced into exile premieres at Film Forum next month.

MY UNDESIRABLE FRIENDS: PART II — EXILE picks up where Julia Loktev’s award-winning LAST AIR IN MOSCOW left off. When Russia shut down all independent media, these young journalists fled Moscow to keep reporting without going to prison. Now they’re scattered across a dozen countries, from Istanbul to New York, still covering Putin’s war crimes while facing death threats and being labeled terrorists by their own government.

Loktev spent four years following these reporters as they navigate love, friendship, and home from exile, knowing they may never return to Russia.

The documentary is split into five chapters across 355 minutes. Film Forum will screen it in two parts, each requiring separate admission. Executive producers include Meryl Streep and Laura Poitras.

LAST AIR IN MOSCOW swept awards in 2025, winning the Gotham, New York Film Critics Circle, Los Angeles Film Critics Association, and National Society of Film Critics prizes for best documentary. It was also Oscar-shortlisted and landed on year-end top 10 lists at The New York Times, The New Yorker, and NPR’s Fresh Air.

The sequel world premiered at Venice, played Telluride, and hits the New York Film Festival’s main slate before opening October 9.

For indie doc makers, this is what sustained, intimate journalism looks like on screen.

Image Comics is jumping into the livestream shopping game. The publisher will host its first official Whatnot drop next Wednesday, September 9 at 6 p.m. Eastern, featuring an exclusive Spawn 77 #1 variant cover.

The variant ($40) pays homage to Todd McFarlane’s iconic Amazing Spider-Man #300 cover, with new artwork by McFarlane himself. It’s a smart move, tapping into both nostalgia and the current collectibles boom.

The timing ties into Spawn ’77, a new collaboration between McFarlane and artist Mark Spears. The series brings McFarlane’s original 1977 concept for Spawn to life, nearly 50 years after he first sketched out the character.

For those unfamiliar, Whatnot is an app that lets collectors shop, sell, and connect in real time. Think QVC meets comic book culture, with drops happening live. Image is encouraging fans to bookmark the event page and follow them for future surprise releases.

It’s a sign of where the industry is headed. Publishers are meeting collectors where they already are, whether that’s apps, streams, or pop-up events. And for indie creators watching, it’s another reminder that distribution is evolving fast.

A lonely gas station worker who steals chocolate bars meets a mystery girl who fights crime at night. Naturally, he steals her bike.

That’s the setup for “Girl in the Night,” a deadpan Slovenian feature heading to Fantastic Fest’s main competition on September 20th. Writer-director Luka Marčetić describes it as a story about boredom and the search for friendship in very strange circumstances.

The film follows Rok (Urban Kuntarič), a kleptomaniac killing time on night shifts by pocketing candy. When a bruised girl (Lara Wolf) shows up claiming to have superpowers, he hatches a plan to see her again, stealing her bicycle to force another meeting.

Marčetić, known for Slovenian series “Day of Love” and comedies “At Hostar,” leans into quiet, solitary characters often overlooked in daily life. “I always wanted to put them in roles of vulnerable heroes and antiheroes,” he notes.

Produced by Jerca Jerič and Andraž Jerič of Temporama, the film mixes “A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night” with “Napoleon Dynamite” energy, plus a splash of “Juno.” It’s a love letter to misfits that finds unexpected connection in the mundane.

Why it matters: Fantastic Fest continues championing genre films from unexpected corners of the world, giving voice to filmmakers exploring loneliness and human connection without Hollywood gloss.

Jon B. Elliott’s dramatic debut feature went to camera this week in Vancouver, bringing together a stacked cast of Indigenous talent for a cross-border road trip story about identity and belonging.

Forrest Goodluck (The Revenant, How to Blow Up a Pipeline) and Phillip Forest Lewitski (Die My Love, Bones Of Crows) lead the film as two young Indigenous men who meet in a downtown Vancouver jail. Jesse, a white-passing mixed race Coast Salish college student alienated from his culture, lands there after a drunken fight. Russell, a political activist and graffiti artist from New Mexico, gets locked up for painting a politically charged mural. Despite wildly different upbringings, the two connect and hit the road to New Mexico, navigating hostile territory while grappling with personal demons.

The cast also includes Carmen Moore (Meadowlarks), Joel D. Montgrand (True Detective), and William Belleau (Killers Of The Flower Moon).

Photon Films is distributing in Canada. Producer Jessie Anthony is heading to the TIFF Market to shop the film for U.S. and international distribution on behalf of Vandal Productions and Pass Through Productions.

Skins Game is shooting across British Columbia through September, backed by Telefilm Canada, Creative BC, and the Canada Arts Council. It’s the kind of indie production that puts Indigenous stories and voices front and center, no compromise.

The masked killers are coming back.

Lionsgate is releasing The Strangers – Chapter 2 on 4K and digital October 13, picking up right where the last nightmare left off. Madelaine Petsch returns as Maya, the sole survivor who thought she’d escaped. She didn’t.

When The Strangers learn she’s still breathing, they come back to finish the job. No mercy, no reason, just pure relentless violence.

Director Renny Harlin takes over the franchise built on Bryan Bertino’s original characters, with Gabriel Basso and Ema Horvath joining Petsch in the cast. The 98-minute horror sequel promises the same senseless brutality that made the original a cult hit, only this time the stakes are personal.

The home release includes a 19-minute making-of doc and a 42-minute Q&A with the cast and crew for fans who want to go behind the masks.

For indie horror filmmakers, this is a reminder that sometimes the simplest concepts, executed with raw intensity, cut deepest. The Strangers franchise proves you don’t need elaborate mythology or backstory. Just pure, unrelenting dread.

A teenage cancer survivor gets shipped off to “chemo camp” against her will and finds the best summer of her life. That’s the hook for “Sunny Dancer,” a coming-of-age rom-com-drama hitting select theaters September 18th via Quiver Distribution.

Bella Ramsey (The Last of Us) stars as Ivy, a 17-year-old who’d rather be partying with friends than dealing with her parents’ well-meaning overprotection. Instead, she lands at summer camp surrounded by other young people who get what it means to survive something huge, then figure out how to actually live.

Writer-director George Jaques (Black Dog) built the film around an ensemble of rising talent, including Daniel Quinn-Toye, Earl Cave, Ruby Stokes, Conrad Khan, and Jasmine Elcock. The adult cast brings serious heat too: James Norton (Happy Valley), Jessica Gunning (Baby Reindeer), and Neil Patrick Harris round out the lineup. Este Haim and Zachary Dawes handle the score.

Jaques calls it “profanely funny” and deeply personal, a story about found family and wanting to fit in when life has other plans. It’s not about the illness. It’s about what comes after.

“Sunny Dancer” expands nationwide this fall following its initial release.

Remember Kevin Pickford from “Dazed and Confused”? Shawn Andrews is back on screen in a major way.

The actor joins “The Walking Dead: Dead City” season 3, episode 5 as Reverend Anthony, part of a new group called the ‘Dead Squad.’ It’s his biggest mainstream role since the 1993 cult classic that launched careers for Matthew McConaughey, Ben Affleck, and Parker Posey.

Andrews has stayed busy in indie films like “Big Heart City” opposite Oscar nominee Seymour Cassel (which earned him festival best actor awards) and “Fix” with Olivia Wilde. But his “Dazed” character still pulls serious numbers online, with over 800 million TikTok searches for Kevin Pickford and 90 million for Andrews himself.

Beyond acting, Andrews is releasing music. His debut single “Ride Like Thunder” was mastered by legendary engineer Howie Weinberg (20 Grammy wins, 200+ Gold and Platinum albums) and has racked up nearly 250,000 Spotify streams. It’s a retro rock throwback produced by Mathew Rucker.

For an actor who built his career on character driven indie work, landing a role in AMC’s zombie universe feels like the right full circle moment. Andrews proves you can disappear into smaller films for decades and still find your way back when the right project comes calling.

A writer who spent decades building Marvel and DC franchises is taking his original stories indie.

Paul Jenkins, the crossmedia creator behind work on “Spider-Man,” “Wolverine: Origin,” “Batman: The Dark Knight,” and six platinum-selling video games, has launched Ten-6 Studios with producers Baker and Rosa Waite. The Atlanta-based company will house and produce Jenkins’ catalog of original IP, separate from his work for Marvel, DC, Sony, Disney, and Activision.

“For years, I’ve watched the value of my own work become part of larger companies and Hollywood studios,” Jenkins said. “Ten-6 gives us the opportunity to take ownership of what comes next and bring these stories to audiences on our own terms.”

The studio launches with a four-film slate. First up is “Burn,” a supernatural thriller targeting an overseas shoot in spring 2027. Casting announcements coming soon.

Jenkins will serve as CEO and lead creative, while the Waites handle finance and business operations. Industry vet Carrie Anne Hunt joins as chief talent officer.

The Waites see Ten-6 filling the gap between major studios and low-budget indies, pairing established IP with efficient mid-budget production. Jenkins brings Meta Studios, his award-winning crossmedia production house. The Waites bring RBL Entertainment, their film finance and production company.

For a creator who cut his teeth on “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,” watching its indie creators retain ownership, this is full circle.

A home robbery turns into a fight for survival when the thieves discover their target is slowly transforming into a zombie.

Lionsgate drops “Turning Point” on VOD and digital today, starring DJ Qualls (“The Man in the High Castle,” Road Trip) as a neighbor who becomes an unlikely expert on the undead. The 87-minute thriller follows Margot and her partner, who break into the wrong house and find themselves trapped with a person mid-zombie transformation.

The film, directed and written by Joshua Wagner, stars Jillian Lee Garner and Mike Apple as the criminals, with Shane Brady (“Ballers”), Lydia Hearst (“Z Nation”), and Sanchita Malik (“Love”) rounding out the cast.

Here’s the setup: the burglars can’t escape, their hostage is mutating, and their only shot at getting out alive is Qualls’ oddball character, who somehow knows how zombies work. It’s a genre mashup that flips the home invasion formula on its head.

For indie horror fans craving something different than the usual haunted house fare, this one delivers gore, dark humor, and a fresh twist on the zombie playbook. Sometimes the scariest thing isn’t what’s outside, it’s what’s changing right in front of you.