Jordan Firstman’s Club Kid Gets 35mm Screening at Castro Theatre Ahead of A24 Release

Jordan Firstman is bringing his feature directorial debut to San Francisco before it hits theaters nationwide. SFFILM just announced a special 35mm screening of Club Kid at the Castro Theatre on November 2, with Firstman sticking around for a post-screening Q&A.

The film made waves at Cannes before A24 scooped it up. Firstman wrote, directed, and stars as Peter, a New York City club promoter whose party-heavy lifestyle gets flipped upside down when a 10-year-old son he didn’t know existed shows up at his door. The ensemble includes Cara Delevingne, Diego Calva, Kirby Howell-Baptiste, Reggie Absolom, and Colleen Camp.

“The anarchic humor, incredible ensemble, and unexpected tenderness make this a distinctive film,” said Jessie Fairbanks, SFFILM’s Director of Programming. She called out the needle drops as “thrillingly precise” to the characters and story.

SFFILM Executive Director Anne Lai pointed out the fitting venue. “For decades, gathering to see movies at The Castro has been at the heart of San Francisco’s queer culture and history.”

Tickets go on sale to SFFILM members September 22 at 10 am, with general public access starting September 24. General admission is $35, members pay $30. Club Kid opens in select cities November 6.

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Blind Paralympian Attempts 3,600-Mile Solo Bike Ride in New Doc ‘Blind AF’

A blind Army veteran is about to do something nobody thought possible.

Shawn Cheshire, a 13-time U.S. National Champion in paracycling, rode a single, non-tandem bicycle 3,600 miles across America in 60 straight days. Completely blind. New documentary Blind AF chronicles the entire journey.

Directed by Gina LeVay Goldstein, the film follows Cheshire’s historic cross-country ride, but it’s really a story about trauma and healing. Cheshire lost her sight in 2009 after a brain injury while working as a paramedic. She was 36, an Army vet, a single mom of two. Depression hit hard. Treatment at a VA hospital, including adaptive sports and therapy for Complex PTSD, helped her rebuild.

By 2016, she was competing at the Rio Paralympics. She went on to set a world record as the first blind person to cross the Grand Canyon without a sighted guide.

“This film goes beyond the epic athletic achievement,” Goldstein says. “It’s a story about healing, transformation, and the power of vulnerability.”

The doc mixes vérité footage, journal entries, and immersive sound design to put you inside Cheshire’s world. Executive produced by five-time Emmy winner Jeff Zimbalist, Blind AF premiered at Geena Davis’s Bentonville Film Festival and won Best of Fest at the 2025 Sedona International Film Festival.

It drops October 28 on Amazon Prime, AppleTV, Tubi, Roku, YouTube, and Documentary+. For indie filmmakers tackling real stories, this is what it looks like when grit meets craft.

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UK Travel Giant Jet2 Partners with Adobe to Build AI-Powered Holiday Planning Tools

Jet2, the UK’s largest tour operator, is teaming up with Adobe to overhaul how 10 million customers plan and book their holidays. The multi-year deal brings Adobe’s AI tools into Jet2’s booking system, promising smarter recommendations and faster, more personalized service.

At the core is Adobe CX Enterprise Coworker, which uses agentic AI to help Jet2 staff deliver custom experiences at scale. The tech will analyze each traveler’s booking history and preferences, then serve up destination ideas, resort picks, and daily itineraries that actually match what they’re looking for, whether that’s a family getaway or a solo city break.

Jet2 will also use Adobe Firefly Foundry to create on-brand content faster, and Adobe Brand Intelligence to keep everything consistent across channels. The goal is to meet customers where they are, especially as more people turn to AI search to research trips.

The two companies are launching a joint Customer Experience Lab, where Adobe engineers and Jet2’s teams will work side by side to test and build new AI-driven services. Jet2’s chief customer officer David Hills says the partnership will let them “make every interaction more personal, more relevant, more timely.”

For the indie travel world watching the big players lean into AI, this is a clear signal: personalization at scale is the new baseline.

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UK Travel Giant Jet2 Partners with Adobe to Build AI-Powered Holiday Planning Tools

Jet2, the UK’s largest tour operator, is teaming up with Adobe to give its 10 million customers a more personalized way to plan their vacations.

The multi-year partnership will use Adobe’s AI tools to help Jet2 deliver tailored destination ideas, offers, and trip recommendations based on each traveler’s preferences and booking history. Think family-friendly resort suggestions or curated daily itineraries once you’re on the ground.

Adobe CX Enterprise Coworker sits at the center of the deal. It’s agentic AI tech that helps Jet2 teams create on-brand content faster and serve up the right message at the right moment, whether you’re browsing flights or checking into your hotel.

The two companies are also launching a joint Customer Experience Lab, where Adobe engineers and Jet2’s digital team will build and test new AI-powered services. The goal is to match travelers with holidays that actually fit what they’re looking for, not just what’s being pushed that week.

“Customers know they will always receive a VIP experience when they holiday with us,” says David Hills, Jet2’s chief customer officer. “Working with Adobe will enable us to serve our customers even better.”

For indie creators and small studios watching how tech giants flex their tools, this is a peek at how AI is being embedded into consumer-facing platforms at scale.

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Jet2 Partners with Adobe to Build AI-Powered Holiday Planning Tools

UK travel giant Jet2 is teaming up with Adobe to give its 10 million customers smarter, more personalized holiday planning.

The multi-year partnership will use Adobe’s AI tech to help Jet2 deliver custom vacation recommendations based on each traveler’s preferences and booking history. Think family-friendly resort suggestions or curated daily itineraries while you’re already on vacation.

At the center of it all is Adobe CX Enterprise Coworker, which uses what Adobe calls “agentic AI” to help Jet2 staff quickly build personalized experiences at scale. The system will pull from customer data to send the right offer at the right time, whether that’s a city break idea or a last-minute deal.

Jet2 will also tap Adobe Firefly Foundry to create on-brand content faster, using custom AI models trained on the company’s own assets. That means quicker responses to travel trends and shifting customer demand.

A new Jet2 x Adobe Customer Experience Lab will bring engineers and travel specialists together to test and build new AI services, like better ways to match customers with trips that actually fit their style.

“Our customers are at the heart of everything we do,” says David Hills, Jet2’s chief customer officer. “Working with Adobe will enable us to serve our customers even better, using the power of AI to make every interaction more personal, more relevant, more timely.”

For indie creators and travelers alike, it’s a glimpse at how AI is reshaping the experience economy.

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Jet2 Partners With Adobe to Build AI-Powered Holiday Planning Tools

UK tour operator Jet2 is teaming up with Adobe to bring AI-powered personalization to its 10 million customers. The multi-year partnership will use Adobe’s customer experience tech to help travelers plan and book holidays based on their preferences and past trips.

Adobe CX Enterprise Coworker, which uses agentic AI, will let Jet2 staff create personalized offers and recommendations at scale. Customers could see destination ideas tailored to their style, whether they’re looking for family resorts or city breaks, plus curated itineraries once they’re on vacation.

The partnership includes a new Jet2 x Adobe Customer Experience Lab, where Adobe engineers will work directly with Jet2’s digital and tech teams to build AI-powered services. The goal is to match customers with holidays that fit their travel history and what they’re actually looking for.

Jet2 will also use Adobe’s content tools to create on-brand holiday content faster. Adobe Firefly Foundry will build custom AI models using Jet2’s brand assets, while Adobe Brand Intelligence keeps everything consistent across channels.

David Hills, Jet2’s chief customer officer, says the partnership will make every customer interaction more personal and timely while staying true to what sets Jet2 apart.

For indie travel creators and smaller operators, this signals where the industry is headed, AI as the baseline for customer experience, not a luxury feature.

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‘Apocalypse Z: New World’ Drops Teaser Ahead of October Prime Video Premiere

The zombie apocalypse is back, and this time it’s going bigger.

Prime Video just dropped the teaser for Apocalypse Z: New World, the sequel to last year’s surprise international hit. The film hits the platform October 30, right in time for Halloween scares.

Director Carles Torrens returns to expand the post-apocalyptic universe, this time shifting the action to the Canary Islands, Europe’s last refuge after the TSJ virus outbreak. When a supply mission heads to the mainland, things go sideways fast. The crew gets caught between hordes of infected and their own conflicting loyalties.

The ensemble cast includes Carlos Alcaide, Julia Martínez, and Mónica López. Jose María Yazpik reprises his role as Pritchenko, and Berta Vázquez returns as Lucía. Even Pedrito the cat is back, playing fan-favorite Lúculo.

The first film became Prime Video’s most-watched international original movie, second only to Your Fault. That kind of response gave the sequel room to scale up the action and widen the scope.

Before streaming, New World gets its world premiere at Spain’s Sitges Film Festival on October 10, then screens at Screamfest in LA on October 13.

For genre filmmakers grinding away at zombie stories, this franchise proves there’s still appetite for fresh takes on the undead, especially when you lean into character-driven survival drama.

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Lost Michael Apted Doc About Soviet Rock Legend Finally Gets U.S. Release

A long-lost Michael Apted documentary is coming back. The Long Way Home: Remastered and Expanded drops on major streaming platforms October 20 in the U.S., Canada, and UK.

The film follows Boris Grebenshchikov, the Soviet underground rock icon who became the first Russian artist to record in the West during Glasnost. Shot in the late ’80s, it captures Grebenshchikov working with Dave Stewart, Annie Lennox, Chrissie Hynde, and members of Crosby, Stills & Nash. But it also shows the cost: his longtime band Aquarium felt abandoned, and Russian fans weren’t sure what to make of his English-language material.

The doc premiered at Sundance and aired in the UK decades ago, then vanished. Now producer Steven Lawrence has restored it from the only surviving 16mm print. He and editor Susanne Rostock also added a new epilogue tracking Grebenshchikov’s life after his U.S. album Radio Silence flopped, including his exile and his public criticism of Putin’s war in Ukraine. Apted wanted to make a sequel before his death in 2021. This epilogue is the closest we’ll get.

For indie musicians navigating crossover dreams or political pressure, this one hits close to home. It’s a reminder that freedom and creative risk don’t always pay off the way you hope.

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John Wilson’s ‘The History of Concrete’ Breaks Box Office Records With $90K Single-Theater Opening

John Wilson just pulled off one of the year’s most impressive theatrical runs.

His feature debut, The History of Concrete, earned $90,000 at a single theater over opening weekend. That makes it the second-biggest opening in IFC Center history, behind only Parasite. It’s also the highest-grossing documentary opening the New York venue has ever seen.

The film, which sits at 98% on Rotten Tomatoes, sold out nearly every screening all weekend, including multiple Q&As with Wilson in attendance.

“Young moviegoers turned out in force, leading to multiple sold-out screenings all weekend,” said IFC Center’s Harris Dew.

Magnolia Pictures, the distributor behind the release, hasn’t been shy about making noise. They parked a concrete truck wrapped in the film’s key art outside the theater for the premiere, staged a live Gumbusters demo, and commissioned a 125-pound poster made of actual concrete that now sits in the IFC Center lobby.

This is Magnolia’s second record breaker at IFC Center this year. John Early’s Maddie’s Secret opened to $58,242 over the summer, landing as the theater’s seventh-biggest opener ever.

The film expands to Los Angeles and other cities next weekend, with wider rollout planned for early October. Magnolia is also partnering with the NYC Department of Education to host a free screening for high school students in architecture, construction, and film programs later this month.

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Serville Poblete’s TIFF Debut ‘Sunburn’ Lands Distribution Deal

sunburn Serve Films and Tinygiant

Serve Films and Tinygiant

A coming-of-age story set during a sweltering Toronto blackout just scored worldwide representation.

Serville Poblete’s feature debut Sunburn has been acquired by MoreThan Films following its world premiere in TIFF’s Centrepiece Program this week. The boutique sales agency will handle international distribution, while Gersh is repping domestic.

The film follows a group of kids in St. James Town, a high-rise Toronto neighborhood, as they wander through the city’s hottest day while phone networks crash and the power stays off. It’s a hangout movie about youth slipping away in real time.

Poblete, a Filipino-Canadian filmmaker, has been racking up festival wins lately. His short In the Morning Sun took the Grand Jury Prize at SXSW 2026 and is currently in Oscar consideration. His doc King’s Court earned a Canadian Screen Award nomination earlier this year.

“Making a movie about my neighbourhood with so many amazing collaborators felt like summer camp,” Poblete says. “I’m so excited to partner with MoreThan Films and Gersh to share this project with the world.”

The cast includes Joshua Obra, Dashawn Blackwood, Arianna Shannon, and Milan Deng. Nicole Dane produces, with Christian Bielz on cinematography and Juno-winning composer Aaron Paris scoring.

For indie filmmakers working hyper-local stories with universal themes, Sunburn is exactly the kind of breakout that still happens at festivals when the work connects.

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