FILM FEST KNOX’s Monthly Screening Series Is Well-Curated & FREE

There’s a lot of great art that flies under the radar. But, for me at least, film feels like the easiest to miss. I know “good” when I see it; I just don’t always know where to find it nor do I put much effort into keeping up. The Netflix algorithm overlords keep suggesting true crime documentaries, and I just keep clicking play.

Also, of note, film isn’t casual. You can’t really test-drive it the way you can 30 seconds of a song, or wander past it like a painting you just feel “meh” about in a museum. Watching a movie is a commitment. You’re in it for a while.

That’s the beauty of curation: the act of someone else doing the digging, sorting and contextualizing, filtering a vast sea of options down to a smaller, you’re-gonna-love-this set. 

Thankfully, we have some very excellent taste in film right here in Knoxville. And opportunities to experience it for FREE!

Among those curators is Darren Hughes, artistic director of FILM FEST KNOX and co-founder of The Public Cinema, founded in 2015 as a roving microcinema that screened films at various venues ranging from Knoxville Museum of Art to the Pilot Light. The festival grew out of that same ethos, scaled up.  

I met Darren downtown for coffee last week. The most topical topic of our brief yet free-ranging conversation: FILM FEST KNOX’S free monthly screening series, taking place at the Regal Riviera monthly starting today, Wednesday April 22, at 7 p.m. and continuing until September. 

“As in the old days of The Public Cinema, the goal of the FILM FEST KNOX’s monthly series is simply to share the best new films that wouldn’t screen in Knoxville otherwise,” Darren said. 

FILM FEST KNOX happens once a year (mark your calendars for Nov. 12-15, 2026!) but the free screening series extends its mission into something continuous and accessible. 

“It basically carries on the exact kind of programming that we do during the festival, a way to keep that audience engaged,” Darren said. “As artistic director, it’s fun to get to program new releases that aren’t going to play at any other theaters in town. It’s an opportunity to show films I love.”

FILM FEST KNOX launched in 2023 with an eye toward regional filmmaking and a “sense of place,” while also positioning Knoxville within a national network of festivals, filmmakers and distributors. 

There’s something for everyone, whatever your palate, and the screening series mirrors that. “This year’s lineup features several recent highlights from the world’s top festivals, along with two important restorations of American classics,” Darren said. 

He’s very pumped about tonight’s film, Miroirs No. 3, by the German director Christian Petzold: “He’s probably my favorite working filmmaker right now, so I’m very excited that we’re getting to show another one of his movies. He’s obsessed with classic Hollywood cinema and his movies are always perfectly made.”

Miroirs No. 3, he said, is very much in line with Hitchcock’s Vertigo story. “It’s got a little bit of mystery-thriller, but it’s just great, great filmmaking.” 

He describes May’s movie, too, as excellent. Of the first feature by young Canadian filmmaker Sophy Romvari, he says, “It’s small, very personal, very ambitious. It’s getting great reviews.”

Here’s the full schedule; you can find a more information on each film here, and you can click the title to watch the trailer. All shows take place on Wednesdays and begin at 7 p.m. at Regal Riviera (510 S Gay St.):

April 22: Miroirs No. 3 (2025, dir. Christian Petzold)
After surviving a car crash, a withdrawn music student lands in a serene German countryside home where her hosts’ care starts to feel… a little too intentional. Petzold builds a slow, elegant mystery about human connection and what we owe each other. 

May 27: Blue Heron (2025, dir. Sophy Romvari)
Set on Vancouver Island in the late ’90s, this coming-of-age story follows an 8-year-old navigating family upheaval as her older brother’s behavior grows increasingly volatile. A quietly observant, semi-autobiographical debut that’s already picking up serious festival momentum. 

June 24: The Currents (2025, dir. Milagros Mumenthaler)
After a sudden, near-fatal impulse during a trip abroad, a successful designer returns home… changed. What follows is less about what happened than what it cracked open, an identity unraveling beneath the surface of a very put-together life. 

July 22: Mary Oliver: Saved by the Beauty of the World (2026, dir. Sasha Waters)
A rare, intimate look at the famously private poet, built from archival material, voice reading and reflections from writers and admirers. A quiet immersion into a life shaped by attention, solitude and the natural world. 

August 26: Nadja (1994, dir. Michael Almereyda)
A downtown, black-and-white vampire story with an art-film attitude. Almereyda blends surrealism, lo-fi video and deadpan humor into something stylish, strange and very ’90s New York, plus a David Lynch co-sign. 

Sept. 23: The Best Years of Our Lives (1946, dir. William Wyler)
A postwar classic following three veterans trying to re-enter everyday life, clear-eyed about trauma, class and the uneasy return to “normal.” Still hits harder (and feels more modern) than you’d expect from a 1946 Best Picture winner. 

“This free film screening series is a great way to extend FILM FEST KNOX programming year-round,” said Curt Willis, senior director of the Visit Knoxville Film Office. “We want to invite the community to stay involved with us as we move toward another incredible festival this November.”

The FILM FEST KNOX Free Film Screening Series can all be found at FILMFESTKNOX.com and on Facebook Events. 2026 FILM FEST KNOX is confirmed for November 12–15, with more details to be announced. Follow FILMFESTKNOX.com and Facebook and Instagram for future announcements.