25 highlights of OKC's 25th Annual deadCenter Film Festival, from Flaming Lips to Okie Shorts

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From a virtual production brunch to a Friday the 13th-theme PJ Party, the 25th Annual deadCenter Film Festival promises to provide four and a half days of nearly nonstop celebrations of independent film.
The silver anniversary deadCenter Film Fest is set for June 11-15 at various Oklahoma City venues and will include a plethora of parties, workshops and networking opportunities for filmmakers and movie lovers. This year's deadCenter has been extended to a five-day Wednesday-Sunday format, compared to the four-day Thursday-Sunday schedule the fest has followed the past several years.
As this year's festival hub, Oklahoma Contemporary Arts Center will be action-packed, hosting a variety of free panels, from an homage to the late filmmaking legend David Lynch to a timely session on contemporary producing strategies.
Oklahoma's largest and only Oscar-qualifying film festival, deadCenter 2025 boasts an eclectic lineup of 200 independent features and short films — including 25 world premieres — representing a roster of nearly 40 Sooner State filmmakers, as well as additional moviemakers from across the globe.
Here are 25 cinematic highlights of the 25th deadCenter Film Festival:
When and where: 5:30 p.m. June 11, Harkins Bricktown.
Now an Oscar-qualifying festival in three short film categories, deadCenter boasts a particularly strong lineup of shorts. So, it's only fitting that the 2025 fest will start off with "Opening Night - Okie Style: Okie Shorts," a block of 10 short films from Sooner State moviemakers, ranging from Ella Janes' a world-premiere coming-of-age story "The Thrilling Adventure of Amos Waters" to Cherokee filmmaker Brit Hensel's sibling drama "Thin Places," starring Quannah Chasinghorse and Shelby Factor.
When and where: 9 p.m. June 11, Harkins Bricktown, and 7:30 p.m. June 14, Rodeo Cinema Stockyards.
The fest's "Opening Night - Okie Style" feature, the crime thriller "Reverence" comes from OKC-based Indigenous writer-director Kyle Kauwika Harris ("Out of Exile"). Filmed in Chandler, it stars 2025 deadCenter Oklahoma Film Icon Award winner Adam Hampton (who acts in two other Okie movies playing at deadCenter), Whit Kunschick ('Country Gold'), Gattlin Griffith ('The Boys'), Connie Franklin ('Agent Jade Black'), Ryan Francis ('Hook') and Victoria Kmiec ("Web of Spider-Man").
When and where: 9 p.m. June 14, Oklahoma Contemporary lawn, and noon June 15, Oklahoma Contemporary's Te Ata Theater. Free.
The OKC Thunder is paying homage to what was once hailed as the "Incomparable Myriad" with the world-premiere documentary "Incomparable." From OKCThunder Films in association with Prairie Surf Studios, the film shares the 53-year history of the former Myriad Convention Center.
The city-owned building — which later became the Cox Convention Center and then home to Prairie Surf Studios — is being demolished to make way for a new $1 billion arena to replace the current Paycom Center as the home of the OKC Thunder.
It's the eighth straight year for a documentary from OKCThunder Films — a collaboration between the Thunder's broadcasting and basketball communications departments — to debut at deadCenter.
When and where: 9 p.m. June 14, Oklahoma Contemporary lawn, with "Incomparable." Free.
Screening ahead of this year's Thunder film, the short documentary "Hock E Aye Vi Edgar Heap of Birds: Family, An Oral History Project" spotlights Hock E Aye Vi Edgar Heap of Birds, an acclaimed Cheyenne and Arapaho artist, reflecting on his 2022 work "Family" as he prepares for his first major retrospective, "Honor Song," now on view at Oklahoma Contemporary.
When and where: 5:30 p.m. June 13 and 4:30 p.m. June 14, Harkins Bricktown.
Edmond writer-director and Oklahoma Film Icon Ryan Bellgardt returns to deadCenter with the world premiere of "The Jurassic Games: Extinction," the sequel to his 2018 award-winning homegrown cult-favorite film "The Jurassic Games." His sequel about a virtual-reality game show that pits death-row inmates against fearsome stars Hampton, Francis, Todd Terry, Todd Jenkins and Christy Tate.
When and where: 8 p.m. June 13 and noon June 15, Harkins Bricktown.
Lawton native and 2025 Oklahoma Film Icon Amy Scott ("Hal," "Sheryl," "Melissa Etheridge: I'm Not Broken") is showing her latest film, the music documentary 'Counting Crows: Have You Seen Me Lately?,' at deadCenter following its June 5 world premiere at New York's Tribeca Film Festival.
When and where: 8 p.m. June 13, Rodeo Cinema Stockyards, and 3:30 p.m. June 15, Harkins Bricktown.
Another of this year's deadCenter Oklahoma Film Icon honorees, Edmond native and screen actress Hayley McFarland, whose credits include the hit movie "The Conjuring," the TV series "Lie to Me" and the Okie films "Agnes" and "Out of Exile," stars in "Anywhere," a comedic thriller from writer-director Adam Seidel.
Filmed in OKC and Jones, "Anywhere" centers on an unassuming oil worker who discovers his breaking point upon uncovering a savage betrayal by his brother and wife. Along with McFarland, the cast includes Joshua Burge, Sean Gunn, Mary Buss and Annie Funke.
When and where: 7 p.m. June 12, Oklahoma City Museum of Art, and 1 p.m. June 15th, First Americans Museum
Directed by Ty McMahan and Kevin Ford, the world-premiere documentary "67 Bombs to Enid" follows survivors of nuclear weapons testing in the Marshall Islands who relocated to rural America, including to the Garfield County seat. It's executive produced by Errol Morris, an Oscar-winning documentarian known for "The Fog of War" and "The Thin Blue Line."
When and where: 12:30 p.m. June 14, Harkins Bricktown, and 7 p.m. June 15, Rodeo Cinema Stockyards.
Another Okie feature making its world premiere, "Bloodstained Ivory" is a music-driven drama starring Nick Skonberg, Mackenna Shults, Joette Waters, LaRonn Marzett and Aurélien Froissart. Written, directed and produced by Klein Haley, the thriller follows an aspiring concert pianist who goes to extreme measures during his final year of music school.
When and where: 5:15 p.m. June 13, Harkins Bricktown, and 12:30 p.m. June 15, Rodeo Cinema Stockyards.
Also making its world premiere, "Close Enough to Burn," originally titled "Defiant Vanity," stars Clarissa Thibeaux, Marzett, Hannah Abdoh, Grayson Dunn and Gunn. Written and directed by Benjamin Temfera, the hip-hop comedy-drama and 2024 blockbuster "Twisters" were the first two movies approved to receive the OKC film incentive approved in 2023.
The story centers on simple contract dispute spirals into a whirlwind of music, romance and violence for a young investigator as he fights his growing obsession with a group of artists on the brink of splintering.
When and where: 5:30 p.m. June 13, First Americans Museum, and 7:45 p.m. June 14, Harkins Bricktown.
Russ Kirkpatrick's world-premiere doc "Susan" follows Oklahoman Susan Suchan, who has the same diagnosis as Bruce Willis of frontotemporal dementia with primary progressive aphasia, as she navigates the 'realities" of her circumstances.
When and where: 5 p.m. June 13, Rodeo Cinema Stockyards, and 4:30 p.m. June 14, OKC Museum of Art.
Tulsa-based Cherokee and Kiowa filmmaker Loren Waters returns to deadCenter with "Tiger." Her short documentary about acclaimed Oklahoma Native American artist Dana Tiger won a Special Jury Award at the Sundance Film Fest.
When and where: 7:30 p.m. June 12 and 8:30 p.m. June 14, Harkins Bricktown.
"Salt of the Earth" is the third movie from husband-and-wife Edmond filmmakers Jeremy and Kara Choate and their third to screen at deadCenter. Starring Hampton, Cate Jones and Hayden Choate, the world-premiere dystopian thriller follows a cop and his crime-boss sister as they search for his rabies-infected son in the aftermath of a global collapse.
When and where: 5:15 p.m. June 13, OKC Museum of Art, and 12:30 p.m. June 15, Harkins Bricktown.
The world-premiere documentary "Life's Ballet," directed by Wendy Garrett and Christopher Hunt, tells the story of Jo Rowan, a legendary dance educator who built one of the nation's premier programs at Oklahoma City University.
When and where: Noon June 14, Harkins Bricktown, and 2 p.m. June 15, OKC Museum of Art.
"Drowned Land," directed by Choctaw Nation citizen Colleen Thurston, chronicles the battle over the Kiamichi River in southeastern Oklahoma.
When and where: 7:30 p.m. June 12, Harkins Bricktown, and 12:30 p.m. June 15, Rodeo Cinema Film Row.
With "When Shadows Lay Darkest," local writer-director Jacob Leighton Burns returns to deadCenter with a 10 1/2-minute horror story about a woman fighting for her life as a 1970s movie slasher terrorizes her from beyond the TV screen.
When and where: 8:30 p.m. June 13 and 3:15 p.m. June 15, Harkins Bricktown.
Making its world premiere, the documentary "Dream Touch Believe" tells the story of Michael Naranjo, an Indigenous sculptor from New Mexico who became a sought-after artist despite losing his sight in the Vietnam War. Directed by his daughter, Jenna Naranjo Winters, key scenes of the documentary were filmed in 2019 in Oklahoma City.
When and where: 8:30 p.m. June 13 and 3:15 p.m. June 15, Harkins Bricktown with "Dream Touch Believe."
"Dream Touch Believe" will be shown with the locally made short documentary "Ditty Bops: The Arts of Listening." Directed by Zachary Burns, chronicles the work of Spark! Creative Lab, an OKC nonprofit company of interdisciplinary artists, to tell the story of local Vietnam War veteran Neil Chapman.
When and where: deadCenter will include three showings of "Slow Disco," plus two of "becoming (in two parts)."
OKC-based filmmaker and choreographer Lauren Bumgarner is showing two experimental dance films with LGBTQ+ themes during this year's deadCenter. Part of the opening-night "Okie Shorts" block, her "Slow Disco" features the music of Tulsa-born Grammy winner St. Vincent and is billed as a "study on the importance, beauty and difficulty of reflection and its role in becoming who you are."
Bumgarner's "becoming (in two parts)" is described as an exploration of the coming-out process and identity evolution as both a dance and a ghost story.
When and where: 8:30 p.m. June 15 at OAK. Free.
The Flaming Lips' concert documentary "UFOs at the Zoo: The Legendary Concert in Oklahoma City," which screened at the 2007 deadCenter Film Festival, will be the Flashback Closing Night Film at this year's fest. The "Fearless Freaks" recorded their first live concert film at OKC's venerable Zoo Amphitheatre in September 2006.
The free Flashback Closing Night Film screening will bring deadCenter to OKC's new upscale mixed-use development OAK.
Ahead of the screening, new deadCenter Icons Flaming Lips frontman and filmmaker Wayne Coyne and OKC Mayor David Holt will have a conversation about the concert film and receive their awards at 8 p.m. June 15 at OAK.
When and where: Noon June 14, Rodeo Cinema Stockyards, and 4:30 p.m. June 15, Harkins Bricktown.
Directed by Kathryn Boyd Batstone ("Roadtrip Nation") and executive produced by Jhane Myers ("Prey"), the new documentary "Comanche Academy: A Healing Journey" shares the story of an Indigenous charter school in Lawton, as the faculty and students embark on a healing journey to revitalize the Comanche language and culture.
When and where: 2:30 p.m. June 14 and 1:30 p.m. June 15, Oklahoma Contemporary's Te Ata Theater.
Three short documentaries telling powerful OKC tales will be packaged in one community event: Directed and produced by Valentina Gutierrez, "Blend Ability" spills the story of Not Your Average Joe coffee shops, which employs people with physical, intellectual and developmental disabilities; while "The Making of Together Together," directed by Johnny Blanco, is about local artist Joe Slack's quest to create the towering downtown sculpture. And the fest has its own origin story told with "25: A Brief History of deadCenter," directed by Jamie Loy.
When and where: 3 p.m. June 14 and 15, Harkins Bricktown.
From a remote community in Guatemala to an intertribal powwow, film fans of all ages can go on cinematic adventures with this year's Family Fest Shorts, a collection of family-friendly shorts that not only range from animated to live action but also from hilarious to heartfelt.
When and where: 8 p.m. June 12 and 7 p.m. June 15, Harkins Bricktown.
Another Tribeca Film Fest world premiere coming directly to OKC from NYC, "Queens of the Dead" is a buzzy zombie comedy co-written and directed by Tina Romero, daughter of legendary "Night of the Living Dead" moviemaker George A. Romero.
When a zombie apocalypse breaks out in Brooklyn on the night of a warehouse party, an eclectic group of drag queens, club kids and frenemies must put aside their drama and use their unique skills to fight against the brain-thirsty, scrolling undead.
When and where: 5 p.m. June 13 and 4 p.m. June 14, Harkins Bricktown.
The audience award winner in the documentary feature competition at South By Southwest in Austin, Texas, "Remaining Native," is making its Oklahoma premiere at deadCenter. Directed by Paige Bethmann, the film follows Ku Stevens, 17, a solo runner living on the Yerington Paiute reservation in Northwest Nevada who longs to run for the University of Oregon but must train withouth a coach in high school.
Passes for deadCenter Film Festival are $225 and include priority entrance to every film, party, panel and special event. To buy passes, go to https://dcff25.eventive.org/passes/buy.
Tickets for individual films will be available on a limited basis 20 minutes prior to a screening and cost $10 each. Individual tickets must be purchased at the door.
When: June 11-15.
Where: Various OKC venues.
Information: https://deadcenterfilm.org.
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: 25 cinematic highlights of OKC's 25th Annual deadCenter Film Festival