Cinema has a rare ability to make distance feel temporary. A story created thousands of miles away can enter a New York City theater and suddenly become intimate. A character, a struggle, a memory or a moment of hope can move across language, geography and culture, reminding an audience how much human experience can be shared even when the circumstances around it are different.
That sense of connection is central to the 12th Annual ICP Entertainment Film Festival, returning to New York City from October 23–27, 2026. Founded by award-winning filmmaker, Founder and Creative Director Richard Oliver Jr. alongside Co-Founder Veena Kondapalli, ICP Entertainment has spent 12 years developing an inclusive platform for independent filmmakers from New York, across the United States and around the world. The festival looks beyond where a filmmaker comes from. Its focus is on what they have to say, and on giving audiences the chance to hear it.
This year’s international program makes that purpose especially clear. Among the festival’s marquee winners are two films carrying deeply human perspectives from very different parts of the world: “My Foot Is In Heaven,” directed by Iyad Hajjaj of Palestine/USA, and “Pleiades,” directed by Mahsa Talebi of Iran.
“My Foot Is In Heaven,” recognized as Best Drama Short, brings the perspective of a filmmaker connected to Palestine and the United States. Its place at ICP Entertainment speaks to one of independent cinema’s strongest qualities: the ability to move personal experiences across borders and put them before audiences who might otherwise never encounter them.
“Pleiades,” directed by Iranian filmmaker Mahsa Talebi and recognized as Best Humanity Feature, enters the New York program from another cultural and artistic perspective. Here, that perspective reaches audiences through the closeness of human storytelling rather than through the distance of a headline or an abstract idea.
International cinema is frequently framed through countries, cultures and the distinctions between them. Independent filmmaking can bring those same realities into a more personal register. Audiences meet people through experiences, emotions, relationships, conflicts and hopes, which can make unfamiliar circumstances feel immediate without erasing the cultures that shaped them.
The festival’s international program gives those perspectives a shared space in New York. From October 24–26, the ICP Entertainment Film Festival will present three days of international screenings within the larger five-day New York City celebration. The films arriving in Manhattan have been shaped by different places and experiences, yet each comes with the same basic impulse: to communicate something human.
For filmmakers, a New York screening can also create connections beyond the theater itself. It offers a chance to meet audiences, fellow filmmakers and members of the wider independent film community. Stories developed under very different circumstances are given a physical meeting place, where the people who made them can encounter viewers from another culture face to face.
An independent festival can make those encounters possible in a way that online distribution alone cannot. It can create a room where a filmmaker from Palestine or Iran stands alongside storytellers from New York and elsewhere in the world. Their films may sound different, look different and emerge from entirely different cultural landscapes. Inside the theater, those differences become part of a shared viewing experience.
That exchange between filmmakers and audiences remains central to ICP Entertainment’s mission. The festival’s 12th edition centers on filmmakers and the stories they have worked to bring into the world. It provides a New York platform where independent voices, local, national and international, can be encountered on their own terms.
From Palestine to Iran, and from those films to the many other stories being presented this year, the festival gives audiences a chance to experience cinema as a meeting point between people, with entertainment opening the door to recognition, curiosity and connection.
EXPERIENCE THE STORIES. SUPPORT INDEPENDENT FILM. Join us in New York City October 23–27, 2026 for five days celebrating independent filmmakers and international storytelling. Attend the festival screenings, Opening Night and Closing Night events. Individual and group ticket opportunities are available. For group discounts on VIP tickets for our Opening and Closing Red Carpet Dinner Gala and all 3 days of screenings, contact us directly. Festival Website & VIP Tickets: icpentfilmfestival.com Contact: icpentnyc@gmail.com Text: 212-470-0871