
2025 Festival
See the full lineup of films at this year's festival below.
A selection of films will be screened in-person at the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center (and a few at the Anthology Film Archives) whilst others will be available to watch online on this website until June 8th 2025.
Festival Lineup
In-Person Screenings
at The Martin E. Segal Center (365 5th Ave, New York)
and Anthology Film Archives (32 2nd Ave, New York)
Thursday May 15
1:00 pm
Resilience by Juan David Padilla Vega (Canada, 2024, 70’)
U.S. PREMIERE
2:20 pm
JJ by Pauline L. Boulba and Aminata Labor (France, 2024, 72’)
4:00 pm
This is Ballroom by Vita and Juru (Brazil, 2024, 92’)
5:50 pm
Transindigenous Assembly by Joulia Strauss (Greece, 2024, 86’)
7:25 pm
Radical Move by Aniela Gabryel (Poland, 2023, 77’)
NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE
Friday May 16
12:00 pm
Bila Burba by Duiren Wagua (Panama, 2023, 70’)
1:20 pm
Acting by Sophie Fiennes (UK, 2024, 145’) U.S. PREMIERE
3:55 pm
The Jacket by Mathijs Poppe (Belgium, Netherlands, France, Lebanon, 2024, 71’)
U.S. PREMIERE
5:15 pm
Brink of Dreams by Nada Riyadh, Ayman El Amir (Egypt, France, Denmark, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, 2024, 102’)
Special section
SPOTLIGHT ON BASINGA
7:10 pm
Funambulism, Hanging by a Thread by Jean-Baptiste Mathieu (Germany, 2024, 52’) NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE
8:10 pm
Skywalk above Prague by Václav Flegl, Jakub Voves (Czech Republic, 2020, 51’) NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE
Saturday May 17
11:00 am
SHORT FILMS PROGRAM
Benjamin de Oliveira’s Open Paths by Bruno Esperança (Brazil, 2024, 37’) U.S. PREMIERE
Peak Hour in the House by Blue Ka Wing (Honk Kong, 2024, 7’)
Paci by Juliette Roudet (France, 2024, 33’) NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE
Jesus E O Mar by Ricarda Alvarenga (Brazil, 2024, 3’)
Somber Tides by Chantal Caron (Canada, 2024, 12’) N.Y. PREMIERE
Theater of War by Oleh Halaidych (Ukraine, 2024, 40’) U.S. PREMIERE
Pidikwe by Caroline Monnet (Canada, 2024, 10’) U.S. PREMIERE
1:25pm
Grand Theft Hamlet by Pinny Grylls, Sam Crane (UK, 2024, 90’)
Sunday May 18
3:00 pm
SPECIAL FESTIVAL PRESENTATION AT ANTHOLOGY FILM ARCHIVES
(32 Second Avenue New York, NY 10003)
Reas by Lola Arias (Argentina, Germany, Switzerland, 2024, 82’)
Wednesday May 21 to
Wednesday May 28
HIS HEAD WAS A SLEDGEHAMMER: RICHARD FOREMAN IN RETROSPECT AT ANTHOLOGY FILM ARCHIVES
Guest-programmed by Andrew Lampert. The retrospective is co-presented by New York University Special Collections, home to the Richard Foreman and Kate Manheim Papers, and The Segal Center Film Festival on Theatre and Performance.
For full schedule of the retrospective go to this LINK.
3:00 pm
SPECIAL FESTIVAL PRESENTATION AT ANTHOLOGY FILM ARCHIVES
(32 Second Avenue New York, NY 10003)
Moi-Même by Mojo Lorwin & Lee Breuer (France, US, 1968/2024, 65 min, 16mm-to-DCP) followed by Q&A with Mojo Lorwin and Kevin Mathewson, moderated by Frank Hentschker
About The Festival
The Segal Center Film Festival on Theatre and Performance (FTP) is an annual event showcasing films drawn from the world of theatre and performance. The 2025 festival is co-curated by Frank Hentschker and Tomek Smolarski, and supported by Gaurav Singh Nijjer on digital design.
The festival presents experimental, emerging, and established theatre artists and filmmakers from around the world to audiences and industry professionals. From its inaugural edition in 2015 to its present-day hybrid avatar, The Segal Film Festival for Theatre and Performance (FTP) has served as a platform for recorded works that span the length and breadth of the performing arts.
Festival Founder and Executive Director of the Martin E. Segal Theater Center, Frank Hentschker shares his inspiration for creating the festival: “Film and digital media are an integral part of theatre and performance. I am surprised that there is not a film festival out there right now focusing on theatre and performance. I thought ‘why not create one’?”
In the time before Corona, the Segal Film Festival had evolved into the premier US event for new film and video work focusing on theatre and performance. Its mission was to invite experimental and established theatre makers to present work created for the screen – not filmed archival recordings – to audiences and industry professionals from around the world. Now, after a year and a half of digital and hybrid theatre offerings, the festival must take on a new meaning. The festival has held on to its mission of being a free and open-to-all event accessible to everyone. The 7th edition of the festival was held digitally in March 2022, and featured 80 films from 30 countries.
For queries, feedback and any more information get in touch with us at segalfilmfestival@gmail.com
Meet The Team

Tomek Smolarski
Co-Curator
Tomek Smolarski is a cultural manager, producer and curator with over 20 years of experience in production of international cultural events and extensive knowledge in cultural diplomacy. He has produced projects with leading U.S. institutions, including BAM, MoMA, Film at Lincoln Center, Anthology Film Archives, MoMI, Pacific Film Archives, Chicago Cultural Center and many others.

Gaurav Singh Nijjer
Web and Digital Producer
Gaurav Singh Nijjer is a theatre-maker, creative technologist and designer whose artistic works explore technology and media in live performance. He is one half of the Indian performing arts collective Kaivalya Plays, and also works as a freelance artist and arts manager with collectives in India and abroad, currently as Digital and Web Producer at the Martin E. Segal Theater Center at the Graduate Centre CUNY. He is a former German Chancellor Fellow and a Chevening scholar. He trained at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in London. Apart from theatre, Gaurav also works as a freelance marketing, design and creative consultant for diverse organizations.

Frank Hentschker
Co-Curator
Frank Hentschker, who holds a Ph.D. in theatre from the now legendary Institute for Applied Theatre Studies in Giessen, Germany, came to the Graduate Center in 2001 as program director for the Graduate Center’s Martin E. Segal Theatre Center and was appointed to the central doctoral faculty in theatre in 2009. Currently executive director and director of programs at the Segal Center, Hentschker has transformed the center into the nation’s leading forum for public programming in international and U.S. theatre and theatre studies; each year, he curates and produces more than forty events—staged readings, lecture-demonstrations, symposia, works-in-progress, and conversations with theatre scholars, theatrical luminaries, and emerging voices in the international, American, and New York theatre scenes. Among the vital events and series he founded at the Segal Center are the World Theatre Performance series; the annual fall PRELUDE festival, which features more than twenty New York–based theatre companies and playwrights; and the PEN World Voices Playwrights Series. Hentschker also led CUNY’s nineteen performing arts centers in founding the CUNY–Performing Arts Consortium (C–PAC), producing the consortium’s first joint festival in 2009. Hentschker edited the MESTC publications Jan Fabre: I Am A Mistake, Seven Works for the Theatre (2009) and New Plays from Spain (2013), and he served as president of the board of PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art from 2005 to 2009. Before coming to the Graduate Center, Hentschker founded and directed DISCURS, the largest European student theatre festival existing today; he acted as Hamlet in Heiner Müller’s Hamletmaschine, directed by the playwright; performed in the Robert Wilson play The Forest (music by David Byrne); and worked as an assistant for Robert Wilson for many years.
Producer, General Operations Manager
Teresa Soraka
Next Generation Fellow
Nurit Chinn