Defy Film Fest Relocates to Eastside Bowl

The big story at this year’s Defy Film Festival is that the 11th iteration of this local celebration of eccentric cinema will happen at Eastside Bowl in Madison after spending its first decade in East Nashville’s Studio 615 event space. Festival founders Dycee Wildman and Billy Senese found creative solutions for displaying movies there, optimizing the square footage and glowing up Defy’s aura as they grew a reputation as a movie festival that extended all the way into contemporary new media art.

This year’s setup at Eastside Bowl’s Main Room features one dedicated theater space and a gallery screening several shorts in a browsable art installation. The Madison venue means more room for a film-fest audience that was outgrowing the East Nashville digs, and the Bowl’s restaurant, bar, arcade, billiards, bowling and live music put the already popular festival in a location with a built-in audience.

This year’s Defy lineup is packed with shorts and programmed around a feature screening that caps off a Friday night program focused on spooky weirdness. Directors Lauris Ābele and Raitis Ābele’s Dog of God is based on the real story of a 17th-century Livonian village soaked with rain and drunkenness. The stealing of a sacred relic triggers a witchcraft scare. Did I mention this is all rendered in richly colored rotoscope animation? Dog of God will get you primed for Robert Eggers’ Werwulf with its mix of folk horror and dark absurdity.

“Lady Puritan” is a short by Gustine Füdickar and Justin Streichman screening in Defy’s Thriller block on Friday night. This poetic, experimental movie has all the trappings of a folk-horror picture, but its isolated alpine mountain, ghostly woman in black, and Aaron Drake’s spookadelic score are all wrapped around a naked-bloody-spewing freakout exploring the shadow side of femininity. This film is emblematic of what happens when Defy does horror movies, and aficionados interested in new takes on fright fare will find unique thrills here.

The cutthroat world of contemporary dance takes an occult turn in “Next in Line,” also playing in the Thriller block. If you’ve never seen a film labeled “queer dance horror,” this is your chance. Director Danny Dolan has credits as both an actor and a choreographer, and he co-stars in this short as a jaded choreographer who retreats to a desert getaway to lick his wounds after failing to land an important gig. “Next in Line” features a great performance from Tatiana Maslany as a nutty choreographer-cum-dark-sorceress now deploying her jazz hands in the service of dark magical forces on behalf of her flagging career. Genuinely funny and actually disturbing, “Next in Line” does a lot with a little, and Dolan is one of the Defy filmmakers I expect to see directing a platform feature sooner than later.

“The Schism & the Butterfly” is writer-director Joseph Taglieri’s tale of a psychic girl and the military state that wants to weaponize her. It’s a Lynchian take on Stranger Things, with cinematographer Anthony Chen’s black-and-white photography bringing an expressionist vibe to the film’s alternative fascist universe. That aspect of this Thriller block short recalls Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle and the hit-and-miss series it inspired on Amazon Prime. In service of its cool stylistics, this film willingly sacrifices its plot for poetic imagery and editing, which is exactly what I love most about Defy.

“Mangittatuarjuk (The Gnawer of Rocks)” is an animated take on an Indigenous Canadian myth about a monstrous cave spirit that captures two young native girls. This tale reads like a Native American version of The Odyssey’s cyclops episode through the lens of Rankin/Bass’ Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Hit Friday night’s Horror block for this short. 

If you like scary movies with a sense of humor, check out the short “CHÄIR” in the Horror Comedy block on Saturday. Chris McInroy’s inspired take on the special torture of assembling Scandinavian furniture comes with the best tagline I’ve read from the fest: “Carl just wanted to sit down.” “CHÄIR” reminds me of Tobe Hooper’s adaptation of Stephen King’s short story “The Mangler.” It’s a gnarly yarn about an industrial laundry-folding machine that develops a taste for human blood. “CHÄIR” comes complete with gory punchlines and a mostly balanced mix of jokey jokes and paranoia, psychological horror and disturbing customer service phone calls.

“It may be pleasant to listen to some popular youth music” is the most memorable line from the Defy movies I previewed, and it comes from another entry in the Horror Comedy lineup. “Museum of Regret” is an eccentric, oddly moving cautionary tale about being an elderly thespian when there’s still time to be a silver-haired accountant. I’m going to call this one a kissing cousin of The Cable Guy, and Patrick Bauchau’s all-in portrayal of Don Patricio makes him the ideal avatar for writer-director Skye Braband’s inspired flights of poetic dialogue.

Defy 2026 delivers a slate of bold, uncompromising films as it welcomes Nashville’s coolest gathering of cinephiles and filmmakers from around the world. Visit defyfilmfest.com for times, tickets and passes.