Castine Film Festival announces lineup
Community and connection are among this year’s themes
Aug. 19, 2026
By Annie Means
Poster for the 2026 Castine Film Festival. Photo courtesy of Castine Film Festival.
The Castine Film Festival, now in its second year running, has announced its 2026 lineup. Taking place on Sept. 12, this year’s festival focuses on themes of connection, community and joy.
The event features recent indie favorites like Women and the Wind, a dreamy documentary about three women who cross the Atlantic on a homebuilt catamaran. Canoe Dig It, a Maine-made mockumentary, will also make an appearance. This comedy focuses on a fictional canoe dancing competition and a cast of downeast characters, sure to make Mainers laugh.
Before last year, Castine never had a film festival. That is until Sara Carey, the film fest creator, brought it to life.
“The arts are really important. They reflect our lives back to us, open our minds to new questions, and help us have empathy,” Carey said.
Carey approached Castine’s select board, as well as Johanna Sweet, co-chair of the Castine Arts Association’s Visual Arts department to get the ball rolling with the idea of a film festival in 2025.
As the first festival came to fruition, Carey spent a lot of time trying to understand what makes a film festival worthwhile. She researched every film festival that occurred in Maine over the past 15 years, and used that knowledge to learn how to run hers successfully.
Using FilmFreeway, a platform that connects filmmakers and film festivals, Carey and Sweet opened the Castine Film Festival to submissions. When it came to selecting films for the 2026 festival, Carey and Sweet had no shortage of options.
“This year we received several hundred film submissions,” Carey said. As head of the film jury, Sweet reviewed every single one herself.
The festival was such a success last year, that this year, Carey and Sweet focused on how to improve the event based on the feedback from 2025’s edition.
“The community was very supportive about us running the festival again,” Carey said.
Last year, festival hosts learned that Castine audiences prefer an earlier start time and specific kinds of films. So, the 2026 lineup has been chosen to cater to the town’s taste.
Women and the Wind was a no-brainer given Castine’s robust maritime culture. The archival short, The Eyes of All People, which incorporates John F. Kennedy’s lasting legacy is also projected to resonate deeply with the people of Castine, a number of whom have a background in politics or come from Washington, D.C.
Maine Maritime Academy’s Delano Auditorium will once again host the screenings. The action starts at 11 a.m. with Program 1, which includes the short documentaries A Town Like Diss, Paani, and The Eyes of All People.
Program 2 kicks off at 12:30 p.m. with a feature screening of Women and the Wind, followed by a 2:30 p.m. showing of the shorts in Program 3: Something Greater than You, A Friend of Dorothy, and Bubble Gum. The festival wraps with Program 4, the screening of the feature mockumentary, Canoe Dig It.
New this year is a conversation with Maine filmmaker Ricky Leighton, creator of DownEast Hardcore, a film about local Maine legend Kathy Findlay, who created an underground punk and hardcore music scene for young people in the area. The festival will also offer lunch at a small extra cost to the ticket purchase price.
When Carey reflects on what she hopes viewers take away from this year's screenings, the 2026 festival theme rings true.
“I hope that they enjoy the films, and I hope the films remind them of the importance of community and connection.”
To buy tickets to the event or learn more about this year’s films, visit the film festival’s website.
