If there’s an arts festival with a more challenging brief right now than Orlando’s Global Peace Film Festival, we’d like to see it. Aiming to promote connections, understanding and dialogue across cultures and borders — phew, best of luck to us all with that! — GPFF presents an array of thought-provoking shorts, documentaries and feature films. The fest will this year be headquartered at the Bush Auditorium at Rollins College and the redoubtable Regal Winter Park Village, running through Sept. 19. (And beyond!)
Things start Tuesday with Break in the Rain, a road-trip drama. Stars Michael O’Keefe and Elizabeth A. Davis will both be in attendance to take questions. Oscar-nominated documentarian Marshall Curry comes to town to screen several docs and give a talk at the Winter Park Library. Another timely highlight would have to be The Dads, an Emmy-winning short doc about a group of fathers of trans and nonbinary youth.
A week or so later on Sept. 26-27, the fest decamps to International Drive for Global Peace 360 at AFRO-TV with even more screenings and panels. In very dark times, maybe art can provide a much-needed jolt of hope.
In-person festival various times Tuesday-Saturday, Sept. 15-19, various locations, peacefilmfest.org, $10-$125. Global Peace 360 on I-Drive Saturday-Sunday, Sept. 26-27, more information here. Free for All Shorts virtual festival, Sept. 20-27, peacefilmfest.org/ffas, free.
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This article appears in Sept. 9-15, 2026.