The Oldenburg Film Festival has long been the place to find the strange, the overlooked and the unapologetically unconventional in indie cinema. The Hollywood Reporter has picked five unmissable features from this year’s typically eclectic lineup, ranging from a Belgian punk-music satire to a Mexican cartel thriller to a horror movie told entirely from the perspective of a Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever.
Horseshoe
The Irish drama Horseshoe centers on four siblings forced back to their childhood home after the death of their father, only to discover his ghost isn’t ready to let them go. With just 24 hours to decide the fate of the house, old resentments bubble up, secrets are exposed and shifting alliances test whatever bonds remain. Darkly funny and deeply melancholic, the film turns the family estate into a pressure cooker of grief, grudges and reluctant affection.
Under the Burning Sun
Yun Xie’s Slamdance breakout Under the Burning Sun follows Mowanza, a young woman pregnant after an assault in a country where abortion is forbidden. Armed with little more than a car and a bottle of water, she heads into the desert toward a neighboring state where the procedure is legal. A microbudget gem that channels its feminist outrage into a harrowing and haunting epic.
Good Boy
Ben Leonberg’s Good Boy, which comes to Oldenburg from SXSW, is a supernatural horror told entirely from the perspective of Indy, a loyal Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever who senses there are forces lurking in the dark shadows of his owner’s home. As dark forces threaten his master, the brave pup must fight to protect him. A fresh, canine perspective on the haunted house trope.
The 2025 Oldenburg Film Festival runs Sept. 10–14.
