“Being Heumann” to Close 14th Annual Middleburg Film Festival; “La Bola Negra” and “Behemoth!” Set as Spotlights
Additional honorees and special guests include Martin McDonagh, Brad Bird, Seth Rogen, Rosalind Eleazar, Tony Gilroy, Guitarricadelafuente, Billie Jean King, Bill Pullman, and casting directors Adam Caldwell and Bernard Telsey.
Annual songwriters and composers panel returns; masterclass with “Toy Story 5” production designer Bob Pauley added.
MIDDLEBURG, VA — The Middleburg Film Festival announced additional programming today for its 14th edition, which will run October 15-18, 2026, including Academy Award-winning filmmaker Siân Heder’s “Being Heumann,” which has been set as the festival’s closing film. Heder’s follow-up to her Best Picture Oscar winner “CODA,” the movie tells the true story of pioneering disability rights activist Judy Heumann and the historic 1977 Section 504 protest, when hundreds of disabled activists occupied a federal building in San Francisco. The Apple Original Film stars Ruth Madeley as Heumann alongside Mark Ruffalo, Madeline Delp, and Dylan O’Brien. Casting directors Adam Caldwell and Bernard Telsey will attend the festival to receive the Special Achievement in Casting Award and participate in a post-screening Q&A.
The festival’s Friday Spotlight is “La Bola Negra,” from Spanish filmmakers Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi, which recently won the TIFF People’s Choice Award and San Sebastian Audience Award following its world premiere in competition at the Cannes Film Festival, where Calvo and Ambrossi won the Best Director Award. Inspired by Federico García Lorca’s unfinished work of the same name, the Spanish-language drama connects the lives of three men across different eras through desire, pain, and love. The Netflix film stars Guitarricadelafuente, Miguel Bernardeau, Carlos González, Penélope Cruz, and Glenn Close. Guitarricadelafuente, who also wrote and performed the original song “La Nieve” in the film, will attend the festival to accept the International Spotlight Award and participate in a post-screening discussion. Additionally, he will join the Composers & Songwriters panel.
Academy Award-nominated director and writer Tony Gilroy’s “Behemoth!” has been set as the festival’s Sunday Spotlight film, with Gilroy attending for a post-screening conversation. The Searchlight Pictures film stars Pedro Pascal as a gifted cellist and former child prodigy who returns to Los Angeles after two decades on the road to record film scores and confront his complicated family history. The film also stars Olivia Wilde, Eva Victor, Alexa Swinton, Kaya Ralls, Erik Griffin, JoBeth Williams, Margarita Levieva, Will Arnett, and Hank Azaria. Best known for writing and directing the Academy Award-nominated “Michael Clayton” and creating the acclaimed “Star Wars” series “Andor,” Gilroy’s extensive credits also include the screenplays for the “Bourne” franchise and “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.”
Academy Award-winning director and writer Martin McDonagh will be honored with the Director Spotlight Award for his latest film, “Wild Horse Nine.” Set shortly before the 1973 Chilean coup, the Searchlight Pictures film stars John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell as longtime CIA agents dispatched from Santiago to Easter Island, where they find themselves confronting their dark pasts and present conspiracies. One of the most acclaimed filmmakers working today, McDonagh won an Academy Award for his short film “Six Shooter” and received multiple Oscar nominations for “In Bruges,” “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri,” and “The Banshees of Inisherin.”
Academy Award-winning filmmaker Brad Bird will receive the Spotlight Animation Award for his new film “Ray Gunn,” a passion project more than three decades in the making. Written and directed by Bird, the sci-fi noir is set in the city of Metropia, where humans and aliens coexist, and follows private detective Raymond Gunn (Sam Rockwell) as he becomes entangled in a case involving murder, corruption, and troubled superstar Venus Nova (Scarlett Johansson). One of the most acclaimed filmmakers working today, Bird won Academy Awards for “The Incredibles” and “Ratatouille” and also directed the beloved animated classic “The Iron Giant” and “Incredibles 2,” as well as the live-action films “Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol” and “Tomorrowland.”
Seth Rogen will receive the MFF Artistic Achievement Award at an “In Conversation with Seth Rogen” event, where he will discuss his multiple films screening at the festival. They include Olivia Wilde’s critically acclaimed A24 film “The Invite,” in which he stars alongside Wilde, Penélope Cruz, and Edward Norton as two married couples whose relationships are put to the test during an increasingly unpredictable dinner party; and the animated film “Tangles,” from director Leah Nelson, which he produced with Lauren Miller Rogen, Evan Goldberg, and more. Adapted from Sarah Leavitt’s graphic memoir, the film follows a young artist who returns home to care for her mother following an Alzheimer’s diagnosis. Rogen will join Nelson and Miller Rogen for a post-screening conversation. A multi-award-winning actor, writer, producer, and director whose work spans comedy, drama, animation, and television, Rogen’s film and television projects have had a profound impact on popular culture and the global box office. Most recently, he starred in, wrote, directed, and produced Apple TV’s “The Studio,” one of the most celebrated television series of the year. The series earned 23 Emmy nominations and 13 wins, including Outstanding Comedy Series and Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series for Rogen, and will soon return for its second season.
Rosalind Eleazar will receive the Breakthrough Actor Award for her acclaimed performance in “Misty Green,” written and directed by Chris Rock. In her first leading film role, Eleazar stars as the titular Misty, a once-successful actress whose career has stalled and who is desperately trying to reclaim her place in Hollywood while contending with financial instability, fractured relationships, and her own self-destructive tendencies. The A24 film, which recently premiered at TIFF, also stars Rock, Adam Driver, Daniel Kaluuya, and Anna Kendrick. Eleazar is best known to audiences for her role in the Emmy-winning Apple TV series “Slow Horses.”
The festival’s annual Songwriters & Composers Panel will return, bringing together some of the year’s leading film composers and songwriters for a conversation about their creative process and the role of music in storytelling. The panel includes Ari Balouzian (“Primetime,” “You Can See Everything”), Lesley Barber (“Gail”), Jesse Eisenberg (“The Debut”), Lukas Frank (“Behemoth!”), Guitarricadelafuente (“La Bola Negra”), Daniel Pemberton (“Ink,” “Project Hail Mary”), Christopher Spelman (“Paper Tiger”), and Diane Warren (“Maserati: The Brothers”).
“Toy Story 5” production designer Bob Pauley will participate in a special masterclass exploring his more than three decades at Pixar and his role in creating one of animation’s most iconic characters, Buzz Lightyear. A member of the original “Toy Story” creative team who has worked across all five films in the groundbreaking franchise, Pauley designed Buzz Lightyear for the 1995 original and returned as production designer on “Toy Story 5,” helping shape the latest film in the landmark franchise. Pauley will additionally lead a drawing demo, focusing on some of the new characters in “Toy Story 5.”
Additional special guests include Billie Jean King, the subject of Liz Garbus and Elizabeth Wolff’s documentary “Give Me the Ball!” which uses rare archival footage and candid interviews to explore the victories, struggles, and personal sacrifices behind King’s groundbreaking tennis career and her fight for equality in sports and beyond. She will join Middleburg Film Festival founder and board chair Sheila Johnson in a one-on-one post-screening conversation on Sunday, October 18. Actor Bill Pullman will also attend the festival with his new film “Everybody Digs Bill Evans,” director Grant Gee’s unconventional portrait of legendary jazz pianist Bill Evans. Set in 1961, the film follows Evans (Anders Danielsen Lie) in the aftermath of the sudden death of his bassist and close musical collaborator Scott LaFaro, when grief led him to stop playing and retreat from New York to his family home. Pullman portrays Evans’ father, Harry, alongside Laurie Metcalf as his mother. The film is executive produced by MFF advisory board members Albert Berger and Ron Yerxa.
Individual tickets are now on sale, and the schedule and full slate are live on middleburgfilm.org and the festival’s mobile app. The Coca-Cola Company returns as the festival’s presenting sponsor.
Posted on: October 5, 2026