A Four-Day Recap of NWFFest 2026 at UNLV
March 19–22, 2026 | Las Vegas, NV
Every March, the Flora Dungan Humanities Building on the UNLV campus transforms into something Las Vegas doesn’t always get credit for being: a genuine hub of creative entrepreneurship. The 12th Annual Nevada Women’s Film Festival wrapped last weekend, and if you weren’t there, you missed one of the most compelling demonstrations of what community-driven creative industry building looks like in practice.
Founded in 2015 by UNLV film professor Nikki Corda to address the persistent gender gap in filmmaking, NWFFest has grown into an internationally recognized event that draws filmmakers from 15 countries while remaining stubbornly, proudly rooted in Nevada. This year’s edition — 72 films, four panels, five mixers and meetups, one awards ceremony, and countless hallway conversations was the largest and most ambitious yet. Here’s how it unfolded.
Day One — Thursday, March 19: Opening Night
The festival opened Thursday morning and hit the ground running. The afternoon brought Hollywood Post 43’s Last Stand, a zombie thriller starring Brenda Garcia, Simone Lara, Lana Ford, and Gwyn Laree that delighted a packed opening-day crowd. The evening’s emotional anchor was Sunny Yard, the feature debut of Las Vegas director Trina Colon, a comedy-thriller set against the backdrop of a city junkyard that captivated its audience so completely that the post-screening Q&A ran well past its allotted time.
After the final credits of the night, the festival moved off campus to Lazy Dog Restaurant & Bar at Town Square for the Opening Night Filmmaker Meetup, running from 10 p.m. to midnight. In a gesture that speaks to the festival’s community-first DNA, Lazy Dog arranged for 15% of every bill that night (with a special code) to go directly back to Women in Film Nevada and the festival. Filmmakers, industry professionals, and festival guests filled the space, and the conversations that started there carried through the rest of the weekend.
For entrepreneurs, the lesson of Day One is one worth noting: community is infrastructure. NWFFest doesn’t just program films, it engineers connections at every turn.
Day Two — Friday, March 20: Industry Meets Creativity
Friday was a masterclass in what happens when a film festival takes its industry programming as seriously as its screenings.
The day began with the Filmmaker Morning Meetup at the Starbucks inside the UNLV Student Union, hosted by filmmaker and combat veteran Alicia “Ali B.” Borja, founder of the Desert Waves Film Festival and one of Las Vegas’s most compelling creative advocates. Informal, caffeinated, and genuinely useful for the filmmakers making connections before a long day of screenings.
The afternoon’s centerpiece was the State of the Industry in Nevada panel at 3 p.m., which assembled one of the most impressive collections of Nevada entertainment and arts leadership seen on a single stage in recent memory. Moderated by NWFFest’s Ashley Rapuano Sanchez and Keely Dervin, the panel featured Danette Tull of Film Nevada, director and producer Jeff Lester, Dr. Heather Addison of UNLV Film, Sarah O’Connell of Eat More Art Vegas, Willem Alexander van Bergen Henegouwen of Behind the Scenes Las Vegas, Daz Weller of Vegas Theatre Company and THIRD Street, and Nevada Woman of Achievement honoree Emily Skyle-Golden.
The conversation covered Nevada’s growing role as a production destination, the creative infrastructure being built across the state, and what it actually takes to make a sustainable career in the arts in Las Vegas. For anyone tracking the intersection of entrepreneurship and the creative economy, this was the festival’s panel.
Friday’s film highlight was Anxiety Club at 7:40 p.m., Wendy Lobel’s documentary exploring mental health through the lens of stand-up comedy, featuring Marc Maron, Aparna Nancherla, Baron Vaughn, Tiffany Jenkins, Joe List, Mark Normand, and Eva Victor. The room was still talking about it hours later.
The evening closed with the Eat More Art Vegas TGIF Lounge at Art Therapy Cafe & Gallery in Downtown Las Vegas, a private gathering hosted by Eat More Art Vegas and gallery owner Leah Devora, running from 9:30 p.m. to midnight. Badge holders were welcomed into one of DTLV’s most creatively charged spaces for light refreshments, networking, and the particular kind of energy that only comes from a full day of meaningful cinema.
Day Three — Saturday, March 21: The Big Ideas Day
Barry Gaines, founder and CEO of Gaines Con, Nadya Rousseau, Founder and CEO of Alter New Media, Lauren Jones, and Co-founder of Alter New Media, Actress and Filmmaker Zaybe Valencia Belliver, and Iluvia Giacoman, award-winning vertical film Erasure
If Friday was about Nevada’s industry, Saturday was about where the entire industry is going.
The morning opened with The Perils & Possibilities of Generative AI at 10 a.m.: a panel that didn’t pull punches. Facilitated by UNLV artistic scholar and creative economy consultant Sarah O’Connell and NWFFest Programming Coordinator Jennifer Dean, with UNLV IP law professor Marketa Trimble providing legal context, the hour-long discussion asked filmmakers and creatives to grapple honestly with what AI means for their work, their livelihoods, and their art. For any entrepreneur operating in a creative industry right now, this conversation is unavoidable, and NWFFest hosted it at exactly the right level of rigor.
Saturday’s screenings brought two of the weekend’s most talked-about films. Betsy Kalin’s Lesbians in Boystown, a documentary about the disappearance of lesbian spaces from West Hollywood and the community fighting to preserve what remains, screened at 11 a.m. to a visibly moved audience. Then at 6:40 p.m., Las Vegas filmmaker Aaron W. Brown’s Lolly Dagger Eats Sponge Cake delivered the weekend’s most genre-defiant experience, a film about a playwright, mysterious graffiti, and a stalker that kept its audience completely off-balance from start to finish.
The afternoon brought The Vertical Vision at 3 p.m., a panel co-presented with the Future of Film Association and OPTIX that explored vertical filmmaking and its growing impact on the entertainment industry. Moderated by Sanchez and Dervin with panelists including Future of Film Association founder Chris Reis, award-winning Las Vegas director Deborah Richards, intimacy coordinator and director Esther Gabriel, Vertical Vision Grand Prize winner Lluvia Giacoman, and visual storyteller Roberto Lee Cortes, the panel was paired with a screening of winning films from the inaugural Optix Vertical Vision Micro Filmmaking Challenge. From an entrepreneurial standpoint, the vertical format conversation is one of the most significant disruptions in independent filmmaking today, and NWFFest was ahead of the curve in platforming it.
Lauren Jones, co-founder of Alter New Media, with wives and filmmakers Chris Chew, Betsy Kaling, and Nadya Rousseau, Founder and CEO of Alter New Media
The night ended at Back to the 80’s Cafe & More on Maryland Parkway for the 12th Annual Filmmaker Mixer: Party in Pink, a retro-themed, RSVP-only event that brought filmmakers from around the world together over synth music and nostalgia. This is the kind of event that builds careers. Informal, intentional, and genuinely fun.
Day Four — Sunday, March 22: Community, Achievement, and the Femmy Awards
Danette Tull and Emily Skyle-Golden
Sunday carried the weight and warmth of a closing day done right.
The morning opened with Building a Filmmaking Community at 10 a.m., a panel featuring the full team behind Eccentric Artists, the Las Vegas-based film and event production company that has spent 6 years redefining what it takes to build a creative collective from the ground up. Co-founders Jemsen Yumico Bollozos (three-time Emmy winner), Tiffanie Rose Ignacio, Veronica Castillo, Nadine-Gabrielle Natividad, and Dani Ladner shared their approach to fundraising, collaboration, community building, and making films with purpose. Their upcoming Filipinx Gothic Horror short Gamu-Gamo is in pre-production and already generating buzz. For creative entrepreneurs, this panel was a blueprint. Gamu-Gamo has currently raised: $14,000+ of their $35,500 goal.
At 6 p.m., Emily Skyle-Golden was presented with the 2026 Nevada Woman of Achievement Award in conversation with Danette Tull. Skyle-Golden’s career, spanning HBO, Disney+, and Hallmark, founding the Cordillera International Film Festival and the Film Northern Nevada Initiative, and mentoring underserved youth through the Future Filmmakers Foundation, is itself a masterclass in creative entrepreneurship at the highest level.
Then at 7 p.m., the FDH lobby filled for the Femmy Awards Reception, sponsored by Eat More Art Vegas, before Dr. Heather Addison took the stage at 7:30 p.m. to host 13 awards. Several winners accepted via video message from around the world, a reminder of the global reach this festival has built from a Las Vegas campus. The evening was emotional, joyful, and exactly what a closing night should be.
🏆 The 2026 Femmy Award Winners
Best Short Documentary — The Muralist — Dir. Kari Barber (UNR)
Best Live Action Short — Cottonmouth
Best International Film — Miss Canton
Best Experimental Film — Azkena — Dir. Ane Inés Landeta
Best Student Film — Kool-Aid Stand — Dir. Jennifer Marie
Outstanding LGBTQ+ Representation — Lesbians in Boystown — Dir. Betsy Kalin (accepted in person with wife Chris Chew)
Spirit of Activism — With Grace
Best Female Protagonist — Speed of Life
Best Animated Film — Mextron
Best Feature Film — Silly Little Wounds — Dir. Vanessa Magowan Horrocks Powers
Best Feature Documentary — No Baby on Board — Dir. Julia Kots
Best Nevada Film — The Muralist — Dir. Kari Barber (a rare double win)
Audience Favorite — Sunny Yard — Dir. Trina Colón (Las Vegas, NV)
Lauren Jones and Nadya Rousseau with Betsy Kaling and Chris Chew
Why This Matters Beyond Film
NWFFest is not just a film festival. It is one of the clearest examples in Nevada of what creative entrepreneurship looks like when it’s done with intention, rigor, and genuine community investment.
The festival is run by Women in Film Nevada, a nonprofit founded to address gender inequity in the film industry. It is supported by the Nevada Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts. It is produced in partnership with UNLV, where students gain hands-on professional experience in every aspect of festival operations. Its panels address the real challenges facing creative entrepreneurs: AI, vertical media disruption, industry infrastructure, community building, and sustainability. Its mixers and meetups are not afterthoughts; they are engineered networking opportunities that turn strangers into collaborators.
They do all of this while putting 72 films by and about women on screen from 15 countries in a city the world still underestimates as a creative hub.
Nevada’s creative economy is growing. NWFFest is both a reflection of that growth and one of its primary engines. If you haven’t been paying attention, now is the time to start.
The Nevada Women’s Film Festival is a project of Women in Film Nevada. Full details at nwffest.com.