Learn more about what's showing at the 2025 Albuquerque Film + Music Experience

The Albuquerque Film + Music Experience is back for its 13th iteration and this year’s event features five days of films, a concert series and center stage conversations featuring industry panelists.

Executive Director Kira Sipler finds the festival is important in its support of filmmakers in New Mexico.

“Everybody needs a voice. Students need a voice,” Sipler said. “New Mexico is a strong film industry, and we have so much to offer to support films that are made here.”

Landon Ashworth is the director of “Go On,” one of the 71 films featured this year. The film follows a man in purgatory, and Ashworth said he made “Go On” in honor of his late cousin. The festival gives him a chance to share something deeply personal, he said.

“Independent filmmaking can feel like you’re shouting into the void sometimes, so when a festival says, ‘We hear you, we see your work,’ it’s a moment of validation,” Ashworth wrote in an email.

AFMX will feature several New Mexico filmmakers, Sipler said.

“We love that we can bring all the New Mexico filmmakers together at once, same thing for Indigenous (filmmakers), that’s an important voice to amplify,” Sipler said.

Ashworth’s film is set in New Mexico, and he wanted to be part of the festival because of his connection to the state. “It’s a festival that celebrates both craft and community,” he said.

He said filming in New Mexico became part of his film’s soul.

“New Mexico has a raw, cinematic beauty that you can’t fake on a soundstage,” Ashworth wrote. “The landscapes hold a kind of spiritual weight — vast skies, shifting light, quiet spaces where characters can feel both lost and found.”

Sipler said the Albuquerque Film + Music Experience fills a gap for filmmakers and musicians who need a sense of community.

“We love to bring our local community together,” Sipler said. “New Mexico film block always sells out because all the filmmakers come together, and it’s like one big party.”

AFMX doubled the number of panels this year and includes a Q&A session after a special screening of “The Musicians’ Green Book,” created by Josephine Beavers and Ed Vodicka.

Vodicka said he is excited to share the film because festivals like this are about exposure. “It’s about getting people’s eyeballs on it” and letting audiences interact with them as film creators, he said.

Beavers wanted the film to be something people walked out of smiling.

“We’re just excited to share this film with everyone, because it’s a beautiful love story …” Beavers said. “It’s educational, it’s historical and it’s entertaining, but it does carry a message.”

The film’s creators are excited about the Q&A portion.

“I think it’s going to be interesting for us, because every audience is different,” Vodicka said. “Every city has its own vibe.”

Ashworth said AFMX and festivals like it are a rare place where you can “watch something together, and then unpack it in real time.”

He likes to hear what resonates, lingers and challenges people, he said.

“That exchange is where cinema becomes alive,” Ashworth said.

Albuquerque Film + Music Experience to showcase 71 films