Tucked into the heart of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, the Cosmic Rays Film Festival offers something rare and vital: a space where experimental cinema is not only welcomed, but celebrated. Hosted by the Chelsea Theater—a small, independent venue with a big heart—the festival brings together filmmakers, students, and cinephiles for a few days of bold storytelling and boundary-pushing visuals. In an age where algorithm-driven content dominates screens, the survival of a theater like the Chelsea, and its partnership with a festival like Cosmic Rays, feels nothing short of triumphant. It’s a reminder that communities can still rally around the strange, the beautiful, and the thought-provoking—and that independent cinema, when given the chance, still has the power to move us.
On March 21, moviegoers flooded Theatre 3 for the debut screening of the 7th Annual Cosmic Rays film festival at the Chelsea Theatre in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. The festival is the only independently run festival in the Triangle and represents a hub for moviegoers from across the world. 
The Chelsea Theater served as the host venue for the Cosmic Rays Film Festival, showcasing bold and experimental short films from around the world. The lineup featured a diverse range of categories—including animation, archival footage, family narratives, and avant-garde works—highlighting innovative voices in contemporary filmmaking. 
New York-based writer and filmmaker A.S.M. Kobayashi opened the festival with File No. 2304, a personal exploration of her family’s forced relocation to a Canadian sugar beet farm during Japanese internment. The film draws from a 119-page government file that revealed hidden details of their history. 
File No. 2304 demonstrated a prominent theme in the festival, the connection of different artistic mediums showing a demonstrated interest in mixed-media filmmaking, historical archives, and familial connection for the first program “The Instability of Clouds,” focusing on lost or unnoticed connections. The film ends on an image of the Kobayashi family on the sugar beet farm, a full circle moment where the director sheds light on such a tumultuous time, yet manages to keep her family’s story alive. 
Filmmakers A.S.M. Kobayashi and Susanna Wallin stand front and center at the end of the festival on Friday night for a Q&A event to talk about both of their films. Wallin brought her film Lizzy, a film described as a result of the days spent in the aftermath of the death of a neighbor, who died in the house where she had lived her whole life on the Hillsborough River in Tampa, Florida, and who left behind an electric organ addressed to the filmmaker, without a note. 
In the final moments of the opening event on March 21, founders and runners Kristen Pearson, Sabine Gruffat and Bill Brown closed out the night with a heartfelt raffle, bringing together moviegoers and filmmakers for a warm, communal end to the evening. 
Day Two of the festival began with a line out the door for the “Moving Images” event—a portion of the festival introduced with a riddle: “After all, what kinds of images would appear in a film festival other than those that move? The images here, however, take movement further, in often unexpected directions.” Guest curator Genevieve Yue weaves together imagery of refugees, familial trauma, and mixed media filmmaking to craft an experimental start to the second day of cinema. 
Guests begin to gather in the lobby ahead of the first “Moving Images” event, buzzing with anticipation. The Chelsea Theatre staff keep the energy high and the atmosphere warm, setting the tone with classic film posters, soft lighting, and curated music that channels the spirit of indie cinema. 
Viewers settle into their seats as the filmmakers take the stage, offering a brief but thoughtful introduction. Their words invite the audience to experience the films not just as stories, but as living, shifting works of art—allowing the cinema to slowly reveal itself in layers of sound, image, and emotion. 
Curator Genevieve Yue closes out the second day of the festival with an engaging Q&A session, inviting audiences into the creative and curatorial process behind the “Moving Images” program. She reflects on the themes that guided her selections—displacement, memory, and the boundaries of visual language—while also highlighting the unique techniques used by each filmmaker. 
A quiet image of Theatre 3 stands in stark contrast to the lively crowd that filled its seats just moments earlier. Now empty, the space holds a lingering stillness—almost ghostly in its calm—but not without warmth. For many moviegoers, it marks the reflective end to another successful chapter of the Cosmic Rays Festival. The joy and creative energy shared over the past few days reaffirm Chapel Hill’s identity as a sanctuary for the arts, where community members continue to nurture and celebrate the enduring power of cinema.
