Day Two Recap: Nevada Women’s Film Festival 2026

Barry Gaines, founder and CEO of Gaines Con, Nadya Rousseau, Founder and CEO of Alter New Media, Lauren Jones, co-founder of Alter New Media, Actress and Filmmaker Zaybe Valencia Belliver, and Iluvia Giacoman, award-winning vertical film Erasure

Friday Brings Panels, Packed Screenings & a Late Night in DTLV

March 20, 2026 | Las Vegas, NV

If Thursday was about arrival and opening-night energy, Friday was about settling in, and NWFFest Day Two delivered a full, layered schedule that ranged from a morning coffee meetup to a powerhouse industry panel to late-night community vibes in Downtown Las Vegas.

Coffee, Connections, and Ali B.

The day started early and warmly. The Filmmaker Morning Meetup convened at the Starbucks inside the UNLV Student Union from 9:45 to 10:45 a.m., hosted by filmmaker and combat veteran Alicia “Ali B.” Borja founder of the Desert Waves Film Festival and an increasingly prominent voice in the Las Vegas creative community. The casual format was the point: no agenda, just filmmakers from around the world grabbing coffee in the building right next door to the screening room, finding their footing before a full day of cinema. It’s the kind of gathering that festival-goers remember long after the films fade.

A Full Day of Films

Screenings ran across the day at the Flora Dungan Humanities Building, drawing from NWFFest’s ambitious 72-film lineup spanning 15 countries. One standout of the Friday slate was Anxiety Club at 7:40 p.m., Wendy Lobel’s documentary examining mental health through the unexpected but entirely fitting lens of stand-up comedy. Featuring Tiffany Jenkins, Joe List, Marc Maron, Aparna Nancherla, Mark Normand, Eva Victor, and Las Vegas’s own Baron Vaughn, the film makes a compelling case that comedy and anxiety have always been inseparable and that the comedians who talk about it most openly may be doing the most important work. It was the kind of documentary that leaves an auditorium buzzing.

The State of the Industry in Nevada

Friday’s marquee event came at 3 p.m.: the much-anticipated panel The State of the Industry in Nevada, held in FDH Screening Room 105 and moderated by NWFFest’s Ashley Rapuano Sanchez and Keely Dervin. The conversation brought together one of the most impressive collections of Nevada film and arts leadership seen on one stage in recent memory.

Danette Tull, Deputy Director of Film Nevada, spoke to the state’s growing role as a production destination and the economic momentum behind it. Director and producer Jeff Lester, whose credits include work for Robert Redford’s Sundance Channel and a short film starring Billy Bob Thornton, brought a seasoned industry perspective. Dr. Heather Addison, Chair of the UNLV Department of Film, offered an academic and institutional lens on where Nevada’s creative infrastructure is headed. Sarah O’Connell, Artistic Director of The Asylum Theatre and founder of EatMoreArtVegas.com, spoke to community-building and the creative economy.

Willem Alexander van Bergen Henegouwen, founder of Behind the Scenes Las Vegas, addressed the gap between independent talent and major production houses operating in the city. Daz Weller, Artistic Director of Vegas Theatre Company and founding CEO of THIRD Street, an arts and media incubator converting a downtown cinema complex into a multi-venue creative campus, made perhaps the most forward-looking case for what Las Vegas could become as a cultural infrastructure city. And Emily Skyle-Golden, this year’s Nevada Woman of Achievement honoree, lent her experience building the Cordillera International Film Festival and the Film Northern Nevada Initiative to the conversation.

It was, by any measure, a defining moment for the festival a room full of people who have bet on Nevada’s creative future and are actively building it.

TGIF: The Eat More Art Vegas Lounge at Art Therapy Cafe

When the final Friday screening wrapped, the festival moved off campus and into Downtown Las Vegas. From 9:30 p.m. to midnight, the Eat More Art Vegas TGIF Lounge took over Art Therapy Cafe & Gallery at 353 E. Bonneville Ave. a private post-fest gathering hosted by Eat More Art Vegas and gallery owner Leah Devora.

Badge holders were welcomed in for light refreshments, creative conversation, and the particular kind of decompression that only a relaxed, all-ages space in a working gallery can provide. The vibe was deliberately unhurried: a full day of screenings winds you up in ways you don’t fully notice until someone hands you something to drink and puts you somewhere beautiful. Art Therapy Cafe, tucked into the creative corridor of DTLV, was exactly the right landing spot. Devora’s gallery provided not just a backdrop but a whole other kind of storytelling to take in.

It was a fitting close to a Friday that proved NWFFest isn’t just a film festival it’s a community that keeps finding new rooms to gather in.

Looking Ahead

Saturday brings the Generative AI panel with UNLV scholars Sarah O’Connell, Jennifer Dean, and IP law professor Marketa Trimble, followed by The Vertical Vision panel and screening in the afternoon. The Party in Pink mixer is on the horizon. The weekend is far from over.