Unorthodocs Shorts 2026

This year’s Unorthodocs shorts program will include two films with Ohio ties: Liz Roberts’s tender portrait Love is the Drug and the Ohio premiere of Nathan Truesdell’s A Derailment

Love is the Drug (Liz Roberts, 2025) weaves together archival and contemporary footage documenting the life and work of Heather Edney, whose drug user organizing began in Santa Cruz, California, while she was caring for an HIV-positive child, MyLeia Loya. The result is a meditation on what it means to take care of each other. The film was made with the support of the Wexner Center’s Film/Video Studio Residency Program.

Screening for the first time in Ohio, A Derailment (Nathan Truesdell, 2026) carefully organizes archival and news footage from the February 2023 derailment of a freight train carrying hazardous materials in East Palestine, Ohio. The film teems with rage toward the individuals in power who let the derailment turn into a health hazard for the residents of East Palestine and surrounding areas. Scored by surrealist prank caller and musician Longmont Potion Castle and executive produced by John Wilson (How To with John Wilson). (program approx. 100 mins., DCP)

Stay tuned for the full program to come!

See the complete Unorthodocs 2026 lineup.

IMAGE CAPTION
Left to right: Love is a Drug, courtesy of the filmmaker. A Derailment, courtesy of the artist.