2025 Atlanta Spotlight Film Festival

A BUTTERFLY HAS BEEN RELEASED

Jason Zamer, Barry Koch / United States / 36:33

A Butterfly Has Been Released follows hospice nurse Allyson during her final 39 days with brain cancer. With honesty and humor, she shares her dying experience, hosts a “living funeral,” and plans her own green burial. Her story offers a deeply human look at life, death, and finding meaning to the very end.

DEATH: THE LIFE OF MIKE EGAN

Doug Helmick / United States / 11:54

A portrait of artist Mike Egan, whose coffin paintings explore life, death, and transformation. Through bold imagery and reflection, the film reveals how Egan’s art turns mortality into a meditation on change, memory, and the beauty of impermanence.

LIVING UNDONE

Amanda Kasmira Cryer / United States / 19:56 

A short documentary that transcends political divides, the stories of individuals and their families reveals the harsh realities of a criminal justice system that stigmatizes rather than rehabilitates, urging society to confront its complicity and advocate for a future where healing, understanding, and second chances are possible for all.

WALKING WITH SHACKLETON

Roberto Serrini / Antarctica / 13:00

Voiced by Chris Sullivan (“This Is Us,” “Guardians of the Galaxy”), Walking with Shackleton contrasts quotes from Sir Ernest Shackleton’s 1909 Antarctic expedition with modern footage from Quark Expeditions’ Ultramarine, showing how travel has changed while the human drive to push limits endures.