The Over-the-Rhine International Film Festival is the nation’s first diversity film festival led by people from the disability community. It grew out of the disability-focused ReelAbilities Film Festival started in New York in 2008, and Cincinnati became the first city outside of New York to host a ReelAbilities Film Festival. In 2014, the national program was taken over by Living Arrangements for the Developmentally Disabled (LADD). In 2018, LADD started its own destination festival, the Over-the-Rhine International Film Festival, a diversity film festival led by the disability community.
The Over-the-Rhine International Film Festival brings together films that celebrate difference and honor shared humanity across five tracks (freedom, diversity, disability, faith and identity), stories that are untold or under-told through film. Using cinema as a tool to build empathy, the festival organizers create experiences for filmmakers and audiences that expand beyond the screen into the outside world and into real human relationships.
Over-the-Rhine Film Festival 2025
The Over-the-Rhine International Film Festival will take place March 6-8, 2025. Passes to the 2025 festival are available now.
Creating Opportunities
The festival creates opportunities and spaces for individuals with developmental disabilities to participate in and share their experiences through programming and events. The level of achievement and recognition the festival has earned is significant:
- “MovieMaker Magazine” named the Over-the-Rhine International Film Festival as one of the “25 Coolest Film Festivals in the World” for 2022.
- “MovieMaker Magazine” also named it a festival of note and one of the reasons Cincinnati made its list of “The Best Places to Live and Work as a Moviemaker, 2024.”
- Greater Cincinnati Chamber gave it a CLIMB (Cincinnati Lifts Inclusion and Minority Business) Award in 2018.
- This festival was the only film festival (outside of Sundance) to screen “CODA,” a 2021 coming-of-age comedy-drama that tells the story of a child of deaf adults. The film received multiple Academy Award nominations.
Subjects addressed in past films include a high-level video gamer living with a degenerative muscular disease, a young man with Down syndrome who takes up boxing, members of a rock band who are all autistic and a young woman navigating bipolar disorder.
The festival presents awards in collaboration with partner organizations during the festival. In 2023, the film festival saw its most significant number of attendees, thanks partly to special guests Martin Sheen and his son Emilio Estevez. The father and son held an exclusive, intimate discussion of film, family and their immersive roots in Ohio.
Leading a Festival Focused on Disability
Since 2019, Molly Lyons has been the festival director of the Over-the-Rhine International Film Festival. She also serves as LADD’s chief development officer. As a lawyer and community outreach professional with over 20 years of experience in the public and private sectors, Molly has expertise in advocacy, policy analysis and nonprofit organizations.
Molly grew up in Cincinnati and joined LADD in 2014. Her leadership is driven by her commitment to building inclusive communities and her own experience as someone with myotonic congenita, a movement disability that affects her mobility.
“The Over-the-Rhine International Film Festival is truly a community event celebrating the diverse experiences of individuals, many of whom are underrepresented in popular culture,” Molly said. “You’ll see films that make you laugh, cry or do both simultaneously. We hope festivalgoers find new perspectives… and we hope that some see themselves reflected on the big screen, perhaps for the first time.”
tt stern-enzi is the artistic director of the Over-the-Rhine International Film Festival and curates the festival’s mix of narrative and documentary features as well as shorts programs. tt engages with filmmakers and provides oversight for competition films including arranging festival jury members.
tt is a member of the Board of Directors for the Film Festival Alliance and a member of the Critics Choice Association. He is an adjunct instructor for the University of Cincinnati’s Journalism Department. tt holds Bachelor of Science degrees in economics and organizational behavior from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. In 2014, tt received an Individual Excellence Award from the Ohio Arts Council.
Enjoy a Visit to The Historic Over-the-Rhine Neighborhood
The Over-the-Rhine neighborhood (commonly referred to as “OTR”) in downtown Cincinnati celebrates diverse backgrounds and provides the opportunity to shop, see art and find community. Vibrant, eclectic and walkable, the area is home to restaurants, bars, pubs and Findlay Market, Ohio’s oldest farmers market.
In the heart of the OTR neighborhood is Washington Park, the site of the classical performance venue Music Hall, which hosts the Cincinnati Ballet, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and the Cincinnati Opera.
“It is a pleasant surprise for those who visit Cincinnati for the first time to attend the Over-the-Rhine Film Festival. I’ve had conversations with celebrities, those who work in the film industry and attendees who are genuinely impressed by what our city has to offer – the food, art and culture,” said Molly.