Sidewalk Film Center packs late-May calendar with indie films, events

Sidewalk Film Center + Cinema is giving Birmingham’s indie crowd a full late-May run of reasons to come back, with repertory titles, documentary fare, community nights and discussion-heavy programming all stacked into the same stretch. The center’s listings for Wednesday, May 27, and Thursday, May 28, include I Love Boosters, The Python Hunt, Backrooms and SHOUT Movie Night Presented by BAO: Mommie Dearest, while June 4 brings Knitflix and Chill with Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.

The strongest hook in the bunch is SHOUT Movie Night, which Sidewalk presents and curates with Birmingham AIDS Outreach. The series is designed to be diverse and inclusive, and the Mommie Dearest screening is free with first-come, first-served seating. That gives it an easy entry point for casual moviegoers, but it also fits the kind of community-minded programming that keeps Sidewalk from feeling like just another theater booking whatever is available.

The rest of the calendar keeps the repertory side honest. I Love Boosters follows a crew of inventive young women who turn shoplifting into a form of defiance, while The Python Hunt tracks Florida’s annual python-removal competition. Backrooms rounds out the May listings, and Sidewalk is also keeping its Book + Film Club in the mix with Unmasking The Silence of the Lambs, a monthly screening and discussion series built around Yvonne Tasker’s BFI Film Classics book on the film. Sidewalk frames that title around gender, gothic, horror, thriller and crime, which is exactly the kind of conversation bait that gives a screening a second life after the credits roll.

That broader approach makes sense for a venue that says it is a federally recognized 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to encouraging filmmaking in Alabama and building audiences for independent film. Sidewalk operates in the restored Pizitz Building at 1821 2nd Ave. N. in downtown Birmingham’s Historic Theatre District, and it says the cinema is KultureCity certified. It also produces the nationally recognized Sidewalk Film Festival, whose 28th edition is set for August 24-30, 2026, with more than 200 films plus filmmaker Q&As, panels, workshops, networking events and parties.

Late May’s schedule works because it mixes access and specificity: a free camp classic, a python documentary with a clear hook, a shoplifting comedy-drama with bite, and a book club that treats the screening like the start of the discussion, not the end of it. That is what Birmingham’s indie film culture looks like when it is actually moving, not just filling slots.