Domestic Animals Honored at the 68th Rochester International Film Festival

Domestic Animals has earned a Certificate of Merit for Shot Composition from the Rochester International Film Festival — one of the longest-running film festivals in the United States, established in 1959 and held annually at the historic Dryden Theater in Rochester, New York.

Domestic Animals Honored at the 68th Rochester International Film Festival

Sandy and I are genuinely grateful for this recognition. RIFF receives a substantial volume of submissions each year, and the fact that the committee took the time to engage seriously with the film — and to offer written feedback — speaks to the care and integrity of the festival. That kind of thoughtful attention to independent work matters.

The committee noted what they described as the high quality of nonverbal acting between the leads, the film's cinematography, and the use of color to build a growing sense of anxiety and dread. Several members were struck by the conceptual framework — a film that takes the familiar iconography of domestic life and distorts it into something closer to a Poe tale: the piano, the television, the family dinner, the lingering smoke. One committee member wrote personally about the inclusion of the cat as witness and observer, calling the film "creative, powerful and haunting."

That means a great deal to us.

Domestic Animals continues its festival journey, and every response — every viewer who sits with this story — reminds us why we made it.