The world’s only film festival dedicated specifically to mushrooms and mycelium is coming to the UCCS Ent Center for the Arts on Sunday, March 8, at 1 p.m.
The festival will take place for one day only and will run for a total of 125 minutes. Noted as a dedication to “the beauty, otherworldliness, and human influences of mushrooms, lichens, and micro fungi,” according to the Fungi Film Fest Website.
The festival will screen 14 short films produced by people from across the world, including one co-created by Visual Arts faculty member Ben Kinsley.
According to Kinsley, UCCS began hosting its own festival in 2020. “(The Fungi Film Fest) was started by mycologist Peter McCoy in 2020 and premieres at a cinema in Portland, Oregon each year. For a couple of months afterward, the program is available for mycological societies to host screenings elsewhere,” Kinsley said.
Kinsley has been collaborating with artists since 2019 on award-winning mushroom costumes for the Telluride Mushroom Festival and has been featured in publications such as Vogue and National Geographic.
Kinsley will be on site during the screening, displaying costumes he created for mushroom films in the past.
Regular tickets for the event will cost $15, but students can get tickets for $5. Kids 12 and under get in for free.
About 30 percent of the event’s ticket sales will go back to the Fungi Film Festival to support next year’s event. The rest of the proceeds will be donated to the UCCS Mycological Society.
Most of the films presented will be documentaries, suitable for all ages.
Interested students can purchase tickets here or contact Ben Kinsley at [email protected] for more information.
The banner for the Fungi Film Fest 2026. Picture by Mountain Lion Connect.