Festivals - Deauville 2025 : Omaha Moves the Official Competition with Its Quiet Emotional Power

By Mulder, Deauville, Centre international de Deauville, 06 september 2025

Presented in official competition at the Deauville American Film Festival on September 6, 2025, Omaha marked one of the most intimate and emotionally grounded screenings of this 51st edition, shown at the Deauville International Centre. Introduced in person by director Cole Webley alongside actors John Magaro and Molly Belle Wright, the film immediately set a contemplative tone that contrasted sharply with some of the more overtly political or high-concept titles in competition. The post-screening Q&A reinforced this impression of sincerity, with Cole Webley speaking openly about the fragility of the project and John Magaro addressing the audience with a disarming humility that echoed his on-screen presence. The Deauville crowd, traditionally attentive to character-driven American cinema, responded with focused silence during the screening, followed by thoughtful questions that lingered on the film’s emotional ambiguity rather than its plot mechanics.

Directed by Cole Webley from a screenplay by Robert Machoian, Omaha is a 2025 American drama that follows a father who abruptly takes his two children, Ella and Charlie, on a cross-country journey after losing their home in the wake of a family tragedy. Played with restrained intensity by John Magaro, the father is less a guide than a figure in quiet free fall, navigating grief without the language to explain it to his children. The film also stars Molly Belle Wright and Wyatt Solis, whose performances avoid sentimentality and instead ground the story in the unfiltered perceptions of childhood. Produced by Preston Lee, the film runs a concise 83 minutes, a choice that reinforces its stripped-down, almost documentary-like approach to loss and displacement.

The origins of Omaha stretch back far earlier than its Deauville premiere. Screenwriter Robert Machoian, a professor of photography at Brigham Young University, first conceived the story in 2008, long before his recognition on the indie circuit. He submitted an early version of the script to the Sundance Screenwriters Lab in 2013, where it was rejected, an experience he has since described as formative rather than discouraging. Persistence paid off years later when Robert Machoian premiered The Killing of Two Lovers at Sundance in 2020, establishing a cinematic language centered on emotional restraint and observational realism. That film’s success eventually led to his collaboration with Cole Webley, whom he met at Sundance, and who immediately connected with the script for Omaha, choosing it as his feature directorial debut.

Production on Omaha officially began in 2022 following the partnership between Robert Machoian and Cole Webley, with filming taking place over 20 days in Utah. The choice of location was far from incidental, as the film makes evocative use of historic mining towns and the stark openness of the Utah salt flats, captured through the measured cinematography of Paul Meyers. These landscapes are not used as postcard imagery but as emotional extensions of the characters’ inner states, emphasizing isolation, transience, and the unsettling beauty of unfamiliar territory. Editing by Jai Shukla further reinforces this rhythm, favoring ellipses and quiet transitions over explanatory beats, while the understated score by Christopher Bear supports the film’s mood without imposing emotional cues.

Omaha made its world premiere on January 23, 2025, in the U.S. Dramatic Competition at the Sundance Film Festival, where it was noted for its minimalist storytelling and emotional precision. In April 2025, Greenwich Entertainment acquired the North American distribution rights, confirming confidence in the film’s long-term theatrical potential. The film is scheduled for release in the United States on April 24, 2026, followed by a French release on June 17, 2026, through Condor Distribution. Produced by Sanctuary Content, Kaleidoscope Pictures, and Monarch Content, the film’s journey from an initially rejected script to international festival competition feels almost mirrored by its narrative themes of persistence and quiet resilience.

At Deauville, Omaha stood out not by volume but by absence of melodrama, of narrative over-explanation, of easy catharsis. In conversations after the screening, Cole Webley emphasized his desire to trust the audience’s emotional intelligence, a philosophy that resonated strongly in a festival historically attuned to nuanced American storytelling. As the film continues its international festival path ahead of its 2026 release, its Deauville reception positions it as one of those discreet discoveries that linger in memory, less for what they declare than for what they allow viewers to feel, absorb, and interpret in their own time.

You can discover our review here

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Synopsis : 
After a family tragedy, siblings Ella and Charlie are unexpectedly awakened by their father and taken on a journey across the country, discovering a world they have never seen before.

Omaha
Directed by Cole Webley
Written by Robert Machoian
Produced by Preston Lee
Starring  John Magaro, Molly Belle Wright, Wyatt Solis
Cinematography : Paul Meyers
Edited by Jai Shukla
Music by Christopher Bear
Production companies : Sanctuary Content, Kaleidoscope Pictures, Monarch Content
Distributed by Greenwich Entertainment (United States), Condor Distribution (France)
Release dates : January 23, 2025 (Sundance); April 24, 2026 (United States), June 17, 2026 (France)
Running time : 83 minutes

Photos and video: Boris Colletier / Mulderville