Heads up cinephiles, we've got an exclusive clip from Fugitive Dreams, which is set to make its U.S. debut this week, at the Austin Film Festival. Film Festivals are holding up shockingly well during the pandemic. Of course, we all miss being there in person, the friends you meet in line for the next big festival favorite and the frenzy of post-screening drinks and discussion at the local watering hole. But the sense of community we build at those festivals is staying strong, even during the era of social distance, thanks to innovative all-virtual festivals, drive-in components, and of course, great films.

Next up is the Austin Film Festival, which kicks off its 27th year today with five days of virtual panels and eight days of virtual film screenings. After making its world premiere at this year's Fantasia Film Festival in August, Jason Neulander's film will screen at this year's all virtual AFF. Starring April Matthis and Robbie Tan, the film is touted as an "allegorical road movie touching on themes of homelessness, mental health, and addiction" that follows its leading dup on a journey through America. Check out our exclusive teaser debut below, followed by the official synopsis.

Here's the official synopsis for Fugitive Dreams:

In this allegorical road movie touching on themes of homelessness, mental health, and addiction, two lost souls embark across a dreamscape America. Their darkly strange journey confronts them with their traumatic pasts, and bonds them in compassion and love. Mary, a homeless drifter, is filled with anger and deep depression. When another drifter, John, inadvertently thwarts her suicide attempt, the two form an unlikely partnership across the American Midwest. John brings a certain innocence to their relationship, Mary, a hardened practicality. Mary’s destination is “anywhere but here.” John’s is a place that only exists in his imagination. Along the way they meet a series of figures — ghosts of the road, voices of other cast-outs — deemed disposable by culture. These encounters challenge and torment John and Mary as they journey through a landscape that offers little solace for those living the most precarious of lives. The final leg of their wanderings brings them to the place of John’s dreams where the gray of the real world melts into color and the troubles of their afflictions dissolve away. Over the course of their story, John and Mary come to understand that the home they seek is not a particular place within this country. As they discover in the end, their home is one another.