FreedomFest 2025

Want to get the most out of your FreedomFest experience? What’s new, what’s back, and what’s better — FreedomFest Producer Mark Skousen will give you the scoop! With over 200 speakers, dozens of breakout sessions, 24 films, and fun social activities every night, you need help planning your week! Join FreedomFest producer Mark Skousen and Anthem producer Jo Ann Skousen as they share highlights of the week and what they are most looking forward to seeing, hearing, and doing.

Two college basketball teams in Jim Crow North Carolina, each at it peak, risk it all to play an illegal interracial game. This secret game changed the trajectory of basketball and helped set the stage for the coming Civil Rights era and a new kind of America.

Two decades ago, Jason Pearson and his wife were confronted with a profound question: they had created spare embryos through in vitro fertilization, but now what should they do with them? “Spares” tells the personal stories of four couples who chose to adopt or put their fertilized embryos up for adoption, taking viewers on a riveting journey through the ethical, scientific, and legal landscape of this new and somewhat bizarre technology.

Just ten days before his death, Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter to the Mayor of Washington replying to an invitation to attend a Jubilee of the nation’s founding. This film is a fine retelling of that last letter, reflecting on his full life of creation and contribution, made more timely by the coming 250th anniversary of his most famous work, the Declaration of Independence. John Fund, Q&A.

In 1881, America gasped at the assassination of President Garfield – cut down by the bullet of Charles Guiteau, an avid believer in the spoils system of corrupt appointments to government jobs. Garfield had opposed this system, but his death led to – very much intentionally by Guiteau – the rise of Vice President Chester Arthur. In contrast, Arthur had not only supported the spoils system, but owed his entire career in government to the corruption of the New York political machine. No one expected anything different from Arthur’s presidency – except for one person. Julia Sand, a 30-year-old New Yorker of no renown, believed Arthur could become someone better, and challenged him to smash the bureaucratic system that brought him to power.

(Sneak peek– not in competition) Following an excerpt of the upcoming film “Carl Menger,” director Tomasz Agencki, economist Mark Skousen, and Center’s director Barbara Kolm will discuss the significance of Carl Menger as a major voice in the Austrian Economics movement. The will explain how Menger built his system, what shaped it, and how he tried to change reality. Are Menger’s ideas still valid today? What can modern economists do with tools that were unavailable to Menger?