Movie Intelligence
Independent Films, Documentaries, Special Screenings, and Simulcasts
Now, Millerton
Fivedays at The Moviehouse
Every Wednesday, all films are just $5! Now is your chance to see some of the best movies of the year and stay on budget. Check websites for times.
May 16 - 23, Rhinebeck
Renoir
Set on the French Riviera in the summer of 1915, this drama tells the story of celebrated Impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir, in declining health at age 74, and his middle son Jean, who returns home to convalesce after being wounded in World War I. Upstate Films. Check website for times.
May 16 - 26
National Theare Live: This House
It’s 1974 and the corridors of Westminster ring with the sound of infighting and backbiting as Britain’s political parties battle to change the future of the nation, whatever it takes. The Moviehouse, Millerton; Cinerom, Torrington; The Clark, Williamstown.
May 17 - 21, Pittsfield
The Gatekeepers
A documentary by Dror Moreh, nominated for a 2012 Academy Award, featuring interviews with all surviving former heads of Shin Bet, the Israeli security agency whose activities and membership are closely held state secrets. The Little Cinema at Berkshire Museum. Check website for times.
May 17 - 22, Winsted
42
The story of two men—the great Jackie Robinson and legendary Brooklyn Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey—whose brave stand against prejudice forever changed the world by changing the game of baseball. Gilson Cafe and Cinema. Check website for times.
May 17 - 23, Rhinebeck
The Company You Keep
Robert Redford stars as a former Weather Underground activist on the run from a journalist who has discovered his identity. Upstate Films. Check website for times.
May 17 - 24, Millerton
Scatter My Ashs at Bergdorf’s
A documentary on the Manhattan department store with interviews from an array of fashion designers, style icons, and celebrities. The Moviehouse. Check website for times.
May 18 - June 2, Hudson
Andre Gregory: Before & After Dinner
A witty and often hilariously funny raconteur, Gregory looks back on a career that spanned decades, shattered boundaries, and established him as a cultural icon. Time & Space Limited. Check website for times.
May 24 - June 2, Hudson
Ain’t in it for My Health
For more than two years, filmmaker Jacob Hatley lived in Woodstock at Levon Helm’s and what emerges is a portrait of a man who lived to make music, a man known worldwide for his soulful voice as well as his multi-instrumental skills. Time & Space Limited. Check website for times.
May 30 - June 2, Pittsfield and Great Barrington
Berkshire International Film Festival
The 8th annual event will bring films, filmmakers, industry professionals, and film fans together for a four-day showcase, featuring 27 documentaries, 25 narrative features, and 24 short films. Check website for times.
June 2, Williamstown
Reunion Weekend
Buzkashi Boys, ParaNorman 3D, and The Muppets will screen as part of a children’s themed film series. Images Cinema. 4:30 p.m.
June 13, Millerton
NT Live: The Audience
Helen Mirren reprises her Academy Award winning role as Queen Elizabeth II, broadcast live from London’s Gielgud Theatre as part of National Theatre Live. The Moviehouse. Check website for times.
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Posted by Rachel Louchen on 10/11/12 at 03:17 PM • Permalink
Film Festivals: Get Out Your Handkerchiefs
So you missed your chance. But why waste tears on regret? Sure, opening night at the Williamstown Film Festival and the ever-popular Saturday Night Sneak at the FilmColumbia Festival are both (predictably, at this late date) SOLD OUT. But there is still plenty of powerful hanky action to be wrung from the films being screened at two major festivals in the RI region this week.
Laughter: When was the last time a rom-com inspired you to stand up and cheer? That’s what audiences at the Toronto Film Festival did last May after the screening of Silver Linings Playbook, directed by David O. Russell and starring Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence (above). Find out why at 1:45 p.m. at the Crandell in Chatham on Sunday, October 21.
Tears: Any Day Now, playing at Images in Williamstown at 2:15 on Thursday afternoon, won the audience award for best narrative feature earlier this year at the Tribeca Film Festival. Set in 1970s Los Angeles, it is about a semi-closeted gay couple (the singer is out, the assistant D.A., naturally, in) and their struggle to legally adopt the sorely neglected, mentally-challenged boy next door. By all accounts, the boy is played with such effect that actor Isaac Leyva all but steals the picture from, among others, the always riveting Alan Cumming. Great music, too.
Wonder: Cloud Atlas, this sci-fi, fantasy, adventure drama based on a bestselling novel, is so sprawling that it required three directors (the Wachowski sibs of Matrix fame plus Tom Tykwer) to herd all those special effects and stars (Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Jim Broadbent, Susan Sarandon, and Hugh Grant, to name but a few). The question remains: Did the audience at Toronto give this film a 10-minute standing ovation because of the big emotional payoff at the end? Or were they simply relieved that, after 3 hours stuck in their seats, they were finally allowed to stand up and make some noise? At the Crandell on Friday, October 19, 12:30 p.m.
Outrage: Love Orchard, a fiction film about the strife that is every illegal immigrant’s daily dread, is set on a farm that bears a striking resemblance to the Love Apple Farm on Route 9H in Columbia County. Written by that farm’s owner, Chris Loken (at left with director Farhad Mann and co-star Bruce Dern), and co-starring Loken’s daughter Kristanna Loken as the young attorney who defies her firm’s anti-immigration stance to take up one family’s particularly wrenching cause. Demand for tickets to this was such that the first screening immediately sold out, so FilmColumbia has scheduled a second one for Sunday night at the Morris Memorial Building at 6 p.m. —Marilyn Bethany
Williamstown Film Festival , Williamstown, MA
FilmColumbia Festival, Chatham, NY
Both from October 17 through October 21.
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Posted by Marilyn Bethany on 10/10/12 at 05:17 AM • Permalink
The Litchfield Hills Film Festival Finds a New Home, and a New Name
When Frank and Patrice Galterio launched the Kent Film Festival in 2006, they didn’t even know how to run a projector. The couple was more than a little surprised, and relieved, when upwards of 400 people showed up for the Festival’s maiden run of 45 films over two days. It was immediately clear that the Galterios were on the right track with their mission to bring great, under-the-radar films to Northwest Connecticut.
Attendance and programming have grown ever since, and in response the Galterios have increased the Festival’s capacity, first by moving its base from the tiny village of Kent’s Community House to New Milford’s Bank Street Theater in 2010. This year they’ve again relocated the Festival to what they believe will be its permanent home, Torrington, and renamed it the Litchfield Hills Film Festival.
During its run from June 28 to July 1, the Festival will screen about 80 films – culled from thousands of entries from around the world, including documentaries, features, and shorts – at three venues: the historic Warner Theatre’s Nancy Marine Studio “Black Box” Theatre; the auditorium at Torrington City Hall; and an empty storefront at 73 Main Street that has been converted into a “pop-up” cinema and registration area. And since it wouldn’t be a festival without parties, there will be three receptions in the Warner Theatre: on opening night, Friday night, and Saturday night.
While the Festival’s size and scope have expanded, the Galterios intend to maintain its local flavor. That’s not difficult in a region that many notable actors call home. Kevin Bacon, Meryl Streep, and the late Lynn Redgrave are among the area’s celebrity residents who have participated in years past.
Campbell Scott, known for his leading roles in high-quality films such as The Spanish Prisoner, Roger Dodger, and Big Night, which he co-directed, and who is about to go big again in the role of Richard Parker, Peter Parker’s father, in the summer blockbuster The Amazing Spider-Man, is a regular. This year he returns to offer a sneak peak of his new film, Company Retreat, a spoof of reality TV, described as a hilarious cross between Survivor and The Apprentice, which was filmed in Torrington. Company Retreat screens on Saturday, June 30, at 7:15 at the Warner Theatre, followed by a Q&A, and then a gala to celebrate Scott’s new work and his career.
The Galterios note that part of the mission of the Festival is to help develop local filmmakers by exposing them to eager, savvy audiences and to increase the Festival’s educational aspect by expanding it into a two-week enterprise, with ongoing workshops and classes on creating short films. Throughout the year, the Galterios hope to partner with the Warner to present new work by local directors, including Gabe Napoleon from Kent, a volunteer with this year’s festival whose two-minute short, Process, explores the process of drawing through stop-motion animation. Napoleon’s film is included in one of ten distinct programs of shorts. (Napoleon is in the top photo, at right, with the Galterios, center, and fellow volunteer Amanda Asrelsky, at left.)
Patrice Galterio, an accomplished graphic designer, notes that this year’s festival has a rich documentary component, including a series of four films focusing on veterans’ issues that will be screened Sunday, July 1, at Torrington City Hall. Among them are American Veterans: Discarded and Forgotten, about the ongoing problem of homelessness among the nation’s veteran population, and Eleven, featuring interviews with 11 veterans of military conflicts ranging from World War II to the current conflagrations in Iraq and Afghanistan. These films cover issues that are close to the heart of Torrington residents who have seen a disproportionate number of their young men – and, more recently, women – answer the call to serve in the military.
Other slated documentaries include #whilewewatch, a film that follows the Occupy Wall Street movement from its beginnings in New York City’s Zuccotti Park to the current day; Whiskey & Apple Pie, a cross-country journey featuring interviews with Americans in their 70s and older; Knocking on Death’s Door, which explores nuclear disasters around the world; and Dislecksia: The Movie, which spotlights success stories of dyslexics, a selection that holds specific appeal to Festival co-founder Frank Galterio, an artist, photographer, and filmmaker who has learned to overcome this affliction and even use it to his advantage. Many filmmakers will be in attendance to participate in Q&As after the screenings of their work.
Patrice Galterio says that over its six-year history, the Festival’s success and growth has meant a lot of work, leading her to seek out new venues that would be able to accommodate more films and larger audiences. She realizes that it’s a good problem to have, and one that has a happy resolution. “The festival will actually be a little bit easier this year because the venues are set, our projection is great, and the Warner is taking care of selling tickets,” she says. Speaking of which, full Festival passes cost $99 and include access to all films and events. Day passes are available for $29, and single-film tickets cost $9. Party animals can also buy passes to the receptions for $20 each.
Galterio is sanguine about the success of the Litchfield Hills Film Festival, and she thinks this cultural happening will prove a boon to its new home. “We live here in the Northwest Hills and we love it,” she says. “The main thing the festival needs is a good theater, a space. There are a lot of filmmakers who are on the level of the Campbell Scotts of the world who want their movies shown with great sound and great video. We have to have great venues, and I feel like Torrington has so many cultural community things going on that we’re really part of something. It’s going to be the next Great Barrington.” – Michael Marciano
The Litchfield Hills Film Festival
June 28 - July 1
Torrington, CT
Films will screen at The Warner Theatre, City Hall Auditorium, and The Main Street “Pop-Up” Theatre.
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Posted by Bess Hochstein on 06/26/12 at 07:31 AM • Permalink
BIFF Thinks Globally, Presents Locally
The Berkshire International Film Festival, running May 31 – June 3, takes the international part of its name seriously. For her seventh annual Festival, founder Kelley Vickery has slated more than 70 independent films from more than 15 countries, from Estonia to Tanzania.
BIFF’s global scope also encompasses talent and subjects much closer to home. Among the Festival’s three major documentaries, two focus on local artists. Following the opening night screening of Ethel, Rory Kennedy’s feature-length portrait of her mother, Ethel Kennedy, on Thursday, May 31, Friday night’s agenda includes a screening of the documentary Marina Abramović: The Artist is Present—and indeed, she will be. Abramović, who is creating her Center for the Preservation of Performing Arts in Hudson, will attend and participate in a post-screening Q&A.
The Festival closes on Sunday, June 3, with a screening of Gregory Crewdson: Brief Encounters, a documentary focused on the photographer’s extensive work in the Berkshires producing his acclaimed cinematic photographic series, Beneath the Roses. Both Crewdson (above, with Festival founder Vickery) and director Ben Shapiro spent a good deal of their childhood summers at their families’ Berkshire vacation homes, and Crewdson now works from a studio at his own home outside of Great Barrington. This is the only screening of the film at which Crewdson will speak, in a panel that also includes Shapiro and Joe Thompson, executive director of MASS MoCA, where many of the images in Beneath the Roses were produced. A good portion of the film’s crew will also be in attendance.
Nestled between these blockbusters, other documentaries with local links have found a place on the Festival’s roster, particularly among the three programs of shorts. Within Shorts #1 is Leon Smith: A Life of Art, Jay Corcoran’s 14-minute film about the life and work of this 78-year-old Ancramdale sculptor.
In Shorts #2, another Berkshire-based artist finds himself on the other side of the lens. For all of eight minutes, Ken Regan: Rock Photographer puts the focus on the man who produced iconic images of every rock star from Bob Dylan to George Harrison, to the Rolling Stones and The Band. On Saturday afternoon, Berkshire resident Regan will be signing copies of his new book, All Access: The Rock & Roll Photography of Ken Regan, in the lobby of The Triplex Cinema.
Shorts #3 includes Mondays at Racine, a 40-minute documentary about a beauty parlor offering complimentary services to women undergoing chemotherapy. The film’s director, Berkshire-based filmmaker Cynthia Wade, who won an Academy Award in 2008 for her short documentary Freeheld, will be in attendance at the screenings, as will the film’s subjects and much of its crew.
Tracking back to feature-length documentaries, Lemon earns a place among Festival films with local ties. Filmmaker Beth Levison, who grew up in Pittsfield, co-directed this portrait of Tony Award-winning Puerto Rican slam poet Lemon Andersen and his struggles to forge a better life life for himself through his talent and creativity. The filmmakers will be in attendance.
And for an international film with a local angle, check out the German feature Wunderkinder, the story of three children, bound by their passion for music, who are swept up in the Holocaust. Lenox resident Stephen Glantz, a member of the Berkshire Film and Media Commisson’s board of directors, is one of Wunderkinder’s four screenwriters. This film has already racked up scores of awards on the international festival circuit; its BIFF screenings offer a rare opportunity for local audiences to see one of Glantz’s films, which also include the German features Babij Jar, The Last Train, and the upcoming If Stones Could Cry, which is scheduled to be shot in September. Glantz will attend the screenings of his film. —Bess J.M. Hochstein
The 7th Annual Berkshire International Film Festival
May 31 - June 3
Screenings at The Mahaiwe and The Triplex Cinema in Great Barrington, and at the Beacon Cinema in Pittsfield
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Posted by Bess Hochstein on 05/30/12 at 08:42 AM • Permalink
Shorts: A Filmmaking Roundtable and A Juried Contest for Young Filmmakers
The Columbia Land Conservancy and The Chatham Film Club are seeking entries for a juried competition. Filmmakers 16 to 25 are invited to submit original shorts (max. 30 minutes) about land conservation, agriculture, land-use planning, environmental education, or outdoor recreation, all aspect of the Conservancy’s work. A jury of filmmakers, conservationists, and arts professionals will select the winning film, which will be shown in October at the FilmColumbia Festival. The winning filmmaker will receive a cash prize. All entries must be submitted in DVD format to the Chatham Film Club before August 1.
IS183 Art School, in collaboration with the Berkshire Film and Media Commission, is hosting a series of discussions about the process of filmmaking with industry professionals on Tuesdays, 6:30 p.m. - 8:30 p.m., July 26 and August 2. Admission/free/. .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
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Posted by Marilyn Bethany on 07/06/11 at 03:46 AM • Permalink
Crandell Celebrates Anniversary with Special Screenings
This weekend, the Chatham Film Club, which bought Chatham’s historic Crandell Theatre last year, is celebrating its one-year anniversary as owners with a weekend of special movie events, including two rarely seen Buster Keaton silent films, with live musical accompaniment, and the local premiere of Project Nim, a documentary by the makers of the 2009 Oscar-winner, Man on Wire. Their new film was inspired by a book, Nim Chimpsky: The Chimp Who Would Be Human by Spencertown author Elizabeth Hess.
On Saturday night, the Crandell will show Buster Keaton’s 1926 classic silent film, The General, which premiered the same year the Crandell opened, along with a second short silent film from 1927 called Dog Shy. Both films will have live piano accompaniment by Bernie Anderson, one of a handful of pianists trained to accompany showings of silent movies.
On Sunday afternoon, the Film Club will host another special event, the local premiere of Project Nim, a documentary directed by James Marsh, whose last film, the riveting Man on Wire won the Oscar for Best Documentary in 2009. Marsh’s new film explores the life of a chimpanzee called Nim Chimpsky, who was raised in a New York City townhouse during the 1970s by the LaFarge family, who taught him American Sign Language as part of an experiment to prove that language is not exclusive to human beings.
Director Marsh interviewed with a daughter of that family, Stephanie LaFarge, as well as many others whose lives crossed paths with Nim in his remaining years.
Elizabeth Hess, author of the book that inspired the documentary, served as a consultant on the film. Following the screening, she will chair a panel discussion. Other panelists include Joyce Butler of Great Barrington, MA, a key figure in his life during Nim’s New York years; Bill Tynan, also now living in Great Barrington, who, as a psychology student at Columbia University, participated in the 1970s language study; and Bob Ingersoll, who met and worked with Nim after the chimp retired to Oklahoma.
Project Nim opened the 2011 Sundance Film Festival to rave reviews, one of which dubbed it “the first great documentary of the year.”
Buster Keaton Double Feature
Crandell Theatre, Chatham
Saturday July 9th, 7 p.m.
Admission/flexible (generosity encouraged, as proceeds go toward on-going restoration)
Project Nim
Sunday, June 10, 2 p.m.
Admission/$10
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Posted by Marilyn Bethany on 06/29/11 at 01:06 PM • Permalink
BIFF and Pittsfield Honor Native Kent Jones
This weekend, June 2 through June 5, the Sixth Annual Berkshire International Film Festival (BIFF), will host screenings in theaters in Great Barrington and Pittsfield. In addition to some 70 independent feature films, documentaries and shorts from 15 countries, the festival includes Q&A sessions and panel discussions with filmmakers. Awards for the Next Great Filmmaker will be presented, and there will be Juried Prizes for narrative and documentary films.
This year, BIFF also honors area resident and Special F/X wizard Douglas Trumbull, a tribute that will include an exclusive screening of Tree of Life, Terrence Malick’s latest film, which recently won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. Trumbull, a board member of the Berkshire Film and Media Commission, served as Visual Effects Advisor on the 2011 film, which stars Brad Pitt, Sean Penn, and Jessica Chastain.
On Saturday, June 4, at 1:30 p.m., Pittsfield native Kent Jones (right), a renowned film critic and preservationist, will screen and discuss his latest film collaboration with Martin Scorsese, A Letter to Elia. Past editor of Film Comment and former programmer of Manhattan’s Lincoln Center Film Society and the Walter Reade Theater, Jones is Executive Director of the World Cinema Foundation, as well as the author of several collections of film criticism, including Physical Evidence.
A Letter to Elia explores Scorsese’s relationship to the work of controversial director Elia Kazan, who made such seminal films as On the Waterfront, East of Eden, and A Streetcar Named Desire, and who became notorious for naming names during the McCarthy era’s House Committee on Un-American Activities hearings. Jones will screen the hour-long documentary on June 4 at 1:30 p.m. at the Beacon Cinema. It will be followed by a Q&A and a screening of Kazan’s 1960 film, Wild River.
Kent Jones spoke to RI correspondent Robyn Perry by phone this Memorial Day weekend, just after learning that Pittsfield Mayor James M. Ruberto will present him with the key to the city in a ceremony on June 3, at the Beacon Theatre.
R.P.: In the introduction to your book, Physical Evidence, you mention that you began your career at five cinemas in Pittsfield.
K.J.: People went to movies more than they do now. There were no multiplexes; there were five theaters up and down North Street. My mom was interested in newer movies—Midnight Cowboy, Five Easy Pieces.
When I got to be twelve, thirteen, there was a window that opened, between 1967 and about 1983, when a lot of very adventurous work was possible. To me the movie that was the death knell for that period was Ghostbusters. Everyone talks about Star Wars and Rocky, but when Ghostbusters came along…it’s a really funny movie, but it was a formula that people stuck to, and they’ve been milking it dry for the last thirty years. Movies became disposable, so now it doesn’t really matter what people think of The Hangover, Part II. It doesn’t matter what anybody writes about it.
Cabaret was a movie that made a huge impression on me. I remember seeing A Woman Under the Influence by Cassavetes on North Street. Truffaut, Casanova by Fellini, Marty [Scorsese]’s movies – I saw Mean Streets at the Paris Cinema. Hangover Part II was as unthinkable then as Chinatown is now.
RP: Was there a lot of discourse around the movies? Was everybody talking about them, or were you alone among your peers?
K.J.: There certainly weren’t a lot of people who were interested in Bogart movies; a few had fathers who were young when Bogart was new. Bogart was very important in those days for two different reasons. First, there was the nostalgia factor, as in the Woody Allen movie Play It Again, Sam, and second, Bogart was a counter-culture hero on college campuses. The scene in Casablanca when Ingrid Bergman walks back in, when his face seems to crumble—that kind of privately-held pain—it was something that was true of my father. That’s why cinema’s important, because in cinema you read peoples’ body language; you read what they’re not speaking.
RP Do you think you were looking for your father in movies? [The late Dana Jones, was WBRK radio’s “Voice of the Berkshires.”]
KJ: Oh yeah. I mean, I saw them with him, but yes, I was. Early thirties movies, to me, it’s like getting a glimpse of my grandparents.
RP How did you meet Scorsese?
KJ: A friend of mine’s girlfriend’s roommate—that’s how tentative it was—was working in his office, and they needed help with the video archive. Back in those days, Scorsese would tape everything on TV, buy everything that was available commercially on tape, and turn it into DVDs. When I went through the TV Guide, I knew exactly what he would and wouldn’t want, so I was able to cut through a lot. I knew film history; we had the same references.
RP How is your work in film restoration related to Letter to Elia, which you co-directed with Scorsese?
KJ: They’re not really related except for a powerful connection to the idea of film history. This is not a movie for film scholars, but for 16 year-olds living in Akron, Ohio, who have extremely limited access to movies, but an inkling of interest. Both of us would be really pleased if people saw it and thought, Gee, I’d like to see East of Eden and Wild River.
R.P. It’s surprising to see the list of Kazan’s accomplishments.
K.J. People get sidetracked by the milestones, and the HUAC testimony, and somehow lose track of “Oh, yeah, he’s the guy who changed American acting and invented The Actor’s Studio.” Staggering, when you think about it.
Our film is basically a back-and-forth between Scorsese and Kazan, through the way it’s edited; it’s Scorsese’s way of telling Kazan, after he’s gone, how much he and his films meant to him. Over a clip of Wild River, Scorsese says that there’s work you see that becomes your standard, and it’s not even conscious. I was interviewing Woody Allen the other day, and for him it was Ingmar Bergman. It depends on what you see and when. I’m sure Allen saw The Seventh Seal when it came out, in 1955.
R.P.: You believe artistic influence is about timing?
K.J.: I think it’s very much about timing, and that’s why it’s sad to think…although, anybody who gets a glimmer of interest in cinema is not going to content themselves with watching Hangover Part II, they’ll seek out stuff. It’s great that Netflix exists…it’s great that there’s a film festival in the Berkshires now, because that’s what’s needed to keep cinema alive: a film festival allows you to have a sense of community.
RP: What are plans for Letter to Elia beyond the Berkshire International Film Festival?
KJ: The film premiered at The Venice International Film Festival and at Telluride, where I was with it. It was on American Masters, and it actually won a Peabody. I was at the ceremony last week. Marty couldn’t go because he was getting a degree at Yale! And it’s part of a big box set of Kazan’s work that Fox put out. We didn’t make the film for American Masters or for the Fox set, we just made it, and we made it just the running time we wanted it to be, an hour, almost on the dot. —Robyn Perry
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Posted by Marilyn Bethany on 05/25/11 at 06:16 AM • Permalink
Project Native Film Festival
Project Native, the only native plant nursery and native landscape restoration specialists in our region, are also becoming environmental health activists. This weekend, to celebrate their 10th anniversary, they will be hosting a film festival in Great Barrington that kicks off at 10 a.m. on Sunday at the Triplex theater with a screening of Flow, Irena Salina’s award-winning documentary about the burgeoning cartel that is staking claim to the world’s most precious natural resource, water. Three restaurants, Allium, Rubi’s, and The Well are hosting panel discussions. For a complete schedule of events, click below.
Project Native Film Festival
Sunday, March 27, 10 a.m. - 8 p.m.
Great Barrington
Admission/free
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Posted by Marilyn Bethany on 03/16/11 at 02:36 AM • Permalink
Twenty Minutes with Actress Karen Allen
White Irish Drinkers at the Mahaiwe on February 5
The most famous person you are likely to run into on any given day in Great Barrington is also one of the nicest: Karen Allen, the actress who first became famous for her roles in Animal House and Raiders of The Lost Ark and who’s worked steadily in film and on stage for three decades. Now the owner of Karen Allen Fiber Arts on Railroad Street, which sells the one-of-a-kind cashmere sweaters she designs at her studio around the corner, she continues to act and support the the local arts community through her work at Bard College at Simon’s Rock, the Berkshire Theatre Festival and the Berkshire International Film Festival (BIFF.)
On Saturday, February 5, at the Mahaiwe in Great Barrington, BIFF will hold a benefit screening of White Irish Drinkers, which will be followed by a Q&A with writer/director John Gray, Allen and her co-star Peter Riegert. “We thought that we would bring White Irish Drinkers to the festival in June, but it got distribution and now it is opening in theaters in March, so we decided to do a special fundraising event this weekend,” says Allen who is a BIFF board member. “I think it is a wonderful film so I am quite happy to share it with the community at large.”
Do you like watching other people watch your movies?
It’s always a mixed bag. The first time you see a film it is very difficult to see it with an audience because your experience is more internal and you see it for the first time from the outside. It is always a bit disconcerting in a sense to see a film that has been edited, especially if you have not been part of the process, which actors rarely are. Once I’m familiar with a film, it is easier to see it with an audience but the first few times are always tricky. This is such a different kind of role for me. It’s the antithesis of a Hollywood-type of film. It’s a bit . . . I don’t know exactly how to put it, but it’s a bit shocking when I see myself in the film. There’s no process of trying to glamorize the character at all—it’s a pretty stark way in which I was photographed. It’s the most unglamorous character I have ever played in my life, and when I look at the film I am like whoa—oh my god!
Were you hesitant about taking this part?
My main concern when I said “yes” was that I had to find someone to work on the dialect. And quickly. I only had ten days to prepare. A Brooklyn dialect is not one that I really have in my pocket. There are some accents that I can do very easily, so I immediately had to dive into that because the last thing you want when you begin to shoot is to not be completely at home with the voice of the character. One of the most important aspects of building a character is finding the voice.
How did you prepare?
I immediately called the best dialect coach I know, a man named Tim Monich, and he was in the middle of working on Wall Street 2, which was shooting downtown, but he has a home in Connecticut and I went to work with him there on the basic structure of the dialect. Once I came into New York to start my real preparation for the role, he would come to my hotel after working on Wall Street and we would work on it. I locked myself in my hotel room for a week before shooting and did nothing but prepare for the role, really delve into it.
Tell me about your character Margaret Leary.
It’s the 70s. It’s Brooklyn. She’s a second or third genration Irish American who is married to a dock worker, and they have a very troubled marriage. He’s an alcoholic. He’s quite an abusive man who aims most of his physical abuse at our elder son who is about 20. When the film begins, our 18 and 20 year old sons are still living at home, but one has begun to go down the wrong path, getting mixed up with criminal types. And the other one is a very sensitive, artistically-gifted boy who kind of hides from the world down in the basement below a delicatessen, and he’s become quite an extraordinary artist unbeknownst to anyone, including my character. And she discovers this in the course of the film. She works as a waitress, navigating a fine line trying to keep her family together and safe, and she has the weight of all this on her shoulders. She’s of the old school—it’s a Catholic family—she’s made her bed and she’s got to lie in it. She’s going to stick with this marriage for better or for worse, through thick and thin, and she’s going to stick with this man she truly loves despite all the ways he’s certainly not living up to anyone’s expectations of what a father should be. He basically works the docks all day and then goes and ties one on and comes home drunk every night. That’s the milieu of this film, which sounds all dark and troubling, but the film is very funny in many ways and it has a lot of lightness and beauty.
Did you shoot on location?
Yes, in Bay Ridge in an old brownstone apartment that had been completely abandoned. It was the shell of an apartment.
How is that different than shooting on a soundstage?
They both have their positive aspects. We were shooting in November, and I don’t recall that we had any heat. We had little electric heaters we plugged in. I am always in the kitchen cooking in the film and whenever we turned on the stove it smelled like cat piss; obviously the previous occupants had cats, so we tried to not use the stove. When you work on an actual location, you are working in very tight quarters. For actors, it’s fantastic. For the crew, it’s challenging.You don’t have walls you can fly out so it really limits the way you can shoot, which often works in your favor. We shot the entire film in 17 days. A normal feature film can take three months. I have never shot a film this quickly.
Have you made other films since?
I did November Christmas for Hallmark Hall of Fame with Sam Elliott , and I did a cameo in film called I Am Number Four which is coming out this month.
Do you have any local projects coming up?
I am directing Moonchildren at Berkshire Theatre Festival. [She directed a well-received student production at Bard College at Simon’s Rock two years ago.] I am very excited. It will open the summer season at the Unicorn Theatre in June.
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Posted by Dan Shaw on 02/02/11 at 08:14 AM • Permalink
Hot Tickets: Special Film Events Region-Wide
Film festivals show movies few people outside the industry have heard much about. We go because experience has taught us to trust the taste of the festivals’ organizers. Which is why reciting the roster of films at the upcoming FilmColumbia festival (Partir, with Kristin Scott Thomas, The Debt, by the director of Shakespeare in Love, Stone with Robert DeNiro and Edward Norton, to name just a couple) may pale in comparison to recalling some of last year’s highlights—Up in the Air, An Education, A Serious Man, Precious—all Oscar Best Picture nominees; The White Ribbon, nominated for Best Foreign Film. A complete schedule and tickets for FilmColumbia 2010 (October 20 - 24) are available now.
The Williamstown Film Festival (October 15-17 and 21-24) kicks off this weekend with a special program on Saturday night about films with familiar and exciting titles—Some Like It Hot, Double Indemnity, Sunset Boulevard,, The Apartment. On Saturday, October 16, Emmy-award winning actor Alec Baldwin and Turner Movie Classics’ emcee Robert Osborne take their film-arcania-schmooze-athon on the road to MASS MoCA with a special program, “Revisiting Billy Wilder.” For tickets, click here.
On Friday, October 15, the Berkshire International Film Festival (which will be held June 2 - 5 2011), gets in on the autumn action with a special presentation at the opening of the film Howl, at the Triplex, in Great Barrington, sponsored by BIFF’s Reel Friends Film Society. Directors Jeffrey Friedman and Rob Epstein will hold a Q &A after the 7 p.m. screening and will still be on hand prior to the one at 9 p.m. The film, starring James Franco as the beat poet Alan Ginsberg, is named for his most famous and prophetic work and presents a portrait of the renegade artist as he battles obscenity charges and threats of censorship. This historically accurate dramatization is coupled with an imaginative ride through Ginsberg’s masterpiece. Normal Triplex ticket prices apply.
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Posted by Marilyn Bethany on 10/05/10 at 12:48 PM • Permalink
Crandell Theatre Set to Re-open July 9; Chatham Film Club Prevails
Photographs by Peter Blandori
It was assumed. For years The Chatham Film Club had been raising funds so that one day they would be able to buy the Crandell Theatre, whenever second-generation owner Tony Quirino decided to retire. Then last January, with his retirement date fast approaching, Quirino died suddenly, leaving no will. His widow, Sandy, who had wanted to honor Tony’s wishes and sell the theater to the film club for a price they could afford, was obliged, as executor of the estate, to get the best price possible. Several other potential buyers emerged, and the talk on Main Street turned grim. Then suddenly, the attorney for Judy Grunberg, a Chatham entrepreneur (the Blue Plate Restaurant, the Chatham Coop, PS/21, among other ventures) was in a Main Street law office signing closing papers on his client’s behalf. Within hours, Grunberg had turned over title to the film club, which expects to reopen the Crandell on July 9th. Rural Intelligence talked to Film Club treasurer Mary Gail Biebel, co-chair of the capital campaign, about how it all transpired.
RI: How fitting that the acquisition of the Crandell Theatre by the Chatham Film Club should turn out to be an action adventure weepy/dramedy with a surprise feel-good ending. I’m still not absolutely clear how you became the owners.
MGB: Judy Grunberg made an offer that was accepted, which made her the official buyer, but it was always understood that the film club would end up the owners. Like Judy, Lael Locke, a village trustee, threw in some money at the end. None of us could have done it on our own, but we got together and got it done.
RI: Was it fun, entering the theater for the first time as owners?
SK: I went in the other day with 60 keys and a flashlight and finally did figure out how to turn on most of the lights. Tony knew every key. We found all these boxes of letters that go up on the marquee, so Sandi [Knackel, the Chatham Film Club president] and I got up on the extension ladder to put up a message. We couldn’t reach the top, so we could only put up a short message, “Opening July 2010” and “Thank You.” Everyone stopped to wish us well. People offered to volunteer, to make contributions. It was lovely.
RI: Why do you think this theater means so much to the people of Chatham?
MGB: This is a pretty bifurcated community. Some of us go to the Tannery Pond (chamber music) Concerts, and some of us go to the firehouse supper. But everyone goes to the Crandell. Tony’s father is still alive. His first job when the theater first opened in 1926, when he was just 9 years old, was carrying film cans up to the projectionist. Then much later he ended up owning the place. There have only been four owners in the entire history of the theater. We’re the fifth. The Quirinos had been associated with it (first as employees, then as owners) that entire time. I got a check for $20 from a woman in Ohio who wrote, “I grew up going to the Crandell, and I remember when Mrs. Quirino told my parents that I had misbehaved. I was told I couldn’t come back for a month.”
RI: The theater has been locked up for five months, which must have taken a toll. Any unexpected damage?
MGB: No, actually, it was in remarkably stable condition—just a little bit musty. Last night I met with Dennis Gawron who had worked for Tony for twenty years as a part-time projectionist and ticket taker. He’s going to come back to work with us. He comes in an hour before the movie starts, and it’s second nature to him what has to be done, but some of the operating systems take a little bit of explaining. He’s teaching us. And Shari Tessitori, who ran the concession stand for Tony, is also coming back.
RI: Are you planning to raise the prices (previously $5 for adults and $4 for kids)?
MGB: Not now. We’re also going to keep the concession prices the same. We’re keeping the soda machine even though it makes an incredible racket during quiet times in the films.
RI: Is there a business plan?
MGB: Yes, we have a detailed business plan. But single screen independent film theaters don’t make money. The few that are left are all run by groups like ours as non profits.
RI: So what’s the next step?
MGB: We’re starting a new campaign, Help Us Raze the Roof, because, as anyone who goes to the Crandell knows, it leaks.
RI: The renovation of the Mahaiwe Theatre in Great Barrington is said to have cost $9 million. Presumably, the renovation of the Crandell would be somewhere in that same ballpark, or am I wrong?
MGB: The Mahaiwe is absolutely beautiful. But we’re not planning a $9 million renovation. We will need a million. The roof alone is probably somewhere between $100,000 and $150,000. It has a 1926 state-of-the-art ventilation system that leaks like crazy. The exterior and interior stucco needs to be repaired. The marquee needs work. The bathrooms need to be renovated. The seats need to be replaced. We need a digital projection system. And that’s just the stuff we need to use it as a movie theater. There’s also a stage, an orchestra pit, dressing rooms—it was originally a vaudeville house. That’s why Tony wanted to sell it; he knew .
RI: What’s the most important thing you’ve learned so far about running a movie theater?
MGB: Dennis Gawron told us that at the end of the movie every night, before you lock up, you have to walk through the theater to make sure nobody fell asleep.
To make a donation to Help Us Raze the Roof, visit The Chatham Film Club website.
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Posted by Marilyn Bethany on 06/02/10 at 09:07 AM • Permalink
Kicking and Screening: Soccer Film Festival
This weekend, MASS MoCA hosts a two-day festival of film and activities celebrating the passion, athleticism, and wildly fervent nationalism of soccer.
The festival kicks off on Friday, at 1 p.m. with screening of the family-friendly film Sixty Six, followed by a performance by a troupe of soccer jugglers at 3 p.m. That evening at 8 p.m. Les Yeux Dans Les Bleus, a documentary about the 1988 World Cup victorious French team, will be screened.
Saturday’s program features a matinee presentation at 1 p.m. of a series of short films: In the Blood, Mauro Shampoo - Soccer Player, Hairdresser and Macho and Beyond Soccer (Loucos de Futebol).
The Saturday afternoon films will be followed by a 4 p.m. panel discussion moderated by Adam Spangler, former Vanity Fair staff editor and founder of the This Is American Soccer blog. Panelists include Grant Wahl, senior writer at Sports Illustrated and author of the best-selling, The Beckham Experiment; Greg Lalas, editor in chief of MLSsoccer.com (official website of Major League Soccer); and former MLS player Zohair Ghenania, now staff coach at French club FC Lorient. Another feature film will screen on Saturday night.
Friday & Saturday, April 23 & 24
MASS MoCA
North Adams, MA
Festival passes: $25/ adults; $15/students
Individual tickets: $8/adults; $5/students.
Members receive a 10% discount.
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Posted by Marilyn Bethany on 04/15/10 at 09:20 AM • Permalink
The Annual Kent Film Festival April 22 - 25
The Kent Film Festival doesn’t start officially until Thursday, April 22, so the screening on April 21 of Company Retreat, written and directed by Campbell Scott (left), is being called a “private screening” which is a fundraiser for the five-year-old, not-for-profit festival. “Campbell’s on our advisory board and he will be here to talk about the movie,” says festival co-founder Patrice Galterio. “Nobody’s seen this movie yet. He’s just finished editing it.” A “mockumentary” about the development of a fictional game show called Company Retreat that pits white-collar workers against blue-collar workers, the film stars Hart Bochner. After the movie, Scott will host a Q&A (along with a few members of his cast.)
Mow Crew Preview - The Weatherman from Taylor Toole on Vimeo.
One of the films that Galterio has high hopes for is Mow Crew, which details the lives of some full-time residents of Martha’s Vineyard who mow the summer people’s lawns and long to escape their rural island ghetto. “We’re hoping it’s our Little Miss Sunshine,” says Galterio, who notes that Litchfield County residents may see parallels between the Mow Crew world and their own backyards. “There a similarity between our locals and the rich people—except we’re by a river instead of an ocean.” Another feature she’s high on is Blue Bus, which has been described as a buddy flick/coming-of-age story for two middle-aged guys, who drive cross country in a VW bus. And local filmmaker and actor Giancarlo Esposito (who is currently featured in AMC’s Breaking Bad) will hold a Q&A after a screening of his film, Gospel Hill, which stars Angela Bassett and Danny Glover. “It’s been doing the film festival circuit, and we just love it.”
Galterio thinks the short films are just as important as the features. “We have 61 this year from all over the world—England, Iran, Germany,” she says. “And we have documentaries, too, such as Baghdad Diary by Sandra and Joseph Consentino” The Consentinos will conduct a workshop on Saturday called “The Documentary Process” with a demonstration of the Sony EX Camcorder. Cinematographer Adrian Correia will lead a workshop on the Red One Digital Cinema Camera. The focus on the technical aspects of filmmaking reflects the improved equipment Kent has this year with $90,000 worth of equipment lent by Sony for screenings in the Community House. “It’s amazing that we pull off a film festival every year without the town having a proper movie theater,” says Galterio.
Kent Film Festival
3 Kent Green Blvd, Kent, CT; 860.592.0059
Box office is open daily through April 20: 10 a.m. - 4 p.m.
Box office open April 21 - 23:
10 a.m. - 9 p.m.
April 24 & 25: 9 a.m. - 3 p.m
Individual tickets: $8
Packages available
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Posted by Dan Shaw on 04/14/10 at 12:21 PM • Permalink
A Farm Film Feast: Film, Food and Discussion
From the film "Sweetgrass"
The crusade to eat locally hits the big screen with such enticingly titled films as, Dirt! The Movie, Mad City Chickens, and What’s On Your Plate? This week and through the weekend, more than a dozen films about food will be screening at Images Theater in Williamstown, MA, followed by panel discussions. Among the topics: King Corn Rules!, Berkshire Stories, Fresh! An Overview, Eating Locally and Globally, and Farming in the Future. On Saturday evening, there will be a dinner break—an opportunity to sample some of locally-sourced restaurants, such as Mezze and Hobson’s Choice, that are within walking distance of the theater.
Farm Film Feast
Images Cinema, Williamstown
Film admission: all film pass/$35; individual films/$5
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Posted by Marilyn Bethany on 03/01/10 at 10:52 AM • Permalink
RI Selects: Beautiful Film, Ugly Predicament
Friday, February 26 @ 7 p.m
“We have a 10-15 year window to make some noise,” says Columbia County resident Sven Huseby. “I would love to see the term ‘ocean acidification’ become part of the political discourse.”
According to the documentary Huseby appears in and co-produced and that his wife Barbara Ettinger directed, A Sea Change: Imagine a World Without Fish, the familiar global warming horror story is actually even more horrific than we’ve been led to believe. For all we hear about melting icecaps and rising sea levels, until now, few of us have known of the disastrous consequences that carbon emissions have on ocean water’s chemistry and the impact that will ultimately have on marine life.
When this film debuted to an unprecedented SRO audience at the Smithsonian Institution, The Washington Post said that it, “looks terrific, with lots of breathtaking footage of the natural world, from the tiniest pteropod (the fluttery, planktonic sea snail that is most threatened by acidification) to the most majestic Norwegian scenery.” It also returns again and again to Huseby’s relationship with his grandson—a leitmotif that lends both a sense of scale and urgency to the filmmakers’ message.
A Sea Change follows the quest of Huseby, a retired history teacher, to discover what is happening to the world’s oceans. After reading Elizabeth Kolbert’s “The Darkening Sea,” he travels to Alaska, California, Washington, and Norway to find out about the rising acidity of the oceans and what this “sea change” bodes for the world. He speaks with oceanographers, marine biologists, climatologists, and artists and discovers that excess carbon dioxide is dissolving in our oceans, changing sea water chemistry and making it difficult for tiny creatures at the bottom of the food web to form their shells. The effects could work their way up to the fish a billion people depend upon for their source of protein.
The screening will be followed by a discussion with Huseby and Ettinger.
A Sea Change: Imagine a World Without Fish Screening
Chatham Real Food Market Co-op
15 Church Street, Chatham, NY; 518.392.3353
Admission free; reservations essential.
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Posted by Marilyn Bethany on 02/10/10 at 01:04 PM • Permalink
RI Selects: Nothing Silent About It
February 12 @ 7 p.m.
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Experience silent film as it was intended to be. A free screening of the 1922 comedy, Grandma’s Boy, starring Harold Lloyd, will be accompanied by live piano, vocal and percussion by Donald Sosin and Joanna Seaton.
Harold Lloyd was the most successful silent comedian of the 20’s, eclipsing Chaplin’s and Keaton’s box office receipts. The film, a coming-of-age story with hapless Harold outwitting bullies and winning the girl of his dreams, is filled with gags courtesy of writer Hal Roach (Our Gang, Laurel and Hardy).
Donald Sosin was the resident pianist at MoMA for five years and currently plays for the Film Society of Lincoln Center and BAM, the Whitney Museum and at film seminars at Harvard, Yale and other campuses here and abroad. Joanna Seaton has sung with jazz great Dick Hyman at the 92nd St. YM-YWHA, and appeared in many Off-Broadway and regional theater productions. Learn more about their work at oldmoviemusic.com.
Geer Village
Hollenbeck Room
99 South Canaan Road (Route 7)
Canaan, CT
Admission: Free, no reservations required.
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Posted by Marilyn Bethany on 02/01/10 at 09:42 AM • Permalink
“Keep Farming” Film Fest Deadline for Submisssions 2/15
The Chatham Agricultural Partnership, the Chatham Film Club, and the Columbia Land Conservancy once again present Farm Film Fest III, an afternoon of farming films to be presented on Sunday, March 7, from 1 - 4 p.m. at the Crandell Theatre in Chatham, NY. The organizers are now seeking short films about local farms or farm-related issues to screen. Films should be 5-20 minutes long and submitted in DVD format by February 15. For more information, go to the Keep Farming website.
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Posted by Marilyn Bethany on 01/21/10 at 08:11 AM • Permalink
RI Selects: Meet “Secretariat”
Saturday, December 5 @ 1 p.m.
Of course, the real Secretariat died in 1989, but Harbor Mist, one of the horses that will portray the record-holding Triple Crown winner in a forthcoming Disney bio-pic, will be visiting the region this weekend on his way back to California. Harbor Mist will perform tricks, and Rex Peterson, one of Hollywood’s foremost horse trainers,will fill us in on some of the behind-the-scenes drama of making a film with horses.
In 1973, Secretariat, owned by Penny Chenery Tweedy (played by Diane Lane in the film, which is set for release next fall), was the first U.S. Triple Crown winner in twenty-five years. He set records in two of the events—the Kentucky Derby and the Belmont Stakes, that still stand today.
Windrock Farm
Amenia, NY
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Posted by Marilyn Bethany on 11/09/09 at 06:55 AM • Permalink
Williamstown Film Festival Tickets on Sale
Suitably enough, the highlight of the first weekend of the 11th Annual Williamstown Film Festival (October 23 - 25; second weekend, October 29 - November 1), will be dinner and a movie on Saturday night. The annual benefit dinner is being held this year at Mezze’s new catering facility in Williamstown. The film that follows, Against the Current,was written and directed by Peter Callahan who, in 2004, read an earlier version of the screenplay at the Williamtown Festival. His feature film screens at 8 p.m. at MASS MoCA’s Hunter Center in nearby North Adams.
Callahan, who grew up in the Hudson Valley and currently lives in Westchester County, has made a film that is likely to resonate with local audiences. The principal action takes place in a familiar setting seen from a curious point of view. During much of the film, the protagonist swims in the Hudson River, covering 150 miles between Troy and the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. His reasons are only gradually revealed to both the audience and his companions in the escort boat. The swimmer, Paul Thompson (Joseph Fiennes), a financial writer, is struggling with a tragic loss. He decides to distinguish himself by doing something unique. What ensues is a physical journey and an emotional one that explores the psychological devastation that grief can wreak.
Among the other highlights in this year’s roster:
Beyond Greenaway: The Legacy, a sequel to Sarah Gilbert’s 1982 documentary, Greenaway, which examined her parents values and unusual lifestyle. One of six children, Gilbert grew up amidst great wealth on a private island in Long Island Sound near Greenwich, CT. Today she is approaching the age of her parents when the first film was made. In the sequal Gilbert and her siblings look back with sympathy and affection at their foibles, eccentricities, and paranoia (they firmly believed that a Communist takeover of the U.S. was imminent, and that they were in grave personal danger; back then, at the dawn of the Reagan Revolution!). Gilbert will be at the breakfast seminar preceding the film, as will Callahan and David Brind, who wrote the screenplay for Dare, another film being screened. Their topic: “Life into Art.”
Mart Crowley’s play The Boys in the Band opened the year before Stonewall and is believed to be the first theater piece to focus exclusively on the everyday lives of gay men. In his film Making the Boys, through interviews with Edward Albee, Robert Wagner, Larry Kramer, Dominick Dunne, Dan Savage, Michael Musto, Tony Kushner, Terrence McNally, Paul Rudnick, Carson Kressley, Michael Cunningham, and Marc Shainman, documentarian Crayton Robey explores the hostility gay people endured and their euphoria in the 60s and 70s as they emerged from the closet en masse. This screening will be preceded by a lunch seminar with the film director and part-time Columbia County resident James Ivory.
In an era when political news is entertainment 24/7, when “Joe the Plumber” can, in a matter of weeks, become a political commentator with a global reach, when a little-known Alaskan governor can be transformed overnight into a “world leader,” the media that enable all of this deserve closer scrutiny. In his documentary Poliwood, the esteemed feature film director Barry Levinson (Wag the Dog) explores the fusion of politics, celebrity, entertainment, and the people who decide what’s news.
When director Richard Shepard was a boy, his dad took him to see The Godfather and The Godfather: Part II. He was particularly taken by the character Fredo. “There was something about the sadness and loneliness and oddness of the guy.” Years later, Shepard decided to learn everything he could about John Cazale, the actor who played Fredo, but there was little information, except that he had appeared in just five movies—The Godfather, The Conversation, The Godfather: Part II, Dog Day Afternoon, and The Deer Hunter—before dying of cancer at 42. “...five great movies that were nominated for Best Picture,” Shepard says. “If he were a baseball player, he’d be in the Hall of Fame. He was five for five.” So he set out to make a documentary. In the end, I Knew It Was You may be less about Cazale than about the colleagues he influenced—Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Francis Ford Coppola, Sidney Lumet, and Meryl Streep, to whom he was engaged at the time of his death.
One of the most popular components of the Williamstown Festival is the emphasis placed on short films, which are scattered throughout the schedule. A feature film in this year’s line-up, Dare, started as a well-received short.
Williamstown Film Festival Tickets
Weekend passes: $85 (weekend 1) & $120 (weekend 2)
All festival pass: $205
Benefit dinner and film: $100 (not covered by passes)
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Posted by Marilyn Bethany on 10/06/09 at 09:10 AM • Permalink
FilmColumbia Celebrates its 10th Year
"The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus", starring the late Heath Ledger
The four-day movie marathon known as FilmColumbia, which was founded in 1999, comes to the village of Chatham from October 22 - 25. A star-studded lineup of more than 30 international screenings, plus panel discussions, script readings, parties, and more, the festival “has something for everyone,” according to Peter Biskind, executive director and co-programmer with Larry Kardish, of FilmColumbia. This year, he adds, “We have more comedies than before—our sneak preview for Saturday night has created a lot of buzz in the industry.” With their career connections to the film industry, Columbia County residents Biskind, a Vanity Fair writer and author of many books on film, and Kardish, a filmmaker, curate the selection of new works each year from filmmakers around the world, making FilmColumbia one of the most diverse, intimate, and respected cinematic events on the east coast.
Highlights of the 2009 schedule include such noteworthy releases as director Terry Gilliam’s The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, the last movie to star actor Heath Ledger, who died in the midst of production. The film would’ve died too, Biskind explains, were it not for the unique script. “The characters plunge through a mirror confronting their true selves and changing their physical selves. That premise allowed three other actors—Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell, and Jude Law, all friends of Ledger—to be incorporated into the story without revisions.”
Other movies showing this year at FilmColumbia spotlight historical characters (Mussolini in Vincere; Queen Victoria in The Young Victoria; Barack Obama in By the People); political drama (The White Ribbon, Axis of Good, The Men Who Stare At Goats); documentary work (Living In Emergency, I.O.U.S.A); comedy (The Maid, the Coen Brothers, A Serious Man, and the Saturday night sneak); and melodrama (That Evening Sun, Against the Current, Fish Tank), plus numerous special interest films and cutting-edge adult animation. Many of the screenings are followed by Q&A sessions in which the director, producer, and/or actors discuss the making of the movie and field questions from the audience.
Produced and organized by Chatham Film Club members, under the direction of Calliope Nicholas, FilmColumbia uses three Chatham village venues—the Crandell Theatre, The Morris Memorial, and the Tracy Memorial—for screenings and special events.
FilmColumbia Festival
October 22 - 25
Individual tickets $5 - $8/members; $2 - $8/students; $7 - $10/non-members
All-Film Pass, $80/members, $110/non-members
Gold Pass to all events, $125/members, $175/non-members.
Chatham Film Club members may use this order form now.
The general public may buy tickets on-line or at the Chatham Bookstore, starting Friday, October 9
Advance purchase highly recommended as most films sell out.
During the festival, some tickets may be available at the Tracy Memorial.
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Posted by Marilyn Bethany on 09/30/09 at 04:08 AM • Permalink
