Bess Hochstein reports from Great Barrington.The Mason Public Library was setting for scene one, act one of the 7th annual Berkshire International Film Festival (BIFF), in advance of the opening night screening of Ethel, award-winning filmmaker Rory Kennedy's documentary portrait of her mother, Ethel Kennedy, the widow of Robert Kennedy and mother of 11 children. Members of the Kennedy clan attended the pre-screening festivities on Thursday, May 31, as did scores of filmmakers and actors, including board member Karen Allen and Mary Kay Place, left, both of whom served on the panel evaluating films for BIFF's Jury Prize. One of the brightest stars was the library itself, its reading room transformed into a gracious hall, bathed in the golden light of evening. Buoyant celebrants drank special cocktails from Berkshire Mountain Distillers, downed countless jiggers of chilled soups and other treats from Max Ultimate Food, and socialized ebulliently with nary a fear of being shushed by the librarians.
Rock & roll photographer and memoirist Ken Regan and producer Karen Goodman; author, attorney, and former Lt. Governor of Maryland Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, the eldest child of Robert and Ethel Kennedy, with Benjamin Barber.
Writer Jeremy D. Goodwin and caterer Kate Baldwin; actor and Pilates instructor Karen Lee with festival programmer Lillian Lennox.
Filmmakers Donal Foreman, whose short Pull screened in the festival's New Narratives program, and Morgan Faust, whose Tick Tock Time Emporium screened in a Shorts program; screenwriters Channing Gibson, newly elected to the Lenox Board of Selectmen, and John Orloff.
Barbara Lee, a member of the board of directors of the Coolidge Corner Theatre in Brookline, MA, with Dan Mathieu of Max Ultimate Food, which catered the evening, Jon Lee, and Tom Potter.
IS183 Art School's Hope Sullivan with Diane Pearlman of the Berkshire Film and Media Commission; actor Hilary Somers Deely and painter Cynthia Wick.
Studio Two's Heather Rose with Berkshire Mountain Distillers founder Chris Weld and Tyler Weld; New Narratives programmers James N. Kienitz Wilkins and Mauricio Arango, from Colombia, who screened his short The Night of the Moon Has Many Hours.
Cookie entrepreneur Lisa Newmann with Gordon Simmering and orthopedic surgeon Pier Boutin.
Blue Q's Seth Nash, education consultant Mary Nash, and photographer Lincoln Russell; Gerti Muller-Ernstberger, of BIFF sponsor GWFF, with John Clarke, BIFF transportation coordinator.
Hazel Kim, publishing publicist David Carriere, and Carol Gray; attorneys Vicki Bonnington and David Schecker.
Gregory Rhem, director original documentary programming for HBO, with filmmaker Sarah-Violet Bliss, whose short Priceless Things was screened; photographer and gallerist Cassandra Sohn and Seven Salon & Spa proprietor Mark Johnson.
Kat Kennedy Townsend, Theo Ansbacher-Hunt, Kerry Kennedy Townsend, and Bobby Shaw, representing the Kennedy family for the opening night screening of Ethel.
VIM's Matthew Mandel with Mahaiwe president and board chair Lola Joffe; The Red Lion Inn's Nancy Fitzpatrick with Bob Frye, director and producer, and Diane Love, executive producer of the documentary In My Lifetime.
Innkeeper Tom Werman and Shakespeare & Company's Elizabeth Aspenlieder; BIFF gals Sarah Patrick Morgese, coordinator of the festival's first Filmmakers Summit, and Lauren Ferrin.
Screenwriter Stephen Glantz, whose award-winning film Wunderkinder was shown in the festival, with Catherine Mandel; fine food purveyors Shelly Williams and Jean-Francois Bizalion.
Filmic family: BIFF founder and director Kelley Vickery with her sons Drew and Jack, and daughter Kaitlin.
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Matteline deVries-Dilling, founder of Lite Brite Neon, one of the evening's honoree of this year's Upstate Benefit adresses the gala from the Caboose's caboose.
- Karen Pearson. Courtesy Art Omi.
Olana senior vice president and landscape curatorMark Prezorski, president Sean Sawyer, The evenings honoree Kristin Gamble and New York State Assemblymember Didi Barrett.
- Oxygen House Photo
