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Previews
Hail Satan, What The Fest!? is Back!
- Details
- Parent Category: Film Festivals
- Category: Previews
- Published on Wednesday, 20 March 2019 00:25
- Written by Brad Balfour
Putting a spotlight on the strange, bizarre, and shocking, the What The Fest!? at the IFC Center returns March 20 to the 24th. The opening night film is Larry Fessenden’s Depraved, a modern day re-invention of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. The closing night film is Kirill Sokolov’s Why Don’t You Just Die!, and this film of crime, corruption, greed, dysfunctional families, and unrequited love is preceded by stand up from Last Comic Standing’s Harrison Greenbaum.
The Go Straight to Hell sidebar of the fest features the World Premiere Restoration of Ray Laurent’s 1970 documentary Satanis: The Devil's Mass, a look inside the infamous “Black House” in San Francisco, where the Church of Satan was established; a talk by author Grady Hendrix about the heavy metal “Satanic Panic” of the 80s, based on his book We Sold Our Souls and followed by a book signing, and the NY Premiere of Penny Lane’s Sundance hit documentary Hail Satan? with subject Lucien Greaves in-person.
Along with the expected panels is a special discussion entitled FEMALE TROUBLE: FEARLESS WOMEN LEADING THE WAY IN HORROR, FANTASY, AND SUSPENSE, with speakers Meredith Alloway (Film Journalist, Independent Filmmaker), Roxanne Benjamin (Director of Body at Brighton Rock), Emma Tammi (Director of The Wind), and Jenn Wexler (Producer, Depraved).
To learn more, go to: http://www.whatthefestnyc.com/
What The Fest!?
March 20 - 24, 2019
IFC Center
323 6th Ave.
New York, NY 10014
ReelAbilities Film Festival New York Will Take the Mind Where Minds Can't Usually Go
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- Parent Category: Film Festivals
- Category: Previews
- Published on Friday, 15 March 2019 22:28
- Written by Brad Balfour
ReelAbilities Film Festival: New York is dedicated to promoting awareness and appreciation of the lives, stories and artistic expressions of people with different abilities. The 11th installment of the festival will be running April 2 to 9 at venues across NYC.
The festival will open on April 2 with Irene Taylor Brodsky’s film Moonlight Sonata: Deafness in Three Movements, hot off the heels of it’s premiere at Sundance. The film is a deeply personal portrait of three lives, and the discoveries that lie beyond loss: a deaf boy growing up, his deaf grandfather growing old, and Beethoven the year he was blindsided by deafness and wrote his iconic sonata. The closing night film on April 9th is The Drummer and the Keeper, directed by Nick Kelley. In the film, Gabriel is a drummer in a promising band, desperate to hide his bipolar diagnosis from his exasperated band mates. At a therapeutic mixed-ability soccer game he’s obliged to attend, Gabriel meets Christopher, a teenager with Asperger Syndrome, and the two are forced to “make friends.”
Special events at the festival include a comedy night, workshops, panels, dance performances, puppet films, and more on top of the plethora of films.
To learn more, go to: https://reelabilities.org/newyork/
ReelAbilities Film Festival New York
April 2 - 9, 2019
Various Venues
Socially Relevant Film Film Fest Looks at Life Around the World
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- Parent Category: Film Festivals
- Category: Previews
- Published on Wednesday, 13 March 2019 21:34
- Written by Brad Balfour
The 6th edition of SR Socially Relevant Film Festival New York is running at Cinema Village (22 E. 12th Street) and nearby venues from March 15 - 21. The SRFF 2019 program will showcase over 60 films which deal with current social topics such as immigration and refugees, female empowerment, homelessness, human exploitation, gender politics, disability, aging, the environment, our planet's health, human and animal extinction, and many other timely social issues.
Making its North American premiere is A Thousand Pieces, directed by Véronique Mériadec in which 25 years after the assassination of her son Olivier in 1977, Nicole Parmentier (Clémentine Célarié) decides to meet with Eric Gaubert (Serge Riaboukine) who has just been released from prison after having served his time for these crimes. What results is an explosive encounter behind closed doors between two damaged and fragile protagonists destiny has forced together. The documentary A Dignified Death (directed by Jesse van Venrooij) looks at the controversial issue of legal euthanasia. In the Name of Your Daughter (directed by Giselle Portenier) addresses the plight of female genital mutilation (FGM) and child marriage in Tanzania.
Along with features and documentaries there will be post-screening Q&A sessions with the filmmakers and guest experts, industry panels, workshops, and more.
To learn more, go to: https://www.ratedsrfilms.org/
SR Socially Relevant Film Film Festival
March 15 - 21, 2019
Cinema Village
22 East 12th St.
New York, NY 10003
Museum of Art & Design Looks Back at the Future of the 1990s
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- Parent Category: Film Festivals
- Category: Previews
- Published on Monday, 04 March 2019 17:34
- Written by Brad Balfour
Ghost in the Shell
Science-fiction cinema in the 1990s was a unique creature. CGI was starting to become more prevalent, but old special effects techniques like miniatures, matte paintings, and practical effects. The glitz and optimism of Star Wars was laid to rest by a 1980’s of Ronald Reagan, giving rise to a more cynical outlook on the future ahead. Now the Museum of Art and Design (2 Columbus Circle, NY, NY) is paying tribute to this unique era of sci-fi cinema with Plastic Futures and Premillennial Tensions. Running March 23 to April 18, Plastic Futures features seven films embodying the fear and allure of the future in the 1990s.
Mamoru Oshii’s seminal Ghost in the Shell, based on the manga by Masamune Shirow, offered an animated look at cybernetics and urban life that was unprecedented. Kathryn Bigelow’s Strange Days combined elements of virtual reality, the Rodney King riots, and noir murder mystery, while Luc Besson’s The Fifth Element is a visual assault on the senses torn from the pages of Metal Hurlant. Shinya Tsukamoto’s Tetsuo II: Body Hammer, a sequel to his 1989 art house cult classic Tetsuo the Iron Man, upped the scale and the effects from its predecessor with grotesque biomechanical body horror. The Mind's Eye and Beyond the Mind's Eye offered up some of the earliest experiments in all CGI storytelling, while Hackers attempted to bridge the gap between phone phreaking and speculative fiction into the computer era.
To learn more, go to: https://madmuseum.org/
Plastic Futures and Premillennial Tensions
March 23 - April 18, 2019
The Museum of Art and Design
2 Columbus Cir.
New York, NY 10019
