Visionfest Marks its 10th Anniversary

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Parent Category: Film Festivals

Category: Previews

Published on Sunday, 27 June 2010 13:32

Written by Laura Blum

For the 10th year, Visionfest: The Other Festival peered into its crystal ball with the aim of "bringing you tomorrow's visionaries today" through its American indie showcase, held June 23 to 27, 2010 at Tribeca Cinemas (corner of Varick and Laight streets in New York City). 

To celebrate its first decade, Visionfest opened its 45-film slate with the East Coast premiere of Ron Farrar Brown's family drama, Consent. The film explores how a brother and sister cope with the suicide of their older sister.

Screening prior to Consent were two short films, Arturo Cubacub's Stretch and Molly Allis' Seahorse, and to cap off Opening Night, the 1970s band Disco Unlimited rocked a disco-themed bash at the Tribeca Lounge, abutting Tribeca Cinemas.

Tonight VFX closes with the New York premiere of Christina, a historical drama by writer-director Larry Brand (Halloween Resurrection). Starring Nicki Aycox (TNT's Dark Blue), Jordan Belfi (HBO's Entourage), and Stephen Lang (Avatar, Public Enemies), the film is inspired by the true story of a young German woman whose plans to depart WWII-ravaged Berlin for America with her G.I. fiancé are foiled by a police inspector out to expose her dark secret and keep her tethered to her past. Christina was shot with the Red One digital camera.

Screening alongside this multiple award winner is a short film by Florida State University student Stephen Bell, The Quartering Act. Like Christina, the film is set in the Second World War era.

Christina joins four other narrative features making their New York premieres and vying for this year’s Independent Vision Awards.

Brand's short film, The Jester's Bell, was featured in the first edition of VF's own filmmaking initiative, the 5x5 New York State of Mind Digital Project, in 2003. Curated by the Festival's organizing group, the Brooklyn-based Domani Vision Film Society, 5x5 offers indie filmmakers the services and tools to shoot five five-minute digital shorts over five days. This year's program, which will be screened during VF's Closing Night Awards Ceremony, taps the work of VF alumni Alexandra Roxo, Justin Sullivan and Elizabeth Van Meter.

Two other alum, Nyle Cavazos Garcia and Ari Taub, brought their creative efforts to other platforms in this year's Festival; Garcia presented a staged reading of his script, Tag, which took last year's Feature Screenwriting Competition award, and Taub's narrative feature Last letters from Monte Rosa now received its world premiere out of competition. Also among the Festival's feature narratives were Miss Ohio, from Gregory Fitzsimmons, Steve Balderson's Stuck!, and Desert Son, from James Mann and Brandon Nicholas.

Documentaries at VF10 spanned a range of subjects, from Todd Drezner’s Loving Lampposts, about autism, and Jeremy Taylor's Burma: An Indictment to Michael Webber's tell-all on exotic pets, The Elephant in the Living Room, and Tim VandeSteeg’s My Run, about a man who takes on 75 marathons in 75 days to raise awareness about single-parent families.

See the full Festival agenda at www.visionfest.com.

VisionFest
June 23 to 27, 2010
Tribeca Cinemas
54 Varick Street
New York, NY 10013

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