Brooklyn Film Festival Asks Us to "Pause" and Reflect on Cinema

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Parent Category: Film Festivals

Category: Previews

Published on Monday, 14 April 2025 20:31

Written by Renzo Adler

 Under My Skin

Now in its 28th edition, the Brooklyn Film Festival returns May 30th to June 8th at Brooklyn’s Windmill Studios (300 Kingsland Avenue) and Wythe Hotel (80 Wythe Avenue). With 160 film premieres, the BFF includes Feature Narratives, Documentary Features, Short Narratives, Short Documentaries, Experimental films, and Animation. The theme of this year’s Brooklyn Film Festival is “Pause.” “In a world of distractions, pop-up notifications, infinite scrolling with fabricated truths, content that demands constant attention, what if the solution isn’t more noise, but a Pause,” said festival Director, Marco Ursino. “The 28th BFF plans to grab the audience’s attention amongst the chaos, and underscore the relief associated with smart, honest, quality screen time and the clarity that comes from taking a break, finding focus, and tuning in.”

Films include Under My Skin, directed by Pascal Tessaud. Back to his hood in the North Side of Marseille, South of France, Kaleem accepts a job in construction. He reconnects with his best friend Rachad who wants to hire him as manager in his new sport center. Kaleem is training hard for Krump and meets a mysterious Greek architect named Marie.

Atikamekw Suns, directed by Chloé Leriche is a mystery set in snowy Canada.  On June 26, 1977, a vehicle drives into a river outside the Atikamekw community of Manawan in northern Québec. Two Whites survive the accident, but five Atikamekw lose their lives. The police conclude it was an accident, but for the victims' families, many questions remain unanswered.

In Heavier is the Sky, directed by Petrus Cariry, after taking in an abandoned child, Teresa meets Antonio, and the two begin a journey on the roads. They share a past in common, which is the memories of a town submerged at the bottom of a dam. Life is a dream, but the future is uncertain.

Since 1998 the organizers of the Brooklyn Film Festival have set out to provide a public forum in Brooklyn to advance public interest in films and the indie production of films and to encourage the rights of Brooklyn residents to experience the power of independent filmmaking.

To learn more, go to: https://www.brooklynfilmfestival.org

Brooklyn Film Festival
May 30 - June 8, 2025

Windmill Studios
300 Kingsland Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11222

Wythe Hotel
80 Wythe Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11249

The Philip K Dick Film Festival Showcases Sci-Fi From Around the World

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Parent Category: Film Festivals

Category: Previews

Published on Wednesday, 02 April 2025 17:17

Written by Brad Balfour

Few authors have been as mind bending and reality altering as Philip K Dick. From Ubik, to Man in the High Castle, to Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, Dick has left a permanent mark on science and speculative fiction. Now the Philip K Dick Film Festival showcases films and series reflecting his vision for strange science fiction. Running April 2 to the 6th with online events and screenings in NYC, the Philip K Dick Film Festival is an international cavalcade of sci-fi cinema and documentaries.

The festival opens with the world premiere of the new sci-fi series The Unseen Realm, starring Edward James Olmos, Keir Dullea, Clancy Brown, Margot Kidder and Matt Modine in a series of shorts that span strange worlds.

With directors from around the world, the international sci-fi shorts block features works from Canada, the UK, France, Mexico, Portugal, India, and more. Also screened will be the world premiere of Memories of the Future from director Vanessa Ly. In the near future, a visionary scientist recalls his creation of the first androids—perfect replicas of deceased children. Centuries later, on a remote island, a small community of these childandroids lives in isolation, untouched by the world that made them until the arrival of a lone human teenager, setting a journey in motion. The documentary Sex Robot Madness examines how as Big Tech shifts its focus from the attention economy to the emerging “intimacy economy,” the question arises: Are we ready for customizable lovebots designed to push our most primal buttons?

To learn more, go to: https://www.thephilipkdickfilmfestival.com/

The Philip K Dick Film Festival
April 2 - 6, 2025

NYC and Online

New Directors/New Films 2025 at MoMA & Lincoln Center

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Parent Category: Film Festivals

Category: Previews

Published on Tuesday, 01 April 2025 10:30

Written by Brad Balfour

Presented my MoMA and Film at Lincoln Center, New Directors/New Films 2025 showcases bold visions from new and emerging directors. Running April 2 to the 13th at MoMA Titus theater and Lincoln Center’s Walter Reade Theater, ND/NF showcases 24 features and nine short films, including 20 North American or U.S. premieres.

Films being shown include CycleMahesh in which  a young cyclist’s flabbergasting efforts to reach home form the foundation of a stirring docu-fiction about the great lengths we go for freedom. In Lesson Learned students, parents, and teachers are put under the microscope in Bálint Szimler’s thrilling, novelistic view of school life. Sad Jokes is about Joseph—a gay filmmaker and father to a young child whose work-life balance inspires little confidence, as he grapples with fatherhood and writing comedy.

Previous ND/NF luminaries include Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Kelly Reichardt, Pedro Almodóvar, Souleymane Cissé, Jia Zhangke, Spike Lee, Lynne Ramsay, Michael Haneke, Wong Kar-wai, Agnieszka Holland, Denis Villeneuve, Luca Guadagnino, and many others.

To learn more, go to: https://www.newdirectors.org/

New Directors/New Films 2025
April 2 - 13, 2025.

Film at Lincoln Center Walter Reade Theater
165 W 65th Street
New York, NY 10023

MoMA
11 West 53 Street, Manhattan
New York, New York, 10019