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Film Festivals
1st Iranian Film Fest New York Comes to IFC Center
- Details
- Parent Category: Film Festivals
- Category: Previews
- Published on Friday, 21 December 2018 00:22
- Written by Brad Balfour
Featuring brand new works as well as art-house favorite, the first Iranian Film Festival New York comes to the IFC Center January 10 - 15. New, old, daring, frightening, and funny, these films represent a country’s work that is virtually unseen in the United States. The IrFFNY Opening Night selection will be the NY premiere of Bahman Farmanara’s Tale of the Sea (Hekayat-e Darya) on Thursday, Jan 10 at 7pm. Following the screening, there will be a Q&A with writer-producer-director-star Farmanara. The veteran producer and director has been active in Iranian cinema since the 1970s, and the festival is proud to have him as its Guest of Honor.
IrFFNY is co-founded and co-programmed by film critic Godfrey Cheshire, who has written extensively about Iranian cinema, and Festival Director Armin Miladi, who distributes Iranian films and runs the annual Iranian Film Festival of Australia. Of the three most prominent directors represented in the first IrFFNY, Farmanara and Abbas Kiarostami have had films banned in Iran, while Jafar Panahi was banned from making films for 20 years, an order he has defied by continuing to make them.
To learn more, go to: http://www.ifccenter.com/series/iranian-film-festival-new-york/
1st Iranian Film Festival New York
January 10 - 15, 2019
IFC Film Center
323 6th Ave.
New York, NY 10014
Italy On Screen Today Fest Has Third Edition in NYC
- Details
- Parent Category: Film Festivals
- Category: Previews
- Published on Thursday, 06 December 2018 17:05
- Written by Brad Balfour
Italy has had reverberations on the world of cinema that have been felt for decades. The Italy On Screen Today Festival, running December 8 to 15, celebrates the country’s cinematic heritage while looking at filmmakers of today. Held at the NYIT Auditorium on Broadway (1871 Broadway, NY, NY) and at other venues in NYC.
The festival will have a special NY premiere screening of Euforia with special guests actress and director Valeria Golino, the novelist André Aciman and director Julie Taymor. Euforia follows Matteo and Ettore, two brothers that couldn’t be more dissimilar forced to reunite and reconcile in the face of life’s ebb and flow. A special screening of Call Me By Your Name will be followed by a Q&A with author André Aciman at NYU Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò. The strange Little Tito and the Aliens, about a lonely Professor living in the Nevada desert that is joined by his niece and nephew from his dying brother, set against the backdrop of Area 51 and alien weddings for tourists. The film will be introduced by director Paola Randi in conversation with journalist Silvia Bizio.
To learn more, go to: http://www.italyonscreentoday.it/
Italy On Screen Today
December 8 - 15, 2018
Various Locations
2018 African Diaspora International Film Festival: Docs, Animation, Features, & Voices
- Details
- Parent Category: Film Festivals
- Category: Previews
- Published on Thursday, 29 November 2018 18:29
- Written by Brad Balfour
Kirkikou and the Sorceress
Focusing on black directors and black experiences, the 2018 African Diaspora International Film Festival (running November 29 to December 9) gives these stories a voice. Held at venues across NYC, the festival has a large slate of features, shorts, documentaries and works of animation for audiences of all ages.
Animated works include The Sky Princess, a CG-animated feature film about an ordinary girl who becomes an African princess with the help of a magical bird. Kirkikou and the Sorceress, directed by Michel Ocelot, is an animated tour de force, animated in a painterly style about a boy freeing his village from a terrible curse.
The Citizen, directed by Roland Vranik, follows a refuggee of the civil war in Guinea-Bissau as he seeks to gain citizenship in Hungary while working as a mall security guard in Budapest. One of the special screenings is No Shade, directed by Clare Anyiam-Osigwe which explores the hardships of the modern dating world through the dysmorphic presence of colorism as well as the fetishization of black women in a way that is tactful and honest. The festival also includes special slates of film organized for school screenings, films focusing on the lives of women and films realted to The Black Panthers.
To learn more, go to: https://nyadiff.org/ny-2018/
2018 African Diaspora International Film Festival
November 29 - December 9, 2018
Various Locations
Interfaith Film & Music Festival Tackles Hard Hitting Issues Through Cinema
- Details
- Parent Category: Film Festivals
- Category: Previews
- Published on Thursday, 29 November 2018 17:23
- Written by Renzo Adler
With film, music, and networking events across NYC, the 2018 Interfaith Film & Music Festival aims to promote diversity and inclusion through music and cinema. Running November 30 to December 2, the IFMF addresses issues of racism, sexism, immigration, and identity through shorts, documentaries, narrative films and animation.
The festival opens with Searching Skies, directed by Vivian Hua, in which a Syrian refugee family is invited to a Christian family's house for Christmas dinne. They are caught between opposing viewpoints for and against their presence, until an unexpected event suddenly occurs. The documentary Sunday’s Best, directed by Marlon Johnson, Dennis Scholl, and Chad Tingle, explores the cherished African-American custom of wearing extraordinary hats to church services on Sundays, and explores the rich tradition with Miami's own fashionable faithful black community. Wilhemina’s War, directed by June Cross, is the story of Wilhemina Dixon, an uneducated daughter of sharecroppers who becomes a force in helping her granddaughter survive the health risks and social stigma of living with HIV in the South, where HIV/AIDS is the leading cause of death among black women.
The festival will also have community events in Harlem on December 1 as part of World AIDS Day, and a slate of panel discussions to go with the films.
To learn more, go to: http://www.interfaithfilmfest.com/
2018 Interfaith Film & Music Festival
November 30 - December 2, 2018
Various Locations
