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Running June 14 - 21 at the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the IFC Center, the Human Rights Watch Film Festival has a slate of eye opening films from around the world. This year's festival highlights women fighting back against personal and institutional abuse, with twelve of the films featured this year directed by women. “In a year when women have spoken out against abuse, harassment and oppression, the festival highlights the outstanding work of women filmmakers telling epic stories of women fighting injustice with resilience and courage.” said John Biaggi, the Human Rights Watch Film Festival creative director.
The opening night film, On Her Shoulders, about Yezidi human rights advocate and ISIS survivor Nadia Murad opens the festival on June 14, and the closing night film The Unafraid explores the experience of DACA students struggling to fight for their own education as they face a very uncertain future.
This year's festival also examines government and corporate regulation of information with films like The Cleaners, directed by Hans Block and Moritz Riesewieck, on data gatekeepers.
To learn more, go to: https://ff.hrw.org/new-york
Human Rights Watch Film Festival
June 14 - 21, 2018
Sicilian Ghost Story
Now in it’s 18th edition, the Open Roads: New Italian Cinema film festival hits Lincoln Center with a slate of Italian films. Taking place at the Walter Reade Theater (165 West 65th Street) and running from May 31 to June 6, the festival features 17 films. The Opening Night selection is Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazz’s second feature, Sicilian Ghost Story, based on the true events of a missing young boy.
The fest will also include the premiere of Boys Cry, a gritty gangster genre debut by the D'Innocenzo brothers; Roberto De Paolis's feature debut about youthful self-discovery, and Pure Hearts; Sergio Castellitto's emotionally raw Fortunata, featuring legendary Rainer Werner Fassbinder leading lady Hanna Schygulla and Jasmine Trinca. Plus three works by returning Open Roads filmmakers: Marco Tullio Giordana's Nome di donna, Ferzan Ozpetek’s Naples in Veils, and Vincenzo Marra’s Equilibrium.
To learn more, go to: https://www.filmlinc.org/festivals/open-roads-new-italian-cinema/#films
Open Roads: New Italian Cinema
May 31 - June 6, 2018
Walter Reade Theater
165 W 65th St.
New York, NY 10023
Featuring the work of filmmakers from Portugal and Portuguese directors abroad, the NY Portuguese Short Film Festival (NYPSFF) will be running at Lincoln Center Howard Gilman Theater and the Tribeca Film Center May 30 - 31.
The first of its kind, the festival highlights the work of new and young Portuguese filmmakers. The Director of Arte Institute and the NY Portuguese Short Film Festival, Ana Ventura Miranda, says that “The Portuguese Cinema has develop very much in the past years, especially the short film format and that the NYPSFF showcases the new directors but also the country itself and its creativity”.
To learn more, go to: http://www.nypsff.arteinstitute.org/
The NY Portuguese Short Film Festival
May 30 - 31, 2018
Lincoln Center Howard Gilman Theater
144 West 65th St.
Tribeca Film Center
375 Greenwich St.
New York, NY 10013
It is not truly festival season until Cannes returns. Running May 8 to 19, the legendary Cannes Film Festival returns to the scenic French Riviera with the usual parade of cinematic glitz and pomp. The Un Certain Regard section of the fest this year is chaired by actor Benicio Del Toro, alongside a jury of 3 women and 2 men who will reveal the prizewinners on Friday 18 May, during the Closing Ceremony. The new film by Ukrainian filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa, Donbass, will be the Opening film, and will be screened on Wednesday 9 May in the Debussy Theatre.
The American Pavilion features “Industry In Focus” Series and “In Conversation” lectures with directors and producers on topics shot as short films at Cannes, how technology can affect the film industry, the power of genre films, and more. To learn more, go to: http://www.ampav.com/
The competition includes films such as Kore-Eda Hirokazu’s Shoplifters in which a family that survives through petty crime adopt a young girl abandoned in the cold. In David Robert Mitchell’s Under the Silver Lake, Sam (Andrew Garfield) is a disenchanted 33-year old who discovers a mysterious woman, Sarah (Riley Keough), frolicking in his apartment's swimming pool. When she vanishes, Sam embarks on a surreal quest across Los Angeles. Legendary French New Wave director Jean-Luc Godard brings Le Livre D’image (Picture Book), a mysterious film that wants to let you know that “war is here.”
To learn more, go to: https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/
Cannes Film Festival
May 8 - 19, 2018