PAFF: Biggest, Blackest, Boldest US Film Festival

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Parent Category: Film Festivals

Category: Previews

Published on Thursday, 07 February 2013 16:28

Written by Matt Oakes

Featuring films from Angola to Bermuda, the annual Pan African Film Festival returns for its 21st year as America's largest commemoration of African culture in film. This year, PAFF will run from February 7-18, 2013, in two Los Angeles area venues -- Rave Cinemas and at the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza.

Read more: PAFF: Biggest, Blackest, Boldest...

New Realities Spiritual Film Festival Marks Its 3rd Incarnation

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Published on Wednesday, 30 January 2013 03:52

Written by Laura Blum

Now in its third incarnation, the New Realities Spiritual Film Festival will manifest in Manhattan from January 31 to February 2, 2013. Aquarians born on January 31 are known to have eccentric perspectives. 

The spiritually-themed fest is curated by NewRealities internet radio talk show host Alan Steinfeld and Jodi Serota, owner of holistic personal growth forum META Center NY (214 W 29th St., 16th Floor).

The Festival aims to catalyze "the transformation of our local community and the collective awakening of the planet" using filmed "messages that affect the body, mind and soul." Spiritual biography is the guiding principal of this year's program.

The opening film is Emily Squires' The Art of Being Human: A Portrait of Frederick Franck. This documentary portrait of the painter, sculptor and author of The Zen of Seeing is part of an homage to Squires, the six-time Emmy Award-winning director of Sesame Street who died last November. Squires helmed -- and wrote for -- the celebrated children's series from 1982 to 2007. NRSFF pays tribute to her acclaimed filmed converstaion with the Dalai Lama, Visions of Perfect Worlds, with the closing night bookend The Road to Peace: Ancient Wisdom of the 14th Dalai Lama, by Leon Stuparich.

One of the Festival's highlights is the program surrounding the short documentary Finding Joe. Directed by Patrick Takaya Solomon, it probes the legacy of mythologist Joseph Campbell's famed “hero’s journey.” Following the screening, Phil Robinson and the Bliss Jockeys will perform music inspired by Campbell's work.

Other NRSFF titles include Kumaré (followed by Q&A with producer Bryan Camel) and Decoding Depak. The former exposes the New Age shenanigans of a self-proclaimed spiritual guru, and the latter offers a glimpse into the private persona of spiritual icon Deepak Chopra, by his son Gotham Chopra.

For a variation on the transcendence angle, there's Dear Governor Cuomo, from award-winning filmmaker Jon Bowermaster. Part concert film, part teach-in, it captures the musical happening that Bowermaster and his partner Natalie Merchant mounted in Albany to urge Governor Andrew Cuomo to maintain New York's moratorium on fracking. Celebrities Mark Ruffalo, Pete Seeger and Melissa Leo lend the protest documentary an effective blend of star power, hard facts and moving personal testimony.

One of the closing night films is The Overview Effect, about the transformation -- four decades later -- of the Apollo 17 astronauts who snapped the first photograph of the Earth from space. Director Guy Reid of Planetary Collective is the winner of the 2013 New Realities Meta Center NY Best New Conscious Filmmaker of the Year Award.

The full Festival lineup and tickets are available at 212 736 0999, Ext.1.

New Realities Spiritual Film Festival
January 31 - February 2, 2013
214 W 29th St., 16th Floor
New York, NY
http://NewRealities.com
http://www.MetaCenterNY.com

Celebrate The Jewish Experience With the 2013 New York Jewish Film Festival

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Parent Category: Film Festivals

Category: Previews

Published on Friday, 21 December 2012 01:12

Written by Matt Oakes

From January 9-24, 2013, The Film Society of Lincoln Center and the Jewish Museum present the 22nd Annual New York Jewish Film Festival. Held at the Film Society’s Walter Reade Theater, this New York festival will feature 45 full length and short films from around the world.

Special presentations from those involved in the films and thought-provoking discussions will follow most screenings.

The festival will feature such films as Hannah Arendt, which will play at the festival’s closing night. Hannah Arendt chronicles the true life story of the acclaimed writer’s experience from a Nazi detention center to the streets of Jerusalem and then to the heart of New York City and has been called “a remarkably successful attempt” by The Hollywood Reporter.

Another highlight is a panel with the Safdie Brothers of Red Bucket Films fame, who will be hosting a viewing and discussion of five of their short films. Audiences will be privy to a screening of their Offical Cannes Selection film, Daddy Longlegs (AKA Go Get Some Rosemary). 

There will also be a number of remastered classics shown such as the films of Franciszka and Stegan Themerson, as well as a host of new documentaries like The Art of Spiegelman, Joe Papp in Five Acts and Neil Barksy’s Koch.

Screenings tickets for a single film cost $13 but are discounted for students and seniors at a rate of $9. For members of the Film Society and Jewish Museum, screening costs are only $8.

If you plan to see the Safdie Brothers double feature, screening on January 13, tickets run $20/$14 (students, seniors, members).

Tickets go on sale December 27th, 2012, online or at the Walter Reade Theater Box Office

For more information contact www.FilmLinc.com, www.TheJewishMuseum.org, or call 212.875.5601.

New York Jewish Film Festival
January 9-24, 2013

The Film Society of Lincoln Center
Walter Reade Theater