The upcoming Woodstock Film Festival will kick off with Chloe Domont’s “Fair Play” and present a lifetime achievement award to James Ivory.
The 24th edition of the fest, which runs from Sept. 27 to Oct. 1 in New York’s Hudson Valley, about 100 miles north of Manhattan, features a lineup of world, U.S. and New York premieres of feature films directed by filmmakers ranging from Steve Buscemi (“The Listener”) and Wim Wenders (“Anselm”) to Roger Ross Williams (“Stamped From the Beginning”).
Opening night “Fair Play,” an erotic thriller about a power-hungry couple contending for power at a cutthroat financial firm, was acquired by Netflix for $20 million after debuting at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.
Wff will be held at venues in Woodstock, Rosendale and Saugerties, all of which are Hudson Valley towns where many Academy members own homes, making the fest an award season campaign hotspot.
Additional narrative feature...
The 24th edition of the fest, which runs from Sept. 27 to Oct. 1 in New York’s Hudson Valley, about 100 miles north of Manhattan, features a lineup of world, U.S. and New York premieres of feature films directed by filmmakers ranging from Steve Buscemi (“The Listener”) and Wim Wenders (“Anselm”) to Roger Ross Williams (“Stamped From the Beginning”).
Opening night “Fair Play,” an erotic thriller about a power-hungry couple contending for power at a cutthroat financial firm, was acquired by Netflix for $20 million after debuting at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.
Wff will be held at venues in Woodstock, Rosendale and Saugerties, all of which are Hudson Valley towns where many Academy members own homes, making the fest an award season campaign hotspot.
Additional narrative feature...
- 8/29/2023
- by Addie Morfoot
- Variety Film + TV
At first glance, it seems more idyllic than angsty on the island of Nantucket, a tony dollop of sand and clapboard houses 30 miles off the Massachusetts coast. Tourists have returned in force to the cobblestone streets, passing shops and restaurants nestled in the center of a centuries-old town square. Summer is here, and the Covid ordeal is starting to fade into memory. Yet the pandemic is very much with the Nantucket Film Festival, which wrapped its first fully in-person edition since 2019 on Monday. Like a couple dozen other well-established regional fests across the U.S., Nantucket is navigating the most challenging operating environment in its 27 years of existence. Today, it announced its annual slate of awards, topped by the Feature Film Audience Award winner, It Ain’t Over. Director Sean Mullin named his film after one of the enduring and eccentric aphorisms of late New York Yankees great Yogi Berra.
- 6/28/2022
- by Dade Hayes
- Deadline Film + TV
Last spring, as Covid-19 vaccines began rolling out and movie theaters and other venues reopened, organizers of the New York Film Festival were pretty sure they wouldn’t be forced back to the drive-in.
They soon would decide to require vaccination of all staff, filmmakers, audience members and other participants (a call then validated by New York City’s enactment of its own vaccine mandate). Despite feeling a surge of relief and energy at the prospect of returning to in-person activity at Lincoln Center after a 2020 festival of drive-in and virtual screenings, they also had a few questions. Or, actually, a lot of questions.
“Our ambitions are always very big,” fest director Eugene Hernandez told Deadline in an interview. “Now, though, we had to ask, ‘How do we scale this?’ How do we go all in on the cinematic experience? How do we do it safely?”
The ensuing months leading...
They soon would decide to require vaccination of all staff, filmmakers, audience members and other participants (a call then validated by New York City’s enactment of its own vaccine mandate). Despite feeling a surge of relief and energy at the prospect of returning to in-person activity at Lincoln Center after a 2020 festival of drive-in and virtual screenings, they also had a few questions. Or, actually, a lot of questions.
“Our ambitions are always very big,” fest director Eugene Hernandez told Deadline in an interview. “Now, though, we had to ask, ‘How do we scale this?’ How do we go all in on the cinematic experience? How do we do it safely?”
The ensuing months leading...
- 9/24/2021
- by Dade Hayes
- Deadline Film + TV
The Woodstock Film Festival has announced the slate for its 22nd edition, with 11 world premieres among the 43 features on the bill.
The festival will take place September 29 to October 3 in three Hudson Valley communities about two hours north of New York City. In-person screenings and events will be featured throughout the fest’s five days, but online options will also enable attendees to connect amid the ongoing challenges of Covid-19.
Panels, concerts and comedy sets along with film screenings are planned in Woodstock, Kingston and Saugerties. Neon chief Tom Quinn is slated to receive the festival’s Honorary Trailblazer Award, an honor announced in 2020 but postponed due to the pandemic.
The festival will kick off with Fanny: The Right to Rock, a documentary about a pathbreaking Filipina-American garage band, with a performance by some of the band’s members following the screening. Music is an annual touchstone for Woodstock’s lineup,...
The festival will take place September 29 to October 3 in three Hudson Valley communities about two hours north of New York City. In-person screenings and events will be featured throughout the fest’s five days, but online options will also enable attendees to connect amid the ongoing challenges of Covid-19.
Panels, concerts and comedy sets along with film screenings are planned in Woodstock, Kingston and Saugerties. Neon chief Tom Quinn is slated to receive the festival’s Honorary Trailblazer Award, an honor announced in 2020 but postponed due to the pandemic.
The festival will kick off with Fanny: The Right to Rock, a documentary about a pathbreaking Filipina-American garage band, with a performance by some of the band’s members following the screening. Music is an annual touchstone for Woodstock’s lineup,...
- 9/1/2021
- by Dade Hayes
- Deadline Film + TV
The Woodstock Film Festival will resume indoor screenings at its 22nd annual edition this fall, and also will recognize Neon founder and CEO Tom Quinn with a career honor.
This year’s festival will run from September 30 to October 3. It has carved out a notable place in the fall fest circuit because of its location, which is 110 miles north of New York City and also close to a number of film industry figures in the Hudson Valley. The surrounding region has also become more active in terms of film and TV production in recent years, adding multiple new soundstages.
Quinn will receive the festival’s 2021 Honorary Trailblazer Award. Before Covid-19 turned the 2020 edition into a hybrid affair with drive-ins and online screenings, Quinn had been scheduled to get the award last year, on the heels of Neon’s triumph with Parasite. The film, which had its world premiere in Cannes...
This year’s festival will run from September 30 to October 3. It has carved out a notable place in the fall fest circuit because of its location, which is 110 miles north of New York City and also close to a number of film industry figures in the Hudson Valley. The surrounding region has also become more active in terms of film and TV production in recent years, adding multiple new soundstages.
Quinn will receive the festival’s 2021 Honorary Trailblazer Award. Before Covid-19 turned the 2020 edition into a hybrid affair with drive-ins and online screenings, Quinn had been scheduled to get the award last year, on the heels of Neon’s triumph with Parasite. The film, which had its world premiere in Cannes...
- 7/20/2021
- by Dade Hayes
- Deadline Film + TV
Leon Gast, the Academy Award-winning director behind sport documentary “When We Were Kings,” died on Monday, according to Meira Blaustein, his close friend and the co-founder of Woodstock Film Festival. He was 85.
Blaustein shared the news of Gast’s death in a Facebook post. “He was a giant of a filmmaker, an absolute joy of a human being, and a very dear and beloved friend,” Blaustein wrote. “I am so grateful that I got to visit with him yesterday, tell him how much I loved him, how much he meant to all of us. I only wish I had stayed longer.”
“When We Were Kings,” which won best documentary feature at the 1997 Oscars, explores the iconic boxing match between George Foreman and Muhammad Ali that took place in Kinshasa, Zaire (now known as the Democratic Republic of Congo) in 1974. Featuring historical footage and new interviews, the doc also examines the...
Blaustein shared the news of Gast’s death in a Facebook post. “He was a giant of a filmmaker, an absolute joy of a human being, and a very dear and beloved friend,” Blaustein wrote. “I am so grateful that I got to visit with him yesterday, tell him how much I loved him, how much he meant to all of us. I only wish I had stayed longer.”
“When We Were Kings,” which won best documentary feature at the 1997 Oscars, explores the iconic boxing match between George Foreman and Muhammad Ali that took place in Kinshasa, Zaire (now known as the Democratic Republic of Congo) in 1974. Featuring historical footage and new interviews, the doc also examines the...
- 3/9/2021
- by Natalie Oganesyan
- Variety Film + TV
The Woodstock Film Festival, New York’s self-declared “fiercely independent” weeklong cinema celebration, wrapped its 20th edition on October 6. Held within the welcoming milieu of the Hudson Valley, the forward-thinking gathering hosts films, panels, parties and award ceremonies not just in Woodstock, but also in neighboring towns Rosendale, Rhinebeck, Saugerties and Kingston.
At the heart of Wff are co-founders Laurent Rejto and Meira Blaustein, who, along with a number of devoted industry stalwarts (many have resided in the region), ensure that smart, inclusive programming of contemporary narratives, documentaries, shorts and animations are screened. It’s why the festival has developed an identity all its own.
In honor of the Woodstock Film Festival’s 20th anniversary, Variety sat down with Rejto to look back at the road taken to reach the milestone.
What was your vision for the Woodstock Film Festival two decades ago?
The vision was to create a filmmaker-friendly festival,...
At the heart of Wff are co-founders Laurent Rejto and Meira Blaustein, who, along with a number of devoted industry stalwarts (many have resided in the region), ensure that smart, inclusive programming of contemporary narratives, documentaries, shorts and animations are screened. It’s why the festival has developed an identity all its own.
In honor of the Woodstock Film Festival’s 20th anniversary, Variety sat down with Rejto to look back at the road taken to reach the milestone.
What was your vision for the Woodstock Film Festival two decades ago?
The vision was to create a filmmaker-friendly festival,...
- 10/9/2019
- by Mitch Myers
- Variety Film + TV
Looking @ Docs
Bookended by two of the world’s most prestigious film festivals, the super-gala in Toronto and the cinephile delight in New York, the Woodstock Film Festival is set in a tiny village on the edge of the Catskill Mountains, and for a dozen years it has been garnering a different kind of prestige.
With a quality film program that’s not humongous, filmgoers experience fewer film scheduling conflicts — a frequent irritant for film buffs. With plenty of film industry people in attendance, looking and enjoying instead of working and stressing, they’re approachable, even friendly. People have always come to Woodstock to chill out. With nearly every screening attended by the filmmakers, unlike at many festivals these filmmakers are readily available to audience members.
“There’s nothing more inspiring,” Ina Mayhem told me at the awards ceremony, “than to see the film and be with the filmmaker.”
Woodstock is reasonably sized,...
Bookended by two of the world’s most prestigious film festivals, the super-gala in Toronto and the cinephile delight in New York, the Woodstock Film Festival is set in a tiny village on the edge of the Catskill Mountains, and for a dozen years it has been garnering a different kind of prestige.
With a quality film program that’s not humongous, filmgoers experience fewer film scheduling conflicts — a frequent irritant for film buffs. With plenty of film industry people in attendance, looking and enjoying instead of working and stressing, they’re approachable, even friendly. People have always come to Woodstock to chill out. With nearly every screening attended by the filmmakers, unlike at many festivals these filmmakers are readily available to audience members.
“There’s nothing more inspiring,” Ina Mayhem told me at the awards ceremony, “than to see the film and be with the filmmaker.”
Woodstock is reasonably sized,...
- 9/27/2011
- by Stewart Nusbaumer
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
The Woodstock Film Festival, which runs Sept. 29-Oct. 3 in Woodstock, N.Y., will present independent film distributor Bob Berney with its Trailblazer Award and director Bruce Beresford with its Honorary Maverick Award.
Berney has held executive posts at Apparition, Picturehouse, Newmarket Films and IFC Films.
"His innovative approach to film marketing and distribution has been admired by many in our industry and his independent and uncompromising spirit make him the epitome of a Trailblazer," Wff co-founder and director Meira Blaustein said.
"I'm glad to be thought of as a 'trailblazer' instead of an 'industry vet,' for a change, it's very nice. I respect the spirit of the Woodstock Film Festival; it's adventuresome programming, not only in film but in music and many other art forms. The sense of community there reminds me of my days in the movie theatre business and the pure joy of experiencing something new through film in a shared environment,...
Berney has held executive posts at Apparition, Picturehouse, Newmarket Films and IFC Films.
"His innovative approach to film marketing and distribution has been admired by many in our industry and his independent and uncompromising spirit make him the epitome of a Trailblazer," Wff co-founder and director Meira Blaustein said.
"I'm glad to be thought of as a 'trailblazer' instead of an 'industry vet,' for a change, it's very nice. I respect the spirit of the Woodstock Film Festival; it's adventuresome programming, not only in film but in music and many other art forms. The sense of community there reminds me of my days in the movie theatre business and the pure joy of experiencing something new through film in a shared environment,...
- 7/30/2010
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Over at Huffington Post, Stewart Nusbaumer previews the upcoming Sundance Film Festival from the point of view of its New York visitors. Thelma Adams, Meira Blaustein, Karina Longworth, Mike Maggiore and I all pick some upcoming pre-favorites from the Sundance selection. Here's me on Josh and Benny Safdie's Daddy Long Legs, which, it was announced today at indieWIRE, will be available on VOD right after the festival via Rainbow Media's Sundance Selects (run by IFC). "One New York film I'm especially keen on is Josh and Benny Safdie's Daddy Long Legs, which stars Frownland director Ronald Bronstein as a hopeless, hapless, but entirely loving divorced father who, despite money woes and girlfriend issues, retains a childlike enthusiasm for...
- 1/7/2010
- by Scott Macaulay
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
The Cinema Eye Honors, my favorite awards ceremony after the Indie Spirits, has released the nominations in eleven categories with Louie Psihoyos’ The Cove racking up a total of seven nominations . - The Cinema Eye Honors, my favorite awards ceremony after the Indie Spirits, has released the nominations in eleven categories with Louie Psihoyos’ The Cove racking up a total of seven nominations while 2nd place with four nominations each, we find Robert Kenner’s overrated Food, Inc., Anders Ostergaard’s miraculous Burma VJ and a pair of films that I'm sure many in the general public know nothing about in Darius Marder’s Loot and Michael Palmieri and Donal Mosher’s October Country. Winners will be announced on the 15th of January. Loot (which got a "money back guarantee" from Hammer to Nail's Michael Tully) follows two WWII veterans and their guide across the...
- 12/13/2009
- by Ioncinema.com Staff
- IONCINEMA.com
Ben Foster, Alessandro Camon, Meira Blaustein, Oren Moverman and Ted Hope attend the Woodstock Film Festival’s Launch Party in New York City. Celebrating its first full decade, the festival will host nearly 100 films, panels, and events, all set to place September 30-October 4 in the arts colony of Woodstock, New York, and neighboring towns of Rhinebeck, Kingston and Rosendale. Check out the festival’s full lineup here.
- 9/25/2009
- Indiewire
Producer Ted Hope will be honored with the Trailblazer Award at the 10th anniversary Woodstock Film Festival, which runs from Sept. 30-Oct. 4 in Woodstock, N.Y. Together with partner Anne Carey, he runs the New York production company This is that.
Oren Moverman's "The Messenger" will serve as the fest's opening night film. Miquel Arteta's "Youth in Revolt" has been tapped as the Centerpiece Film.
Other films have have been scheduled include Barbara Kopple's "Woodstock: Now and Then," Jonathan Demme's "Neil Young Trunk Show," Tom Dicillio's "When You're Strange: A Film about the Doors," Rebecca Miller's "The Private Lives of Pippa Lee," Grant Heslov's "The Men Who Stare at Goats," Richard Linklater's "Me and Orson Welles" and Haim Tabakmaan's "Eyes Wide Open."
The Trailblazer Award honors creative and innovative pioneers in the art of the business of independent film. Hope will receive it...
Oren Moverman's "The Messenger" will serve as the fest's opening night film. Miquel Arteta's "Youth in Revolt" has been tapped as the Centerpiece Film.
Other films have have been scheduled include Barbara Kopple's "Woodstock: Now and Then," Jonathan Demme's "Neil Young Trunk Show," Tom Dicillio's "When You're Strange: A Film about the Doors," Rebecca Miller's "The Private Lives of Pippa Lee," Grant Heslov's "The Men Who Stare at Goats," Richard Linklater's "Me and Orson Welles" and Haim Tabakmaan's "Eyes Wide Open."
The Trailblazer Award honors creative and innovative pioneers in the art of the business of independent film. Hope will receive it...
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