(Photo: Courtesy of Jess Thoubboron)
When Jess Thoubboron wanted to screen her new short film, Strangers, she thought about how to showcase it in a way that connected to her motivation for making the film in the first place.
Strangers, Thoubboron’s directorial debut, is about two strangers who meet and instantly form a special bond and encourage one another to traverse their self-imposed boundaries and reexamine how they perceived themselves.
(Photo: Courtesy of Nitehawk Cinema)
The series starts off straight away with a jury favorite: Do Not Resist won Tribeca’s Best Documentary Feature. Craig Atkinson’s directorial debut focuses on the disconcertingly rapid militarization of the police in the United States– a timely subject if ever there was one.
On the 19th, Nitehawk will be screening Jenny Gage’s All This Panic, a coming-of-age story about seven teenage girls in New York. On the 20th, there will be a screening of Maurizio Cattelan: Be Right Back, Maura Axelrod’s portrait of the artist Maurizio Cattelan.
On the 21st, the final film in the series will be Vanessa Gould’s Obit, which takes you into the offices (and yes, “the morgue”) of The New York Times obit writers. We caught that one at Tribeca and can tell you it’s a must-watch if you’ve ever wondered how many obits the Times has prewritten for living people. (Spoiler: about 1,700.)
All screenings will be followed by a Q&A with the filmmakers and will take place at 7:30pm, at Nitehawk Cinema (136 Metropolitan Avenue between Berry Street and Wythe Avenue).
TUESDAY
Nitehawk’s “Booze & Books” series is partnering with Abrams Books for a signing of Tom Shone’s Woody Allen: A Retrospective and screening of the director’s 1980 film Stardust Memories (starring Allen, Charlotte Rampling and Jessica Harper). Fittingly, the movie is about a filmmaker recalling his various inspirations while attending a retrospective of his work. Before the show Shone will be signing the illustrated biography, the first complete film-by-film overview of Allen’s career; it includes original interviews as well as 250 behind-the-scenes stills, photographs, posters, and ephemera. Don’t forget to ask about the special cocktail for sale, inspired by the film – it is “Booze & Books,” after all.
Tuesday, October 6 at 7:30 p.m. Nitehawk Cinema, 36 Metropolitan Avenue (Williamsburg). $15 (ticket only) or $45 (ticket plus book).
Is it just me or are there actual butt loads of film festivals taking place all over our dear city. Happening right now in Gowanus is the Motorcycle Film Fest and last week we were graced with a Coney Island Film Festival. Well, I hope you’re not totally infested just yet because there’s even more fests and marathon of shorts coming down the pipeline, and they’re getting closer to us than ever.
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Don’t even think about having something better to do than checking out a movie this weekend and beyond. We’ve got some great stuff right here including a totally creepy documentary about notorious polygamist Warren Jeffs, a Coney Island-based film festival for the freaks, and this fascinating looking doc (see the trailer above) about train hoppers and their mysterious hieroglyphs.
“It’s better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all” always struck me as a pretty shitty consolation. I guess it depends on who’s doing the losing part, right? Love looks a lot rosier from the side of the jilter than the jilt-ee. I guess the point being that at some stage you get a taste of both. Which is likely why, among the recently announced lineup for the upcoming eighth annual Bushwick Film Festival (Oct 1 to 4), the topic of love pops up so frequently. For this reason, I propose as a counter statement: it’s better to have neither loved nor lost, but rather watched the entire shitshow go down from the comfort of a theater chair. In honor of this newfound epithet, we’ve compiled our list of the films at this year’s BFF featuring the character of love in all her forms.
Get ready this week for films that are at once fantastical and grounded in sometimes harsh reality. Our top picks include an art-house sci-fi film that says more about immigration than extra-terrestrials, one werewolf flick that proves the Scandinavians are masters of mixing the banality of small town life and horror, and more. Peep on.
Yes, there are better things playing right now than Mission Impossible number… whatever. Ethan Hunt is the hero to end them all, perhaps, but why make yourself feel any dumber this week than you need to? There’s plenty of time for Tom Cruisin’ (that movie’s got at least a billion more dollars to make back before Scientology’s satisfied), so get tootin’ on some of these other films instead.
Jack Drury (Photo via Motorcycle Film Festival)
The annual Motorcycle Film Festival, if you’ve ever imagined there could be such a thing, might defy most of or even all of the expectations you have in your head. Firstly, it’s not held at some Harley Davidson dealership outside of Hoboken. So far, the fest has had a home in Greenpoint and Williamsburg and this year, the fest’s third year, it’ll be happening in Gowanus (mostly) at Littlefield. Secondly, it was founded by a woman, Corinna Mantlo and a guy, Jack Drury. But guess which one of them has been riding motorcycles longer? Here’s a hint: she runs a badass all-female motorcycle club called the Miss-Fires. And finally, this fest is about so much more than just motorcycle films.
This week in film get ready for uber cheesy, ultra trashy Troma films and attractive teen murderesses. If documentaries are more your speed, don’t miss one that explores the so-called “gay voice” and another that takes a look at Williamsburg’s Southside (aka Los Sures) way back in 1984.