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Tech Valley News
Woodstock Film Festival Kicks Off This Week
Learn more at Woodstock Film Festival
“We focus not just on high quality films, but also on the unique talent and passion of the filmmakers behind them,” said Meira Blaustein, co-founder and executive director of the festival. “When you gather together a critical mass of creative people in Woodstock, a place so uniquely welcoming, comfortable yet sophisticated – it’s magical. The films we are presenting at the Woodstock Film Festival includes a diverse mix of narrative features, documentaries, shorts and animation, and the collection represents some of the finest talent in independent film today.” The festival’s schedule and ticket information can be found at http://www.woodstockfilmfestival.com.
The event will open with “Infamous” and “Days of Glory.” The centerpiece film is “After the Wedding.” “Shut Up and Sing” will close the festival.
Events will take place in Woodstock and the neighboring towns of Rhinebeck, Hunter, and Rosendale.
Jonathan Sehring – president of IFC Entertainment – will be honored with the Trailblazer Award and Barbara Kopple – two-time Academy Award winner – will receive the Maverick Award.
Other annual festival awards include the Maverick Award for Excellence in Film Editing, the Haskell Wexler Award for Best Cinematography, and awards for Best Narrative Feature, Best Feature Documentary, Best Short Narrative, Best Short Documentary, Best Animated Short and Best Student Short, to be announced at the WFF Awards Ceremony, Saturday evening Oct. 14 at the Colony Cafe in Woodstock.
The Woodstock Film Festival was created by filmmakers in 2000, born of the kind of passion for cinema that can come only from working filmmakers and those who support their creative pursuits. And what better setting for a celebration of 'fiercely independent' film than Woodstock, long known the world over as a center of creative and independent thought? At once a beautiful small town with bucolic surroundings and within the cultural orbit of New York City, Woodstock is the ideal setting for the fall festival. Here, filmmakers are embraced and welcomed in a friendly, creative and nurturing environment.
“Infamous” – written and directed by Douglas McGrath – stars Toby Jones, Sandra Bullock, Daniel Craig, Peter Bogdanovich, Jeff Daniels, Hope Davis, Gwyneth Paltrow, Isabella Rossellini, Juliet Stevenson, John Benjamin Hickey, Lee Pace, and Sigourney Weaver. The film is the highly anticipated biopic of legendary writer Truman Capote (Jones). In the film, what starts out as the humorous journey of the openly gay Capote as he moves through the elegant circles of Manhattan's sophisticated café society, turns darker as he becomes increasingly consumed by a murder case.
Rachid Bouchard's “Days of Glory” tells the story of some of the 130,000 young North Africans who, though having never stepped foot on French soil, enlisted in the French Army during World War II to liberate the “fatherland” from the Nazi enemy. These heroes that history forgot won battles in Italy, Provence and the Vosges before finding themselves alone to defend an Alsatian village against a German battalion.
In Danish filmmaker Susanne Bier's “After the Wedding,” Jacob, (Mads Mikkelsen) a Danish aid worker in India, thinks a wealthy businessman has come to the rescue of his orphanage only to discover that the offer of financial salvation comes with some very long strings attached, leading him back to Denmark for a wedding and forcing him to confront the most intense dilemma of his life.
“Shut Up and Sing,” is eagerly anticipated story of the Dixie Chicks. The documentary travels with the Dixie Chicks from the peak of their popularity as the national-anthem-singing darlings of country music and top-selling female recording artists of all time through the now infamous anti-Bush comment made by the group’s lead singer Natalie Maines in 2003. The film follows the lives and careers of the band over three years during which they were under political attack and received death threats, while continuing to live their lives, have children and, of course, make music. The film ultimately presents a full portrait of the Dixie Chicks as women, public figures, and musicians. At this time, the Woodstock Film Festival audience will be the first U.S. audience to screen “Shut Up and Sing.”
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