Film Festival Roundup: Fantasia Announces Full Lineup, Rooftop Films Partners With IDFA And More
Keep up with the always-hopping film festival world with our weekly Film Festival Roundup column.
– Beloved genre festival Fantasia has completed announcing its very, very full final lineup for its twentieth edition. Highlights include Fede Alvarez’s “Don’t Breathe,” the Mel Gibson-starring thriller “Blood Father,” the world premiere of “The Top Secret: Murder in Mind,” Billy O’Brien’s “I Am Not a Serial Killer,” a screening of “Train to Busan,” a heart-stopping series of documentaries (“Beware The Slenderman”!), an action-centric series that includes the world premiere of “Kickboxer: Vengeance” and so very much more. (Seriously, this is just a very small taste of the wild goodies on offer.) Check out the full lineup at the festival’s official website. The Fantasia International Film Festival takes place in Montreal July 14 – August 2.
– New York City’s own Rooftop Films is partnering with the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) for three events will take place in various locations across New York City from Wednesday, July 20 to Friday, July 22. The program begins with a free screening of Rokhsareh Ghaem Maghami’s layered IDFA Audience Award-winner “Sonita'”on July 20 at Socrates Sculpture Park. This will be followed by a collection of some of the best Dutch-made short films from recent festivals on July 21 at the Trilok Fusion Center for the Arts. The program concludes at Industry City on July 22 with a special screening of Jerzy Sladkowski’s contemplative 2016 Jury Award-winner “Don Juan.”
– The Margaret Mead Film Festival will be celebrating its fortieth anniversary this year from October 13-16 at the American Museum of Natural History. With this year’s theme “Re:Frame,” the Margaret Mead Film Festival invites viewers to probe their own perspectives and to celebrate stories and art forms that offer us opportunities to see the world anew. In this way, the festival honors the legacy of Margaret Mead, whose groundbreaking approach to anthropology revealed how our histories, values, and points of view inevitably frame our encounters with other cultures and communities. You can find out more at the official Margaret Mead Film Festival website.
– The Locarno Film Festival‘s Concorso Cineasti del presente will open with a film “that is unique in its protagonists and for the concept that is the basis for the project,” thanks to “I Had Nowhere To Go,” by the filmmaker and video artist Douglas Gordon and which is based on Jonas Mekas’ diary. Gordon and Mekas will introduce the film at its world premiere on Thursday, August 4.
– The Third Annual Short Film Awards — AKA “The Sofies” — has extended the deadline for late entry submissions to Monday, July 18. Filmmakers can submit their short films through FilmFreeway right here. The awards will take place December 9-11 at New York City’s Symphony Space. For more information about The Short Film Awards, categories, and tickets, visit their official website.
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