Film Festival: What's New In '96
What's to keep all eyes glued to movie screens at the East Hampton Cinema Oct. 16 through Oct. 20, when the Hamptons International Film Festival will stage its fourth annual event?
Besides 19 world premieres, 32 U.S. premieres, works by students, by American independent filmmakers and contemporary international ones, documentaries, shorts, restored and archival films, panel discussions, and gala parties?
Well, this year there will also be a day devoted to Australian cinema, a composing award, documentary shorts in addition to full-length movies, and short films before some feature-length films, and a composing award.
The program was announced formally on Tuesday at the Water Club in New York.
More To Learn
"I'm delighted with everything in the lineup," Sam Maser, the festival's program director, said. "It should offer something for everyone."
Details about who will lead the Conversation With . . . event - always a mystery until the last minute - and who will win the Distinguished Achievement Award have yet to be announced but will be forthcoming. Last year they were Isabella Rossellini and John Schlesinger, respectively.
What the topics of the panel discussions would be and which archival films would be screened were not announced yet either.
American Independents
The 10 films selected for the American Independents Showcase will compete for the Golden Starfish, a juried award of goods and services worth about $100,000, as well as for the new composing award and two audience awards for most popular film and best director. Many films are their maker's first stab at writing and directing a feature-length work.
In this category, those films making their world premiere in East Hampton will be "The Bible and Gun Club," directed by Daniel J. Harris; "The Cottonwood" by Steven Feder, who produced and co-wrote "The Big Gig," which won the audience award for best short in the 1993 Film Festival; "Layin' Low" by Danny Leiner; Michael Bergmann's "Milk & Money"; Jay Chandraskehar's "Puddle Cruiser"; "Shooting Lily" by Arthur Borman, and "Wedding Bell Blues."
"Wedding Bell Blues" is the only film in this category directed (Dana Lustig) and written (Annette Goliti-Gutierrez) by women.
"Breathing Room" by Jon Sherman and "Driven" by Michael Paradies Shoob will be making their premieres in the U.S. The 10th film in this category is "Mugshot" by Matt Mahurin.
Each year the Film Festival highlights several contemporary feature films from one country. This year six films from Down Under, including four making their U.S. debuts, will be highlighted on Oct. 19, Australian Cinema Day. Five are narrative features and one is a documentary.
The four premieres are the documentary, "Billal," directed by Tom Zubrycki, which tells a Lebanese family's story about racially motivated violence; "Dead Heart" by Nick Parsons; "Hotel de Love" by Craig Rosenberg, and Geoffrey Bennett's "Turning April."
The other two Australian films are "Lilian's Story" by Jerzy Domaradzki and "The Quiet Room" by Rolf de Heer.
France Rules
In the Contemporary International Cinema category are 27 films from Iceland, Austria, the U.S., Denmark, Ireland, Spain, France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Canada, Yugoslavia, India, and Korea, and one of mixed "parentage" representing Tunisia, France, and Belgium. Many will be making their U.S. premieres.
In this category, the country with the most films is France (other than the U.S.), which has four films, three of them making their debuts in the U.S. at the festival, and including Patrice Leconte's "Ridicule," which opened this year's Cannes Film Festival.
The international category also includes the festival's first Indian film, "The Square Circle," also called "Daayraa," directed by Amol Palekar.
Of three films from the United Kingdom, one is "The Leading Man," directed by John Duigan and starring the rocker-turned-actor Jon Bon Jovi, and another is "Indian Summer," directed by Nancy Meckler, whose first film, "Sister My Sister," had its U.S. premiere at the 1994 Film Festival.
Stranger Than Fiction
Among the eight American films in the international lineup are Keith Gordon's adaptation of "Mother Night," a novel by Kurt Vonnegut, who lives in Sagaponack, and "Bastard Out of Carolina," the directorial debut of Anjelica Huston.
Truth Is Stranger. . . is the title of the Film Festival's documentary section, which this year will comprise six full-length documentaries, including one world premiere and two U.S. premieres, plus seven documentary shorts. Making its world premiere is the American film "Queens of the Big Time," which is Adriani Trigiani's directorial debut.
"Anna," by the Academy Award-winning Russian director Nikita Mikhalkov, will make its premiere in this country, as will "Soul in the Hole," directed by Danielle Gardner. Of the others, two focus on music and one, "Paris Was a Woman," is Greta Schiller's distinctly female look at the literary scene in Paris in the 1920s.
Short Films
The documentary shorts include one making its U.S. premiere, "Never Again Forever," which is Danae Elon's look at the inner workings of the Jewish Defense League.
Seven programs of short films, plus a number of shorts to be screened before feature films, will be shown for the "In Brief. . ." section of the festival. Each program will range from three to eight films each.
Among the shorts are 11 world premieres and seven U.S. premieres. Culled from more than 300 submissions are "Present Tense, Past Perfect," directed by Richard Dreyfuss, and Rob Lowe's directorial debut, "American Untitled," both making their world premieres.
A program of Irish shorts will also be screened, and another program will include two short films - the world premiere of "The Long Journey" as well as "The Grey-Bearded Lion," which won the grand prize at the recent St. Petersberg Film Festival - by Andrei Khrjanovski, the acclaimed Russian animator.
Student Winners
Also this week, the Film Festival announced the winners of its juried student film competition. Each will receive $2,500, and the winning undergraduate and graduate films, five of each chosen from more than 150 entries and ranging from three and a half minutes to 30 minutes long, will be shown during the festival.
Highlighting the student films is "Love Child," produced, written, and directed by Patrick Sisson, a graduate student at New York University who is also the winner of the festival's RKO/Ted Hartley/Dina Merrill prize for the "best told story." The film "recreates the era of disco, leisure suits, and 'Love American Style,' " according to a release.
Also notable among the student films is "The Money Shot," a film about the travails of a documentary filmmaker written and directed by Matt Mailer, a New York University undergraduate and the son of Norman Mailer, and "Only Child," co-directed by two Loyola Marymount University undergraduates, David Ogden and Christopher Landon. The latter is the son of the late director, producer, and actor Michael Landon.
Bookend Galas
The remaining student films are "A Garden for Rio" by Lance Mungia, another Loyola Marymount undergraduate; "My Dingaling" by Brad Abelson, an undergraduate at the University of Southern California; "Seasons Greetings" by Michael Dougherty, an undergrad at N.Y.U.; "Passage" by Matthew Marshall, a graduate student at the same school; "Flux" by Patrick Stettner, a graduate student at Columbia University, "Covenant" by Jason Wulfsohn, a graduate student at U.S.C., and "What Became Known As . . . The Eleanor Affair" by Ginger Rinkenberger, a graduate student at N.Y.U.
As The Star announced earlier this month, "Some Mother's Son," an Irish film directed by Terry George, will be screened on opening night. Dinner and a party under a tent next to Nick and Toni's restaurant on North Main Street in East Hampton will follow.
On closing night an American film directed by Nick Cassavetes, "Unhook the Stars," will be shown, followed by another party at Nick and Toni's. In a departure from tradition, the closing night party will feature not only the cuisine of Nick and Toni's executive chef, Paul Del Favero, but also samples from a number of East End chefs.
The festival's office, in the Newtown Mews off Newtown Lane in East Hampton, can be called for more information, and a schedule will be included in the Oct. 10 and 17 issues of The Star. Individual tickets, at $8, will go on sale Oct. 10, but those who would like "film buff" or "founder" passes ($400 and $1,000 respectively) can call the festival office earlier.