The Stony Brook Film Festival will celebrate its 10th anniversary with an exciting line-up of World, North American, East Coast and New York premieres from Thursday, July 21 to Saturday, July 30. The Festival, held at Stony Brook University’s Staller Center for the Arts, Long Island, New York, will screen the most features and shorts in competition ever: 21 features (15 of them in competition) and 14 shorts in competition. Audiences will hear from enthusiastic filmmakers and meet them at receptions. Filmmakers will once again enjoy showing their 35mm films to their largest audiences ever in a 1018-seat filled theatre with a 40-foot wide screen.
The Opening Night film on Thursday, July 21, is the East Coast premiere of Marilyn Hotchkiss’ Ballroom Dancing and Charm School, with Marisa Tomei, Robert Carlyle, Mary Steenburgen, and an all-star supporting cast which includes John Goodman and Danny DeVito. The movie, written and directed by Randall Miller, (shown courtesy of Samuel Goldwyn Films), started out as a short film by the director about 15 years ago.
Terry Green, who won a Grand Prize for “Almost Salinas” in 2002, will show his newly completed “Heavens Fall” at Stony Brook in the first public showing, which will be a test screening. “Heavens Fall,” written and directed by Green, is the first film ever made about the plight of the “Scottsboro boys,” arrested in Alabama in 1931 and stars Timothy Hutton, Leelee Sobieski and David Strathairn. Melissa Painter, who presented “Wildflowers” in 2000, returns with the East Coast Premiere of “Steal Me,” a coming-of-age story filmed in Montana. And French Canadian Director, Ghyslaine Côté, Stony Brook Grand Prize winner in 2000 for her short, “Meanwhile,” returns with the East Coast Premiere of her stirring drama, “The Five Of Us” (“Elles Étaint Cinq”) in the coveted Closing Night slot.
The documentary Mondovino, about the globalization of the wine industry and wine makers around the world, will be co-sponsored by Stony Brook University’s Center for Wine, Food and Culture. Immediately following the screening of Mondovino, wine makers, wine journalists and members of the wine industry will participate in a panel discussion and then a wine-tasting of “artisinal” and “global” wines (at an additional charge) follows at the nearby Charles B. Wang Center.
Other notable screenings will include the New York Premiere of The Dying Gaul, directed by Craig Lucas, featuring Campbell Scott, Patricia Clarkson and Peter Sarsgaard, courtesy of Holedigger Films. “Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress” directed by the writer of the same book, Sijie Dai, comes to the Festival courtesy of Empire Pictures as another New York premiere. Additional East Coast Premieres will include Pete Schwaba’s comic tale of stand up comedians in “The Godfather of Green Bay,” starring Schwaba, Lauren Holly and Tony Goldwyn; Jeffrey Kramer’s touching drama, “Smile,” starring Mika Borem, Beau Bridges, and Sean Astin; and Lucy Phillips and Glen Scantlebury’s dark comedy, “My Tiny Universe,” starring Andy Comeau, John Heard, Debi Mazar, and Lesley Ann Warren. Making a World Premiere this year is “At Last” written and directed by Tom Anton, starring Kelly Lynch, Martin Donovan and Brooke Adams.
The Festival will also expand its international showcase in its 10th year with more foreign language premiere screenings. Through its tie to The Netherlands through “Holland Film,” the festival will present three Dutch North American premiere screenings – “Amazones,” Ellis In Glamourland” and “Stille Nacht.” Over a dozen countries and languages will be represented this year from as far away as Thailand, South Africa, France and China.
Get the full schedule at the Stony Brook Film Festival website.
