Film Festival reViews: Recent Episodes
Christina Kotlar
Over the years, I followed film festivals that not only presented excellent programming, but found ways to focus on filmmakers. DC Independent Film Festival Annual Forum makes it their mission to find ways that will help filmmakers move forward with their works. Another establishing aspect since they are in the heart of the DC community […]
The DC Independent Film Festival Annual Forum has announced its 2026 film lineup and program, which will run Wednesday, February 11, through Monday, February 16, at theaters throughout the nation’s capital. This year, sound and music are at the essence of DCIFF. “This year’s festival will celebrate inspiring stories and the many sights and sounds […]
Country Music and Arrangements, with fellow Kinderhook band member Jerry Kopychuk, a conversation about the seminal days fusing genres with creative arrangements
Two years after they started playing together, Kinderhook Creek seized a foothold in the New York music concert scene in 1975 with the developing country rock sound, opening for Poco at the Schaefer Music Festival in Central Park before a crowd of 25,000 music lovers.
Veselka: The Rainbow on the Corner at the Center of the World" directed by Michael Fiore, is an intimate look at a father-and-son relationship in a family business that their Ukrainian patriarch started. Then in 2022 war broke out in Ukraine..
What brought us together – going to Sundance, hosting panels and programming, and speaking engagements, was a connection to a very special mentor, guru, and guiding star – Alice Guy Blache.
You can’t beat the hospitality that comes along with top-notch programming, in California wine country. Steve Shor has the magic touch as program director for the Sonoma International Film Festival with 120 films from 35 countries, chefs preparing food, and sommeliers pouring the wine.
LIGHT FROM THE EAST is about an extraordinary Ukrainian American stage production taking place during a coup in August 1991, in Kyiv, Ukraine.
After 40 years with Asbury Shorts USA, and still going strong, Doug LeClaire shares his secrets to a successful four-decade run that compares this theatrical event with an off-off-Broadway production.
I start the New Year catching up with Meira Blaustein Co-Founder/Executive & Artistic Director of the Woodstock Film Festival. Fiercely independent is her motto.
My goal, such as it is for any film festival outside of my daily driving ability, was to find the Registration room, pick up my badge and get the lay of the land.
Tribeca Film Festival is my backyard as a Reel Jersey Girl accessing the most interesting, spine-tingling, and controversial work for the nextfor eleven days.
Twelve years, on New Year's Eve, I put out my first podcast program calling it a tryst for indie film lovers around the film festival circuit worldwide.
Witnessing Jessica Sherr’s one-woman show, Bette Davis Ain’t for Sissies, we concur it’s a firecracker of a show where “you fasten your seatbelts– it’s going to be a bumpy night.”
While most films we've seen at Tribeca Film Festival depend upon a programmer's scheduling to fit with our own, there were several that fit perfectly with the Women in Film lineup that I focus on.
A one-of-a-kind cinematic experience The Public Image is Rotten combining performance and conversation with John Lydon, aka Johnny Rotten, original frontman for the punk rock band, the Sex Pistols.
My crazy as a March Hare month as I recall falling into the rabbit hole a decade ago with Fort Lee Film Commission introducing me to Alice Guy Blache, the first woman filmmaker and the godmother to all women in film.
Strad Style, winner of the 2017 Slamdance Documentary Feature and Audience Award literally knocked us off our feet.
Recap in an absorbed art of conversation sorting through a carefully chosen weekend schedule of award-winning films– picking out the sounds that underscored the visually beautifully made sights.
Dark Horse was a runaway hit at Sundance 2015 winning the Audience Award in the World Cinema Documentary Competition.
Winning the Audience Award for Narrative Feature, Across the Sea (Deniz Seviyesi), is a Turkish story of life, loving and living, written and directed by Esra Saydam and Nisan Dag
Inspired by the Clash hit Rock the Casbah, Traitors is transposed by lead singer, a punk rocker with the refrain– "I'm so bored with Morocco, but what can I do?" representing the restless generation in Tangiers, Morocco.
Joan's Day Out, a short film by Ellen Houlihan, is a very funny slice of life with a grandma's version of Ferris Bueller's Day Off
Quebec director, Philippe Falardeau stunned during the screening at Sundance Film Festival, as his film, Monsieur Lazhar, was nominated for an Academy Award (Best Foreign Film).
A Steely Dan concert from their Shuffle Diplomacy Tour Twenty Eleven seduced us in the Berkshires at Tanglewood with their sophisticated and sublime music and musicians.
Told through stories of victims in Ukraine and other Eastern European nations, Emma Thompson narrates the documentary, Fatal Promises, directed by Kat Rohrer and produced by her mother, expose journalist, Anneliese Rohrer.
Another Woodstock on the Edge with the film "2B: The Era of Flesh Is Over" as it tests the waters along with a panel that included Ray Kurzweil's take on the future in the field of artificial intelligence.
In ten years, Woodstock Film Festival was established as a maverick, being fiercely independent, providing an outpouring of films from fiercely independent filmmakers.
Acclaimed jazz violinist Yuri Turchyn gets into the heart of the matter with the connections between the artist and the aspects of music-making.
An American original coming from roots in the Jersey music scene in the 1970s into experimental permutations integrating Latin Jazz into a World Beat sound.
BeFilm The Underground Film Festival (BeTuff) showcases the best national and international films in animation, documentary, experimental, spec narrative, and stereoscopic films.
Tim and Mike Rauch are the animators behind German In The Woods, a Best in Show Winner at ASIFA East. Their illustration style has a rhythm and pace of an orchestrated composition, nuances of physical gestures with the grain.
BeFilm The Underground Film Festival (BeTuff) is the first film festival in the world exclusively dedicated to short films with a 3D stereoscopic category.
A documentary film by Geoffrey Smith, The English Surgeon, winner of Best International Feature at Hot Docs, Toronto, follows Dr. Henry Marsh going to Kyiv, Ukraine for 15 years with suitcases full of slightly-used equipment that would ordinarily be thrown out after one use. Nick and Warren Cave wrote and performed the original score.
The "Artistic Crime of the Century," in Man On Wire, a story revolving around Philippe Petit and his daring aerial walk on a wire illegally rigged between the World Trade Center's twin towers in 1973.
What if "Happiness" was literally for sale? A Short film in an unusual setting: a condom factory where a disgruntled worker, played by renowned Polish-American actor Elzbieta Czyzewska, spends days testing the product for leaks.
Writer/director Courtney Hunt wrote the short, then the feature Frozen River, then Melissa Leo and Misty Upham brought the narrative home, winning the Sundance Grand Jury Prize for Dramatic Competition.
There are films that can leave you hanging or make you quietly introspective, but Playing For Change: Peace Through Music is a film that lingers in your musical soul.
Bill Plympton's World Premiere of an animation feature, Idiots & Angels, a dark comedy about a man battling for his soul.
Cynthia Wade, Director of Academy Award-winning Short Documentary, Freeheld, talks about elements that make up a "Cynthia Wade" stamp on her work, specifically a story told through the eyes of a strong female character.
A conversation with Melissa Leo in her element at the foothills of the Catskills where mystical energies make things happen.
My co-host, Thom Powers, Documentary Programmer for Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), discuss Manufactured Landscapes, Jennifer Baichwal's portrayal of renowned photographer, Edward Burtynsky as he composed his large-format photos that combine global social issues within an epic sweep.
Margaret Brown's Order of Myths unlocks ornately embellished doors drawing us into an exotic world of secret, mystic societies, both black and white, that staunchly cling to centuries-old traditions.
A conversation with Steve Shor on film commissions doing more for the economic development in their states than acknowledged.
Another Woodstock Film Festival (2007) welcomes the fiercely independent Mavericks of independent filmmaking.
Acclaimed French director, Patrice Leconte, talks about My Best Friend, which led to his statement and my question – is the best friend only a myth and having a best friend a thing of the past where legends reside?
Third Annual Polish Film Festival at the Anthology Film Archives where one of Poland's most prominent filmmakers, Agnieszka Holland appeared for a Q&A following the screening of Copying Beethoven.
Earth Day at the Philadelphia Film Festival getting the lowdown with filmmakers about an environmental tragedy A Town That Was with a chemical fire burning underneath a town that cannot be put out, costing 600 million and could burn for a hundred years.
The Sundance Channel starts a new spot for the environment The Green, regularly scheduled programming wholly dedicated about people living a good life and being able to live in a safe environment while having the choice to do so.
John Sikes, a founding partner of Sirk Productions, talks about the work necessary after the film is done– researching film festivals, getting a distributor who knows the different markets, and creating the PR and marketing tools to promote your film.
Doug Hawes-Davis on the environmental films at Big Sky Documentary Film Festival in Missoula, Montana.
A conversation with legendary documentary filmmaker Les Blank during the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival in Missoula, Montana.
Sundance Film Festival is the place where filmmakers come together, catch up on what's up and coming in the industry while still focusing on film as digital is nipping at its heels. How to festival Sundance successfully depends on planning and endurance.
With so much going on, I keep my eye on the Focus on Film theme of the 2007 Sundance Film Festival. What an eye-opener.
Films celebrating heroes at the Cape May New Jersey Film Festival from the streets during 9/11 to seemingly uneventful routines, festival curator, Stefan Prosky talks about how film influences people to go out and do extraordinary things.
Teaneck Film Festival, Teaneck, New Jersey –How to start a film festival; Freedom's Fury, a documentary set in 1956 Olympic on the infamous semi final Hungary-Soviet water polo match set against the backdrop of the Hungarian revolution.
Terry Lawler, Executive Director of New York Women in Film & Television (NYWiFT) talks about the sidebar of Shorts, To The Point– Women Telling Stories Through Media, presented by NYWiFT.
Signe Baumane, Alex Weil and Bill Plympton share insights into the world of animators and their animations.
Warren Beatty talks about his film REDS at a special 25th anniversary screening. Pedro Almodovar, Volver, on a directors panel.
Selections are made by Richard Pena, Kent Jones, ediotr-at-large for Film Comment and Associate Programmer and member of New York Film Festival, Lisa Schwarzbaum, john Powers and Philip Lopate.
One of the first of many visits with Meira Blaustein co-founder and executive director of fiercely independent Woodstock Film Festival
An American tradition showing home movies during family gatherings. At Anthology Film Archives it brings the community closer.
New blood coming to the Hamptons International Film Festival as Josh and Raj talk about their plans and expectations.
Can't beat watching fireworks on the Fourth of July unless you are on the rooftop of the Rooftop Film Festival
An Air Guitar playoff as well as home movies of a Rolling Stones tour, it keeps on coming.
Doreen Blunt of Women in Film & Video (WiFV) brings it into perspective for women filmmakers.
Festival Director Trish Finneran on the SILVERDOCS film fest now and the future of documentaries.
Coming from the Anthology Film Archives, Sky Sitney learned to speak the language of film at a young age.
Million Dollar Movie and TV Guide as well as four local movie theaters all contributing factors to my passion for independent and art house films.