MARCH 2002 NEWSLETTER

CALL FOR ENTRIES 

Join us September 19-22 in The best known little town in the whole world for films, concerts, seminars, parties, good people & much more.

The WOODSTOCK FILM FESTIVAL is an annual nonprofit festival that fosters an intimate, reciprocal relationship between independent filmmakers, industry representatives & audience members. 

Awards are presented for  Best Feature,  Best Documentary, Best Short Documentary, Best Short Film, Best Student Film, Best Animation, Best Cinematography (The Haskell Wexler Award), Best Musical Score (The Elmer Bernstein Award), Best Animation (Awarded by Bill Plympton).  Click here for an entry form

TRAINING DAY FOR OSCAR

Ethan Hawke, who has been putting up Oscar worthy performances for years (Before Sunrise, Gattaca, Dead Poets Society, Hamlet) finally received a well deserved nomination from the Academy for his excellent work as supporting actor in Training Day.

THE BUNNY AND THE FOX

Did you miss Greg the Bunny at the 2000 Woodstock Film Festival? Did you miss the promos for Greg during the Super Bowl? If you did, don't miss the premiere episode of GTB on March 27th at 9:30pm!

Greg the Bunny was created at cineBLAST (Gill Holland’s production company) by Spencer Chinoy, Dan Milano and Sean Baker. The vignettes were originally screened on the New York cable access show JunkTape, before being picked up by IFC in 1998. In 2000, the Bunny came to Woodstock before moving on to the Hollywood Hills.

For more Greg the Bunny info visit the official site  or the more informative unofficial site. 
For a clip, visit yaga.com .

SXSW NEWS - ADAM SNYDER and    at SXSW

Adam Snyder is slated to play the Ruta Maya coffee house at SXSW on Friday March 15 to support his latest album Across the Pond (on the British label HTI) which was released in late 2001 in the Republic of Ireland and is due for worldwide release later in 2002. In the meantime, it’s available at www.adamsnyder.com. The music video for Two Moons was shot by helmer Dawn Vandeer Vloed in Chester and Washingtonville, New York and currently airing on Irish Television. Adam also recently returned from a mini tour of Poland where he played gigs in Koszalin, Jaroslaw, Rzeszow and Szczecin. His record was named record of the week on radio szczecin. Adam topped off the trip by eating pirogues every single day and learning the Polish word for beer – piwo (pronounced PEE-VOH).

SPEAKING OF    – TWO LOCALLY SHOT FILMS RECENTLY OPENED

Supertroopers, which premiered at Sundance 2001, opened wide last weekend. The Fox Searchlight release has grossed over $15,000,000 to date.

Ulster county based location manager Michele Baker and key location scout Ellen Cohen found locations throughout the Hudson Valley to resemble the Vermont set script. Producer Richard Perello was thrilled with the variety of locations available and promised to return to the Hudson Valley for future feature film shoots. Locations included M’s Coffee Shop in Fishkill (also used in Nobody’s Fool)  Route 17 in Sleepy Hollow, Stormville Airport and the Villa Borghese which featured a scene with Linda Carter. If you don’t blink, you’ll spot WFF hospitality coordinator Jillian Fisher behind Superwoman. Also featured in the opening scene of the film is Newburgh’s the The Golden Rail Ale House (renamed The ThinQueen Tavern for the pix).

 For more info, visit the official Super Troopers website

Meanwhile, Larry Fessenden’s Wendigo (co-winner for Best feature – 2001 WFF) opened in limited release. The Magnolia Pictures release, which was shot in Shokan and Phoenicia, NY received excellent notices.

Check your local theater listings for your opportunity to see what the New York Times calls "a genuinely bone-chilling tale."

 For more information, visit the official website

LOCALLY SHOT FILM TAKES SUNDANCE GRAND JURY PRIZE

Rebecca Miller's Personal Velocity featuring Kyra Sedgwick, Parker Posey, Fairuza Balk, Ron Leibman,  won the Dramatic Grand Jury Prize at Sundance.

The film was produced by Gary Winick, Alexis Alexanian and Lemore Syvan. The film was shot by Ellen Kuras (who picked up the award for Best Cinematography) and edited by Sabine Hoffman. Both Ms. Syvan and Ms. Hoffman are Woodstock Film Festival Advisory Board members.

Cast and crew discussed the pix and digital filmmaking as part of a sold out seminar at the 2001 WFF. The pix was shot almost entirely in the Hudson Valley area with crew and cast help from WFF's Woodstock Film Commission.

In related news, Personal Velocity producer Gary Winick picked up the best Director award for his movie Tadpole (starring Sigourney Weaver, Bebe Neuwirth, John Ritter).

RECOIL PREMIERES IN POLAND

Jarek Kupsc recently premiered Recoil (best feature, 2001 WFF) in Poland.  The screening opened a two-day retrospective, which also featured Jarek’s short films and paintings & photographs of the WTC and from his recent cross country tour of America. The retrospective also presented a staged reading of his monologue, Windshield Memories and concluded  with the promotion of Jarek’s book, The History of Cinema for Beginners, which has been translated from English to Czech and Polish, and awaits a Korean edition later this year.

Following the terrific reception of Simon Blake's Minotaur at Sundance, the short film was screened at AFI in LA and the NY MOMA. This dream-like movie stars Jarek Kupsc as a man lost in the labyrinth of Grand Central Station in NYC. For more info, contact Jarek.

See it Friday March 22nd at the CINEMA VILLAGE (22 East 12th St. btwn 5th & University)
Showtimes are 1:35, 3:40, 5:45, 7:50, 10:10. The 7:50 show on Fri, 3/22 and Sat, 3/23 will be followed by a Q & A with the director. For more info, visit www.margaritahappyhour.com

Woodstock/New York City filmmaker Mario Picayo is wrapping up Spanish and English versions of Cuando Las Almas Regresan (When the Souls Return), a one hour doc that presents the beauty, mystery and importance of Mexico's most cherished celebration, the Day of the Dead. The documentary, shot completely in the state of Oaxaca, narrates two intertwined stories. One consists of the piece created by the production team from New York depicting the cultural importance and main characteristics of this ancient celebration of death. The second story is about the main reporter, a Oaxacan, who returns for the first time in ten years to her native town. She wishes to leave her past behind and to see the celebration as the reporter she is, not as the participant she always was. But her childhood memories betray her making the desired objectivity impossible.
The producer's vision and the reporter's intimate knowledge of the festival takes us on a journey to discover the true meaning of the Day of the Dead, a ritual that turns every aspect of life into something exotic, beautiful and unexpectedly profound. For additional info contact When the Souls Return .

JOLIE PETERS, CHILD ACTRESS, by Jenny Wonderling

Woodstock's very own  rising star Jolie Peters recently appeared in Hysterical Blindness with Uma Thurman and Juliette Lewis. The Chonogram caught up with her hand her acting career.

“Acting is something Jolie wanted to do, nothing I ever pushed her to do,” says her mother, Karin, reflecting on the growing momentum of her daughter’s TV and film career. “As a matter of fact, I think it’s a weird way of life, but she really enjoys it. The thing about Jolie is, she’s nine going on forty. Everyone says that.”

For the full complete article, click here

TONY LEVIN BAND HEADS OUT ON U.S TOUR

In other Music news, guitar wiz Jesse Gress and ex-Peter Gabriel drummer Jerry Marotta, who both played with Uncle Funk at the 2001 WFF Opening Night Gala, join other Peter Gabriel alumni, Larry Fast and Tony Levin on tour with the Tony Levin Band to support of their fantastic new album, Pieces of the Sun. The U.S. tour starts on March 27th in Philadelphia and is set to play the Bearsville Theater in Woodstock on 4/27/02.

San Francisco is well known as the home of many an eccentric band, and one of the oddest of the bunch is The Billy Nayer Show, a four man outfit fronted by Bay Area film maker Cory McAbee. Formed to provide musical backing for McAbee's short films, the band gained notoriety for their live shows, which leaned more towards cabaret rather than the usual rock show. With material (written by McAbee) which alternately mixed light whimsy with the dark, bitter truths of relationships & human nature, and aided by McAbee's stage persona - a combination of the suave cool of a Vegas lounge veteran & the manic desperation of a man on the edge of a psychotic meltdown, the result played like an adult children's show broadcasting from Hell. For more info, visit AMG. Check out the The American Astronaut soundtrack.

You're invited!  YARD DOG FOLK ART is pleased to announce an exhibition of paintings by LAURA LEVINE from the children's book  Shake, Rattle and Roll: The Founders of.... There will be a reception for the artist and a book signing on Thursday, March 14, from 6:30 - 8 PM. WANDA JACKSON, the "Queen of Rockabilly" and one of the pioneers of rock & roll who is featured in the book, will be there and will be signing copies of the book, as will Laura Levine and author Holly
George-Warren. Come on down, say hi, and have a beer!

Yard Dog Folk Art is located at 1510 S. Congress Ave. in Austin, TX 78704, http://www.yarddog.com. For more information please contact Randy Franklin at (512) 912-1613 or Laura Levine.  

While in Austin, also check out Last Party 2000 and get a taste of Philip Seymour Hoffman's unique journey through the political machine. The doc which was superbly edited by editor extraordinaire (and Woodstock Film Festival advisory board member) Sabine Hoffman travels in and out of both the Democratic and Republican conventions, as well as into the streets where activists express their concerns. Directed by Donovan Leitch and Rebecca Chaiklin.
 

The calendar said March 16^th, but it looked more like Thanksgiving in Bovina, New York, with baskets of bright red apples, colorful gourds, and orange pumpkins ( fake ones) set out in front of the hundred-year old Russell Store against a backdrop of bales of yellow hay and straw.  For four hours, set dressers and their assistants had artfully arranged an exterior still life for photos to be used in the LL. Bean  catalogue coming out this Fall. The star product, however, was a brand-new Subaru Outback -- the LL Bean edition-- due to hit the marketplace at the end of summer. (for the complete story, visit the bulletin board)

SPONSOR NEWS

The Woodstock Film Festival welcomes new KEY FESTIVAL SPONSOR Harvest Moon Media.

Harvest Moon Media, Inc., helmed by two time Emmy® nominee and NARAS (Grammy®) Voting Member, Cynthia A. Geary, specializes in documentary films.  Two of Geary’s most recent films are Los Amigos Invisibles: The Making of Arepa 3000 and Seeking Heat.  Both films cover international artists on David Byrne’s Luaka Bop label. Current projects include Extraordinary Women, Balanced Lives and The Slits, about the ‘80s female punk band. 

Harvest Moon Media/Geary are also Creative Consultants and Co-Executive Producers of Slaughterhouse (working title) for Thousand Beauty Films, and Grief: The Invisible Cloak, featuring John Walsh of America’s Most Wanted, for Nancy Mantelli and Ikoya Productions.

For more information about  Harvest Moon Media, contact 703-969-7116 (phone), 301-563-7044 (fax) or visit the website at www.harvestmoonmedia.com