Without a doubt, the Woodstock Film Festival is the foremost occasion for filmmakers and film lovers in the Hudson Valley. In a fashion true to our region, it is at once prestigious and intimate; budding filmmakers, industry veterans, and buffs alike congregate to view screenings, exchange ideas, and engage in a little friendly competition.
Multiple Hudson Valley movie theaters will screen the films chosen for the festival over the course of five days. From October 15 through 20, attendees can catch an array of feature narratives, feature documentaries, and short films. Additionally, the festival will facilitate panels such as “The Future of Documentary,” “AI and the Creative Process,” and a chat with multi-Emmy and Peabody award winner Sheila Nevins, who will be joined by Academy Award and Emmy-nominated filmmaker Smriti Mundhra.
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Unsurprisingly, many of the select films—and their makers—have ties to the Hudson Valley. The festival itself has helped establish the Valley as a hub for the entertainment industry, says Meira Blaustein, co-founder and executive director of the Woodstock Film Festival. “It’s a large-scale annual event that brings with it hundreds of…professionals from the film and television industries.” Often, these creatives return to the region, whether to realize new projects, “purchase their next home,” or “spend their next vacation in the Hudson Valley.”
Ahead of this year’s 25th Woodstock Film Festival, we took a closer look at the films made in the Valley along with features by residents of the region.
Documentaries Filmed in the Hudson Valley
We Can Be Heroes
Dir. Carina Mia Wong & Alex Simmons
Showtimes: October 19, 5:30 p.m. at Upstate Films Orpheum Theatre 2; October 20, 1:15 p.m. at Bearsville Theater
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Set in Kingston, We Can Be Heroes follows a live action role-playing camp nestled in the woods of the Ulster County town. The camp invites teens from all over the country to spend a week exploring, fantasizing about, and reenacting life in a different time and world. In a place filled with improv, gods, fairies, villains, and royalty, campers learn what it means to live authentically as they find themselves through acting as someone else. Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker and journalist Carina Mia Wong is joined by budding director Alex Simmons to create this story of integrity where all worlds are possible.
Narrative Features Filmed in the Hudson Valley
Turning
Dir. Marco Baratta
Showtimes: October 18, 7:45 p.m. at Rosendale Theatre; October 20, 7:30 p.m. at Tinker Street Cinema
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In the midst of a quarter-life crisis, 25-year-old former college athlete Julian lives alone in the woods and rents out his Airbnb to many characters who manage to make him question his aimlessness. Alone upstate with no one but his terminally-ill imaginary mother figure, Julian observes strangers in their daily lives as he figures out what to do with his own. From eerie couples to strange filmmakers, all of Julian’s guests are wondering the same thing he is as he confronts life’s first big turning point: “Why are you up here?”
Noteworthy Mentions
The Driver
Dir. Joseph Muszynski
Showtimes: October 17, 7:15 p.m. at Woodstock Community Center
Hudson Valley filmmaker and film professor at Vassar College Joseph Muszynski has been featured at the Toronto International Film Festival and the Newport Beach Film Festival, in addition to the Woodstock Film Festival. Along with working as a script consultant on numerous projects, he has also taught filmmaking through the Bard Prison Initiative. His featured short The Driver chronicles a New York chauffeur’s reckoning with his childhood kidnapping and lifelong struggle with addiction.
Steve Makes Stuff
Dir. John Huba
Showtimes: October 17, 7:15 p.m. at Woodstock Community Center
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A documentary short filmed in Ulster County, Steve Makes Stuff is a six-minute film that features Steve Heller’s inventive and eclectic creations in the showroom at his Boiceville shop Fabulous Furniture. From a metal sculpture garden to furniture made from discarded trees, Heller’s creations are far from your typical furnishings.
What Humans Do
Dir. Miranda Javid
Showtimes: October 19, 5 p.m. at Woodstock Community Center
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What Humans Do is an independent animation short directed by Miranda Javid, a Hudson Valley native animator, curator, and art educator. The short presents a macro view of human actions as told from within a singular body and is animated frame by frame using biodegradable ink and paper.
Free Snakes
Dir. John Quinn
Showtimes: October 19, 5 p.m. at Woodstock Community Center
A current artist-in-residence at Woodstock’s Byrdcliffe Arts Colony, John Quinn is a recent Pratt graduate and animator. His animated short Free Snakes is a four-minute piece about a lonely man’s lackluster prank that finally gets him the attention he has been desperately craving from some unorthodox strangers.
Related: Empire Training Center for the Arts Supports Workforce Development in Poughkeepsie
