The Woodstock Film Festival is an American film festival that was launched in 2000 by filmmakers Meira Blaustein and Laurent Rejto with the goal to bring high quality independent film to the Hudson Valley region. The festival takes place each fall in the towns of Woodstock, Rosendale and Saugerties and the city of Kingston in the height of fall foliage.
The Woodstock Film Festival is a not-for-profit, 501(c)(3) organization. The Woodstock Film Festival is an Oscar®-qualifying festival in the short film categories - Live Action Short Film, Animated Short Film, and Documentary Short Film.
History
With offices located in the heart of Woodstock, NY, the first fiercely independent inaugural festival ran September 21–24, 2000. It included workshops, documentaries, concerts and films from all over the world. Speakers at the inaugural festival's workshops included actor Aidan Quinn, documentary filmmakers Albert Maysles, Barbara Kopple and D. A. Pennebaker, filmmaker Les Blank and Ron Nyswaner, who wrote the screenplay for Philadelphia.
Now in its 23rd year, the Woodstock Film Festival has garnered the praise of the film industry and is noted as being "one of the top 50 film festivals in the world." Programming approximately 125 films, concerts, panels and parties each year, WFF draws films from the far reaches of Siberia and Kazakhstan to locally shot films right in the Hudson Valley, NY. With categories of programming such as; shorts, animation, music videos, focus on music, exposure, world cinema and Hudson Valley films.
The 2022 Woodstock Film Festival took place from September 28 - October 2 2022.
Editor Doug Abel, Woodstock Film Festival founder Meira Blaustein, photographer Ron Galella and director Leon Gast at the 2010 edition
The Woodstock Film Festival is a competitive festival that offers cash and in-kind prizes in a variety of categories. The festival's "Maverick Awards," held the Saturday night of the festival are given for:
Honorary Maverick Award
Best Feature Narrative
Best Feature Documentary
Best Short Documentary
Best Narrative
Best Student Short
Best Cinematography–The Haskell Wexler Award
Best Editing
Best Animated Short
Audience Award for Best Feature Narrative
Audience Award for Best Feature Documentary
Maverick Award Honorees
The Honorary Maverick Award is given each year to a fixture in the world of film, typically veteran directors, actors or industry professionals who have left their permanent mark on entertainment. Past recipients have included:
Trailblazer recipients have included professionals in the entertainment industry who have made an impact in their craft. Past recipients have included CEO & Founder of NEON Tom Quinn (2021), Robin Bronk CEO of the Creative Coalition (2011), marketing and distribution guru Bob Berney (2010), Ted Hope (2009), James Schamus (2008), Ted Sarandos (2007), Jonathan Sehring (2006), John Sloss (2005).
Year-Round Programming
The Woodstock Film Festival continues the spread of independent film year round with film screenings and events like the annual Taste of Woodstock Event.
2018 was the inaugural year of the Woodstock Film Festival's Youth Film Lab.[2]
The festival holds a yearly Career Day, focused on bringing direct insight from the film world to aspiring students.
BEST SHORTS INCLUDE: MOSHARI FOR SHORT NARRATIVE; AS FAR AS THEY CAN RUN FOR BEST SHORT DOC & BUZZKILL FOR BEST ANIMATION
Honorary award recipients included Ethan Hawke, Awkwafina, Leave No Trace director Debra Granik and IFC Films president Arianna Bocco
Related Research Articles
Donn Alan Pennebaker was an American documentary filmmaker and one of the pioneers of direct cinema. Performing arts and politics were his primary subjects. In 2013, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recognized his body of work with an Academy Honorary Award. Pennebaker was called by The Independent as "arguably the pre-eminent chronicler of Sixties counterculture".
The Cinequest Film & Creativity Festival is an annual independent film festival held each March in San Jose, California and Redwood City, California. The international festival combines the cinematic arts with Silicon Valley’s innovation. It is produced by Cinequest, a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) organization that is also responsible for Picture The Possibilities and the distribution label Cinequest Mavericks Studio LLC. Cinequest awards the annual Maverick Spirit Awards. In addition to over 130 world or U.S. premieres from over 30 countries, the festival hosts writer's events including screenwriting competitions, a shorts program, technology and artistic forums and workshops, student programs, and a silent film accompanied on the theatre organ. Founded in 1990 as the Cinequest Film Festival, the festival was rebranded in 2017 as the Cinequest Film & VR Festival and expanded beyond downtown San Jose to Redwood City. It took its present name in 2019.
Barbara Kopple is an American film director known primarily for her documentary work. She is credited with pioneering a renaissance of cinema vérité, and bringing the historic french style to a modern American audience. She has won two Academy Awards, for Harlan County, USA (1977), about a Kentucky miners' strike,[1] and for American Dream (1991), the story of the 1985–86 Hormel strike in Austin, Minnesota.[2] Consequently, she is the first woman to have won twice in the Oscars' Best Documentary category.
The Thessaloniki Documentary Festival (TDF) is an international documentary festival held every March in Thessaloniki, Greece. TDF, founded in 1999, features competition sections and ranks among the world's leading documentary festivals. Since 2018, TDF is one of the 28 festivals included in the American Academy of Motion Picture, Arts and Sciences Documentary Feature Qualifying Festival List. TDF is organized by the Thessaloniki Film Festival cultural institution, which further organizes the annual Thessaloniki International Film Festival, held every November. French producer Elise Jalladeu is TDF's general director; film critic Orestes Andreadakis serves as its director.
Michael Almereyda is an American film director, screenwriter, and film producer.
The Full Frame Documentary Film Festival is an annual international event dedicated to the theatrical exhibition of non-fiction cinema.
The High Falls Film Festival, founded in 2001, is a film festival that focuses on celebrating women in film. The festival is inspired by Rochester, New York's legacy in nitrate film and the women’s rights movement.
Anslem Richardson is an American film, television and theater actor, filmmaker, and visual artist of Trinidadian descent. He is best known for his role as Mike in The Locksmith and Governor Khaled on NCIS: Los Angeles.
The Atlanta Film Festival (ATLFF) is an international film festival held in Atlanta, Georgia and operated by the Atlanta Film Society, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Started in 1976 and occurring every spring, the festival shows a diverse range of independent films, with special attention paid to women-directed films, LGBTQ films, Latin American films, Black films and films from the American Southeast. ATLFF is one of only a handful of festivals that are Academy Award-qualifying in all three short film categories.
The SAFILM – San Antonio Film Festival was founded in 1994 by Adam Rocha as a video festival, which sported a logo of a naughty-looking angel. It was later renamed the San Antonio Underground Film Festival and then finally the SAFILM – San Antonio Film Festival. It is now the biggest film festival in South Texas.
The Abu Dhabi Film Festival, formerly the Middle East International Film Festival (MEIFF), was an international film festival held in the city of Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates from 2007 to 2015.
The GI Film Festival (GIFF), a 501c3 non-profit organization founded by Army veteran Laura Law-Millett and her husband Brandon Millett, is "dedicated to preserving the stories of American veterans past and present through film, television and live special events."
The Brooklyn Film Festival(BFF), prior to 2011 called the Brooklyn International Film Festival(BiFF) is an independent film festival held every June in Brooklyn, New York. Started by Marco Ursino, Susan Mackell, Abe Schrager, and Mario Pegoraro in 1998, its mission is to “discover, expose, and promote independent filmmakers while drawing worldwide attention to Brooklyn as a center for cinema." Its base is South 4th Street, Williamsburg.
The Dallas International Film Festival (DIFF) is an annual film festival that takes place in Dallas, Texas. The 2024 edition is scheduled for April 26-May 2, 2024.
The Provincetown International Film Festival (PIFF) is an annual film festival founded in 1999 and held on Cape Cod in Provincetown, Massachusetts. The festival presents American and international narrative features, documentaries and short films for five days in June of each year.
Chris Hegedus is an American documentary filmmaker. She and her husband, filmmaker D. A. Pennebaker, founded the company Pennebaker Hegedus Films.
The Munich International Film Festival is the largest summer film festival in Germany and second only in size and importance to the Berlinale. It has been held annually since 1983 and takes place in late-June/early-July. The latest festival was held from June 23 to July 2, 2022. It presents feature films and feature-length documentaries. The festival is also proud of the role it plays in discovering talented and innovative young filmmakers. With the exception of retrospectives, tributes and homages, all of the films screened are German premieres and many are European and world premieres. There are a dozen competitions with prizes worth over €250,000 which are donated by the festival's major sponsors and partners.
Sahkanaga is a 2011 feature film written and directed by American filmmaker John Henry Summerour. The film uses the true events of the Tri-State Crematory scandal as its setting and backdrop, though the central characters are fictional.
The Arlington International Film Festival (AIFF) is an annual nonprofit film festival dedicated to promoting and increasing multicultural awareness and showcases world cinema and independent films in their original language with English subtitles. Independent film producers, directors and actors within the US and abroad are invited to participate in engaging panel discussions and Q&A sessions after the screenings. Each year the festival greets more than 2,000 movie aficionados and shows about fifty films from all over the world with an impressive lineup of premieres. The Arlington International Film Festival also includes a year-round events such as poster contest competitions, pre-festival screenings and art exhibitions with local artists and performances by musicians, singers and dancers.
Lulu Wang is a Chinese-born American filmmaker. She is best known for writing and directing the comedy-drama films Posthumous (2014) and The Farewell (2019). For the latter, she received the Independent Spirit Award for Best Film and the film was named one of the top ten films of 2019 by the American Film Institute. Wang has also written, produced, and directed several short films, documentaries, and music videos.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
