New York Women in Film & Television is happy to announce that 21 of our members are involved in films that have been selected for the 25th annual edition of the Woodstock Film Festival.
The 25th annual Woodstock Film Festival takes place October 15 – October 20, 2024. Woodstock screenings and events will take place at venues across the Hudson Valley towns of Woodstock, Rosendale, Kingston and Saugerties. Tickets are currently on sale and can be purchased here.
Click to see the full program of films and events at the festival!
We are also delighted to co-present with Woodstock a panel titled, “THE WOMEN IN THE DRIVER SEAT” on Saturday, October 19 at 12:15pm ET. Speakers include Yvonne Russo, Christine La Monte, Heidi Ewing, Rebecca Miller and Ondi Timoner moderated by NYWIFT CEO Cynthia Lopez. Please join us and Buy Tickets here.
Feature Narratives
Photo courtesy of WFF
Brooklyn, Minnesota
Producer – NYWIFT Member Lillian LaSalle
Brooklyn, Minnesota follows a father, Kurt (played by Erik Jensen) and his daughter Maisie (played by his real-life daughter Sadie Jensen-Blank), on a cross country trip to Kurt’s childhood home. Following the death of her Grandfather she didn’t know existed, Maisie uncovers a wealth of deep dark secrets that are destroying her family. Channeling her Riot Grrrl roots instilled to her by her late Mother, Maisie brings the family together at a time it matters most.
Photo courtesy of WFF
Hazard
Casting Director – NYWIFT Member Adrienne Stern
The opening moments of Hazard depict a story that’s become all too familiar in the United States today. Will (Alex Roe), a coal miner, gets into an accident, after which he is immediately prescribed OxyContin. What follows is an absolutely harrowing look at the opiate epidemic situated in the world of Appalachian coal country. As Will struggles to support his girlfriend who is also addicted to opiates (played by a scene stealing Sosie Bacon) and their son, the audience is forced to ask if it’s truly possible for an individual to break the cycle of generational poverty and addiction.
Photo courtesy of WFF
If You See Something
Writer & Actress – NYWIFT Member Jess Jacobs
In the bliss of their new love, Ali and Katie start to build their life together in New York City, he as an Iraqi immigrant seeking political asylum and she, an ambitious American woman. When a crisis strikes back in Baghdad in the thick of his asylum process, Ali and Katie are forced to navigate its impact on their relationship… and the secrets they have been keeping from each other.
Photo courtesy of WFF
Oh, Canada
Executive Producer – NYWIFT Member Katharina Otto-Bernstein
Fiery but feeling his years and his illness, ailing documentary filmmaker Leonard Fife (Richard Gere) sits for an extended interview with Malcolm (Michael Imperioli), a former student. Finally revealing the truth and lies in his life and career, Leonard charges ahead with candid stories about his younger self (Jacob Elordi) in the fractious 1960s, and beyond. At Leonard’s insistence, his wife and indispensable partner, Emma (Uma Thurman), hears it all.
Feature Documentaries
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64 Days
Producer – NYWIFT Board Treasurer Gretchen McGowan
From the filmmaker embedded with the Proud Boys, and who was called to testify before the January 6th Committee with his exclusive footage, this is a firsthand account of the conspiracy to steal the election.
Photo courtesy of WFF
Ada – My Mother The Architect
Director/Producer/Cast – NYWIFT Member Yael Melamede
Ada Karmi Melamede is one of the most accomplished female architects in the world, but very little is known about her outside her home country of Israel. ADA – My Mother The Architect is a deeply moving portrait of an extraordinary woman directed by her daughter, filmmaker, and former architect, Yael Melamede. Ada is a true pioneer who, like many successful working mothers of her time, was forced to make impossible choices. Despite personal sacrifices, Ada’s work gave physical form to some of Israel’s highest democratic ideals, most notably in the acclaimed Supreme Court building in Jerusalem, the Open University, Ben Gurion airport, and numerous civic institutions around the country. ADA – My Mother The Architect profiles a woman and artist deeply tested by the realities of career and motherhood, a unique mother-daughter bond, and a fragile nation grappling with unrealized dreams.
Photo courtesy of WFF
Beyond the Gaze: Julia Campbell’s Swimsuit Issue
Editor – NYWIFT Member Jill Woodward
Jule Campbell navigates a sexist workplace while confronting accusations of objectification during her 32-year tenure as founding editor of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition. Unyielding in her pursuit of artistic excellence, Campbell fortuitously launches mogul models and a mega-franchise. At 95 Campbell reflects on her legacy and impending mortality with the grace and intuition that guided her career presenting a fair and balanced portrait of a complex and fascinating woman and her controversial career.
Photo courtesy of WFF
Left Behind
Director – NYWIFT Member Anna Toomey
Did you know that 1 out of 5 people have dyslexia? How about that 47-50% of incarcerated people have dyslexia? Left Behind gives eye-opening insight into the ways that the public school system ignores the needs of students with learning disabilities and, in doing so, contributes to the school-to-prison pipeline. No matter how much a person may stand by the power and importance of public schools, there’s just no disputing that the current public education system is not built to help students with learning disabilities to succeed or thrive, and just about every single dyslexia-centered school in the country is privately-owned. Anna Toomey’s gripping documentary chronicles a group of advocates in their struggle to start New York City’s first public school for dyslexia.
Photo courtesy of WFF
Paul Anka: His Way
Executive Producer – NYWIFT Member Laura Michalchyshyn
Part road movie, part living biography, part documentary, Paul Anka: His Way is a remarkably candid film, offering an intimate look at one of the most prolific artists in music history and his seventy-year journey through stardom. The film goes behind-the-scenes with Paul Anka today as he continues to perform in sold-out concert venues around the world, cut against stunning archival footage of his historic career and including performances by the legendary artists who have recorded his music like Buddy Holly, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, Aretha Franklin, Nina Simone, Tom Jones, Sammy Davis Jr., Linda Ronstadt, Michael Jackson, Drake and more. A master of reinvention, Anka engages with all genres of music, from quietly penning the theme to “The Tonight Show” to surprise posthumous hits with Michael Jackson, and even a swing reworking of “Smells Like Teen Spirit.”
Photo courtesy of WFF
A Photographic Memory
Executive Producer – NYWIFT Member Kirsten Johnson
Sheila Turner-Seed was in a generation of American women who went to college to find a husband and settle down. This was not to be Sheila’s path. Instead, she became a photojournalist, traveling the world, and later a kind of archivist, filming and interviewing the world’s most renowned photographers for the well-known series “Images of Man.” Her daughter Rachel, a photographer and filmmaker in her own right, lost her mother when she was a toddler. A Photographic Memory is Rachel’s story of getting to know the parent she has no recollection of. Through home movies, recordings of interviews that Sheila conducted, and meetings with those who knew her, Rachel slowly becomes united with her mother in a dreamlike and ethereal work of beauty that transports the viewer into Sheila’s world. A magnificent film that must be seen by anyone who treasures visual storytelling.
Photo courtesy of WFF
Sabbath Queen
Executive Producers – NYWIFT Members Sarah Connors, Jess Jacobs, and Audrey Rosenberg (Board Member)
Cinematographers – NYWIFT Members Kirsten Johnson & Laela Kilbourn
“Redemption will only come through transgression,” so says Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie twice in Sabbath Queen. To be a spiritual leader in Judaism, a religion full of laws, and actively encourage breaking the law – redeeming oneself through rebellion – is unusual, to say the least. Yet this is just one of a few controversial opinions Rabbi Lau-Lavie holds as a gender-bending, drag-performing, intermarriage-facilitating, Radical Faerie-identified rabbi. New York City’s own experimental congregation Lab/Shul is shown behind the scenes in this documentary filmed over 21 years, tracing Amichai’s fascinating life and career between Israel and the US. Sabbath Queen weaves together an imaginative, complex, and rousing story, including such historical events as 1980s Orthodox Jewish feminist movements, 1990s queer nightlife, HIV/AIDS, Occupy Wall Street, the 2014 assault on Gaza, and more, never shying from the personal and communal transformations at the heart of religious practice.
Photo courtesy of WFF
Troll Storm
Producer – NYWIFT Member Brooke Swaney
What are the limits of free speech? Troll Storm is the story of a Jewish woman in Montana, Tanya Gersh, who was the victim of an unrelenting social media campaign of antisemitism and her decision to fight back in court. “The second I decided to fight, I started to heal,” she says in this powerful film. And although the crux of this story takes place several years ago, the new swarm of antisemitism currently crossing our country makes this story feel extremely relevant. Gersh uses interviews with a holocaust survivor as a brutal reminder of where we could end up again if this culture of hate is not faced by our country. In Accept the Call (WFF 2019) director Eunice Lau’s latest film, the parallel between Europe before the rise of the Nazi party and what happened to Gersh is frightening.
Photo courtesy of WFF
Viva Verdi!
Director/Screenwriter/Producer – NYWIFT Board Member Yvonne Russo
Screenwriter/Producer – NYWIFT Member Christine La Monte
Executive Producer – Past NYWIFT President Simone Pero
VIVA VERDI! is an intimate glimpse into the lives of the celebrated opera singers and musicians currently living out their ‘third act’ while mentoring international music students who live among them at Milan’s unique retirement home, Casa Verdi, built by renowned opera composer, Giuseppe Verdi in 1896. From these ‘guests of Verdi,’ age 77 to 107, comprised of international opera singers, ballet dancers, musicians, conductors and composers, we hear an extraordinary array of personal and professional stories filled with music, magic and passion, and ultimately learn why Verdi called this remarkable home his “best work.”
Special Events Shorts
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Death By Numbers
Co-Producer – NYWIFT Member Cynthia Kane
A rare collaboration between shooting survivor/writer Sam Fuentes and Peabody award-winning filmmaker Kim A. Snyder, Death By Numbers breaks through an American society increasingly inured to gun violence and seemingly impervious to a nation of traumatized youth. Interweaving Sam’s evocative poetry and her shooter’s harrowing sentencing trial that will determine whether he lives or dies, we follow Sam’s journey to reclaim her power. As she prepares to confront her shooter who left her wounded and killed classmates with an AR-15 in her Holocaust Studies class, she and her teacher Ivy Schamis examine complex questions of collective hate and what restorative justice looks like for the victims involved.
Photo courtesy of WFF
I Am Ready, Warden
Executive Producer – NYWIFT Member Sheila Nevins
Directed by Oscar-nominated filmmaker Smriti Mundhra for MTV Documentary Films. In the days leading up to his execution, Texas death row prisoner John Henry Ramirez seeks redemption from his victim’s son.
Coming of Age Shorts
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Sunflower Girl
Director/Screenwriter/Producer – NYWIFT Member Holly M. Kaplan
Rosie, a 13-year-old Chinese-American girl, embarks on a skateboarding escapade through the streets of New York with her crush and his best friend – at the cost of abandoning her little sister and never delivering a forgotten lunchbox.
Fiercely Independent Animation Shorts
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Market of Hate
Producer – NYWIFT Member Jamie deRoy
Market of Hate began as a whisper in March 2023. The whisper became a deafening shout on October 7th. It’s a cry for compassion, our need to resist the powerful forces that promote fear and hatred in order to divide us, while all that time, they are increasing their own wealth and power.
Long Live Your Resistance Shorts
Photo courtesy of WFF
OBRAZA (Resentment)
Executive Producer – NYWIFT Member Katharina Otto – Bernstein
Like any teenager, 17-year-old Yasha is rebelling against authority, but in 1990’s Soviet Ukraine some of the opposing forces are more dangerous than others. When Yasha hits his breaking point, raw impulses propel him to the precipice of irreparable harm.
