Albany Film Festival Set for Saturday, April 2nd at UAlbany

The 2nd Annual Albany Film Festival – featuring a number of “bookish” events, and events that emphasize writing – will be presented by the NYS Writers Institute on Saturday, April 2nd, at the University at Albany.

The Albany Film Festival differs from most film festivals, which are usually multi-day events at various locations around a city. This is a very story-focused festival, with conversations about filmmakers as storytellers, book-to-film, writing vs. visual storytelling, screenwriting, criticism, and film history and biography. The emphasis is more on conversation and Q&A with guests than on screenings of full films.

Francis Ford Coppola launched the first Albany Film Festival with a preview event in Fall 2019. Coppola received the first Ironweed Award for Exemplary Achievement in Film and talked with Writers Institute founder William Kennedy about his director’s cut of The Cotton Club. Kennedy wrote the original script of that film. The April 2020 Festival was cancelled because of COVID. The NYS Writers Institute hosted a virtual version of the Albany Film Festival in April 2021 featuring Kasi Lemmons, James Ivory, Rosie Perez, Darnell Martin and Sam Pollard.

This year, during a closing ceremony at the film festival, The Ironweed Award will be presented to filmmakers Stanley Nelson, Marcia Smith, and Derek Cianfrance. Screenings of the Albany Film Festival’s Short Film Award winners’ films will take place throughout the event and the short film award winners will be announced at the closing ceremony.

Events at the 2nd Annual Albany Film Festival include:

• Major American novelist Wally Lamb (She’s Come Undone) and noted film director Derek Cianfrance (“The Place Beyond the Pines”) about their recent HBO adaptation of Lamb’s novel, I Know This Much is True, starring Mark Ruffalo.
• Eminent documentary filmmakers Stanley Nelson and Marcia Smith (“The Black Panthers,” “Jonestown,” “Freedom Riders,” “Miles Davis: Birth of Cool”) about their new film “Attica,” nominated for a 2022 Oscar for Best Documentary — the story of the famous Upstate New York prison uprising.
• Major American novelist Russell Banks and filmmaker Michael Caplan in conversation about the film “Algren,” a tribute to Banks’s mentor, Nelson Algren (The Man with the Golden Arm).
• Leading film actress Karen Allen (“Raiders of the Lost Ark,” “Animal House”) about her film adaptation of a short story by Southern fiction writer Carson McCullers, “A Tree. A Rock. A Cloud.”
• George McNamee, prominent Albany investor and philanthropist, about “The Trial of the Chicago 7,” a film that was nominated for a 2021 Best Picture Oscar and based on a book of court transcripts that McNamee published as a college student in 1970. Directed by Aaron Sorkin, the film stars Sacha Baron Cohen as ’60s radical Abbie Hoffman.
• A variety of personnel involved in producing the lavish new HBO series filmed in Troy, “The Gilded Age.”
• Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting survivor Samantha Fuentes and film director Kim Snyder about the new documentary “Us Kids,” about the continued political activism of Parkland school shooting survivors.
• Distinguished UAlbany alum Glen Trotiner (Assistant Director of “The Untouchables” and “Biloxi Blues”) and director James Camali, about their new film, “The Mental State.”
• Filmmaker and former NYS Writers Institute videographer Hugo Perez (“Once Upon a Time in Uganda”), with his film “Omara,” about the legendary Afro-Cuban singer.
• Filmmaker D. W. Young about his critically acclaimed film, “The Booksellers,” a journey into the world of rare books, featuring Fran Lebowitz and Parker Posey.
• Filmmaker Daniel Swinton about his film “The Hard Places,” the story of Delmar, NY optometrist and humanitarian aid worker Dr. Tom Little, who was killed while helping to provide people with the gift of sight in war-torn Afghanistan.

The event, free and open to the public, will take place on UAlbany’s Uptown Campus, 1400 Washington Avenue, Albany. Maps, free parking locations, and more information are available on the Albany Film Festival website.