News and Views from the Empire State
The Sanctuary for Independent Media in Troy, NY, is marking the tenth anniversary of WikiLeaks’ Collateral Murder: U.S. Soldier Ethan McCord’s Eyewitness Story, the community media arts production facility’s most watched film.
In it, McCord narrates military footage depicting the indiscriminate slaying of more than a dozen people in the Iraqi suburb of New Baghdad — including two Reuters news staff. [Read more…] about Troy’s Media Sanctuary Marks WikiLeaks Film Anniversary
The Park Theater in Glens Falls, in partnership with the Chapman Museum, is set to presents “The Marriage Circle” featuring live musical score by Ben Model, via YouTube livestream on September 10th. [Read more…] about Virtual Silent Film ‘The Marriage Circle’ With Live Musical Score
Daredevil stunt man and movie actor Rodman “The Human Fly” Law had been shot out of a “monster sky rocket” and had jumped in a specialized “aeroplane parachute” from the Brooklyn Bridge and the 792-foot Woolworth Building, the tallest building in the world at the time.
For his next feat, Law came to the Adirondacks. [Read more…] about Early Stunt Men, Daredevils ‘The Human Fly’ & ‘Hurricane Hutch’ in NY
This week on The Historians Podcast, movie historian and SUNY Albany lecturer emeritus Audrey Kupferberg discusses film preservation. [Read more…] about Preserving Motion Picture History (Podcast)
Barbara Tepe Lupack’s new book Silent Serial Sensations: The Wharton Brothers and the Magic of Early Cinema (Cornell University Press, 2020) is a book-length account of the dynamic early film industry, focusing on the pioneering and prolific filmmakers Ted and Leo Wharton. [Read more…] about Ithaca’s Wharton Brothers and Early Cinema
The Albany Film Festival, set for Saturday, March 28th, at the University at Albany uptown campus, will feature panel discussions, and conversations with actors, filmmakers and authors whose books have been made into movies, along with screenings of feature-length films, a contest for film shorts, an awards ceremony, and a viewing of a new large scale outdoors video projection. [Read more…] about Albany Film Festival VIP Passes Available
The Whallonsburg Grange Lyceum is set to continue their spring series “Hidden in Plain Sight” with the presentation “Port Henry: Hollywood of the East” on Tuesday, March 10th. [Read more…] about Port Henry: Hollywood of the East
Charlie Samuels’ first feature documentary film Virgin Blacktop: A New York Skate Odyssey is set to screen at the Adirondack Film Festival in Glens Falls, on Saturday, October 19th at 3 pm.
Virgin Blacktop is an uplifting story shot over four decades about the lives of a disparate crew of kids from Hudson River towns who had almost nothing in common when they met in the 1970s. Virgin Blacktop uses the vehicle of skateboarding to tell the story which. Skateboarding will make its world debut as an official Olympic sport in Tokyo in 2020. [Read more…] about Virgin Blacktop: A Rockland Skateboard History Doc Showing
The NYS Writers Institute is set to welcome filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola for the Albany premiere of a restored and re-edited The Cotton Club, and a conversation with Writers Institute founder William Kennedy, who co-wrote the film’s original screenplay.
The film is set around Cotton Club, a popular New York City nightclub in the 1920s and 1930s, when it was located on 142nd Street and Lenox Avenue. Coppola’s restored and re-edited film adds 30 minutes of footage not in the original release, including several high-energy musical and dance numbers, and an expansion of the black characters’ stories and performances. Coppola spent half a million dollars of his own money re-editing it.
[Read more…] about Coppola’s The Cotton Club Returning to Albany
Plattsburgh based film preservationist and archivist Andy MacDougall will co-host two screenings of his personal 16mm print of The Raid on Friday and Saturday, July 19th and 20th at 7 pm at the Clinton County Historical Museum, 98 Ohio Ave, in Plattsburgh.
During the Civil War, what is today known as a secret “terror cell” was briefly established in the North Country by Confederate soldiers. The 1954 20th Century Fox motion picture The Raid is based on this event and opens with a prison break in Plattsburgh by Confederate prisoners who, after escaping across the Canadian border, plan to rob banks in St. Albans, Vt., and set fire to the town. [Read more…] about ‘The Raid,’ St. Albans Civil War Raid Film Showings