FilmColumbia, Columbia County's premier annual cultural event, screens the very best upcoming American and international films for ten days in late October. Launched in 1999 as the Crandell Theatre's "little local festival that could," FilmColumbia is now an acclaimed, nationally recognized film event.

FilmColumbia was recently recognized by MovieMaker Magazine as one of the "25 Coolest Film Festivals in the World." Said Tim Molloy, MovieMaker's editor-in-chief, "Obviously a lot of New Yorkers are now discovering the beautiful small communities just a short drive from New York City, and we think they'll be delighted to learn more about FilmColumbia, a fest that blends a gorgeous location, local color (both people and leaves) and Oscar-caliber films, lovingly programmed by a revered team with exquisite taste."

Schedule of Events:

October 18, 2024

Union
1:00PM
100 min

Despite Amazon's best union-busting efforts, in 2022, the eight thousand workers at its JFK8 warehouse in Staten Island joined up, after a three-year struggle intimately recorded by Brett Story and Stephen Maing. Focusing on Chris Smalls, the union's founder, who was fired by Amazon for organizing, the film reveals the way Amazon sought to break the strike by means of mandatory "non-union training sessions." Although JFK8 was eventually unionized, Amazon refused to bargain with it. Winner of Sundance's Special Jury Award for the Art of Change.

Ama Gloria
Short: Janie's Life Changing Baked Goods
3:00pm
101 min

Cleo, a precocious bundle of energy, lives in Paris with her widowed dad. She is madly in love with her nanny Gloria who suddenly must return to Cape Verde to look after Caesar, her surly young son. Anxious about losing another "mother," Cleo successfully campaigns to spend the summer with Gloria, and discovers, much to her disappointment, she must share Gloria with Caesar. Cleo is played with astonishing brio and understanding by six-year old Louise Mauroy-Panzani. Marie Amachoukeli-Barsaca's debut film opened the Critics' Week at Cannes and went on to win best film at the Jerusalem International Festival.

All We Imagine as Light
5:00pm
110 min

In Mumbai, a city of contrast and change, two hospital nurses, one with an absent husband, and the other with a secret boyfriend from a different religion, share a flat. A third woman, a widow who cooks at the hospital, may soon be without a home. Out of commonplace problems, Payal Kapadia, a film artist with an eye for beauty and detail, makes a work of such sublimity that it won the Grand Prix at Cannes this year.

The Room Next Door
7:30pm
110 min

Once again, the great Pedro Almodóvar bravely plunges into a sea of estrogen in this, his first English-language movie. It stars Tilda Swinton as a war correspondent and deeply flawed mother, and Julianne Moore as her writer friend. The film touches on war, death, and waking up to birdsongs in upstate New York. The Room Next Door, won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and was the centerpiece of this year's New York Film Festival.

October 19, 2024

International Children's Program
10:30am
60 min

Featuring an array of kid-appropriate and mesmerizing short films from around the world. The program will enchant audiences of all ages and is free to the community.

Flow (Straume)
12:00PM
85 min

The moment Flow, an astonishing achievement, had its world premiere at Cannes, a major new talent in global animation announced himself: 29 year-old Gints Zilbalodis. A cat, escaping a flood, finds a boat that unexpectedly becomes an ark of sorts. Other animals join the watery survival journey. Indiewire called the film "a groundbreaking wordless charmer with its detailed animation, deep focus, and most importantly, drama". Flow is a triumph, radical in its conception, and in its ability to mesmerize children of all ages, everywhere.

I'm Still Here
Short: My Cousin Tom
2:00PM
40 mins

Acclaimed Brazilian filmmaker Walter Salles (The Motorcycle Diaries) takes on the military regime in Brazil in this film based on Marcelo Rubens Paiva's best-selling memoir. It tells the story of the author's mother who became an activist when her husband was captured and imprisoned in 1964. Winner Best Screenplay at the Venice Film Festival.

Black Dog
Short: The Book Signing
5:00pm
123 min

Stray dogs are as numerous as the tumbleweeds blowing across a dying frontier outpost on the edge of the Gobi Desert. A motorcyclist zooms into town. He's the laconic prodigal son returning home — and a recent convict. How he and one very crafty black dog come to bond is the terrific, eye-popping story told by Guan Hu, one of China's most popular filmmakers. Winner of the Cannes Grand Prize Un Certain Regard this year.

The Uninvited
7:30pm
97 Mins

A satirical hit at the South by Southwest Festival, The Uninvited was written and directed by local resident Nadia Conners, and stars her husband Walton Goggins as Sammy, who lives with his wife Rose in an idyllic home in the Hollywood Hills. That is, until an uninvited guest crashes their party, claims she lives there, and reveals secrets that upend their lives.

October 20, 2024

The Hateful Eight
Honoring Walton Goggins
168 mins
11:30 am

Part of FilmColumbia's lineup honoring Walton Goggins.

Quentin Tarantino explores racial issues in this bloody and violent post-Civil War western, featuring an array of name actors, including Walton Goggins, playing a batch of sleazy characters taking shelter together during a blizzard. Needless to say, nothing good comes of their encounter. Trivia: The film was subject to an unrelated police boycott!

Walton Goggins on Television:
The Shield, Season 7, Final Episode + The Righteous Gemstones, Season 3, Final Episode
112 min
3:00PM

The Shield:
The extraordinary finale of an extraordinary series that broke every taboo in the book and ignited the explosion of quality TV in the early 21st century, should only be watched by those with strong stomachs. Its unrelenting picture of police violence cast it as an HBO-killer, and put FX on the map.  Rolling Stone called it "the best drama finale of them all."

Kick-Off Party Honoring Walton Goggins
6:00pm

This year's honoree is actor Walton Goggins. Goggins, who traded a home in gridlocked Los Angeles for the glorious Hudson Valley, has acted in some 50 films and 49 TV series, not including the upcoming installment of the HBO hit, The White Lotus, and shows know signs of slowing down. Goggins is a unicorn among actor for, among other things, the range of his skills. He can play drama as well as comedy with equal facility. He has been nominated or won some twenty awards, among them the Television Critics Association Individual Achievement in Drama for The Shield, a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series for Justified, and this year a Primetime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series for Fallout.

Join us in celebrating Walton Goggins at the home of Crandell benefactor Jack Shear.

Terrestrial Verses
6:15PM
77 min    

Unfolding in nine stiletto episodes set in government offices in Tehran, Terrestrial Verses is a brilliant, sharp and devastating black comedy about the impossibility of ordinary life in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Ali Asgari and Alireza Khatami's satire focuses on ordinary citizens navigating the absurdity of bureaucratic restrictions designed to make everyone crazy. And then the inevitable happens. A New York Times Critic's Pick.

In the Summers
8:00pm
95 min

Children grow, and in this luminous first feature, two sisters, raised by their mother and separated from their father, adapt, mature, and age over the twenty years they pay summertime visits to their dad in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Based on her own experience of connecting with her dad in Colombia, filmmaker Alessandra Lacorazza Samudio traces with delicacy and compassion the dynamics of a broken family and the complexity of an ambivalent parental connection. Winner of the Grand Prize at Sundance this year.

October 21, 2024

Universal Language
1:00pm
89 min

According to Universal Language, an absurd and tipsy comedy, the two languages spoken in Winnipeg, Canada, the capital city of the prairie province of Manitoba, are Farsi and French. In this, his second deadpan feature, Matthew Rankin plays himself returning home from Montreal to this city where school lessons are taught in Persian and everyone seems happily Iranian rather than Canadian. Universal Language, influenced by Guy Maddin and Abbas Kiarostami, won the Audience Award at Cannes' Directors Fortnight, was a highlight of the New York Film Festival, and is Canada's entry for the International Oscars.

The Kingdom
(La Royaume)
3:00pm
108 mins

The kingdom is Corsica, and in 1995 is a fire with gang warfare. Fifteen-year-old Lesia, living a life untouched by violence, is suddenly delivered to her father, who is not only a fugitive, but a "capo," and most certainly a marked man. Lesia's childish innocence is soon transformed by a very unsentimental education.

Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat
5:15pm
150 min

On January 17, 1961, Patrice Lumumba, the first president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a country only six months old, was assassinated. Johan Grimonprez, a noted Belgian media artist, presents an innovative explanation of this calamity through the rhythms of American jazz musicians sent by Washington to Kinshasa, ostensibly to demonstrate solidarity, but really to conceal the ambiguous role the U.S. played in the coup and protect its interests in Central Africa.

Bird
8:00pm
119 min

Bird is a hybrid — part charming fantasy, part gritty social realism — and always exuberant. Bailey, at 12, lives with her older half-brother, Hunter, and her manic dad, Bug, who is planning to marry. Bailey is not happy about this, but when she meets Bird, a strange fellow who thinks himself an avian, she finds a friend who is tolerant of her anger with her hyper father. Andrea Arnold, one of Britain's leading filmmakers, has fashioned a breathtaking fable. Played Cannes.

October 22, 2024

Reinas
Short: After Dinner
12:00pm
116 min

In 1992, political turmoil roiled Peru. In Lima, a single mother raising two teenage daughters prepares to emigrate to the U.S., where she has a job waiting for her. She cannot, however, take her girls without permission from their feckless father who, as is usual, is MIA. Reinas — moving, suspenseful and sharp — won major awards at both the Sundance and Berlin film festivals this year.

Bob Trevino Likes It
Short: Homesick For You Even in Heaven
2:30pm
115 mins

This is a feel-good film that actually makes you feel good, a tearjerker that actually jerks tears! A rarity, to say the least. Europhia's breakout star Barbie Ferreira plays a caretaker with zero self-esteem, a result of years of abuse from her selfish, piggy father, Bob Trevino, who disposes of the family dog. At last, along comes John Leguizamo, playing another Bob Trevino, who gives her the love and respect she deserves. Needy daughter finds needy father surrogate. Sounds soupy, but amazingly, the result of great performances, it works.

Christmas Eve in Miller's Point
5:15pm
106 mins

With two indie features under his belt, Tyler Taormina became known for his unsettling portraits of small-town America, but his third is a family comedy, a bittersweet look at the celebration of Christmas by four generations of the Bolsano family gathered in grandma's home in Miller's Point, Long Island. As the Bolsanos await Santa's arrival, Taormina treats the family as a living being, kinetic and mobile, nourishing itself with seasonal cheer.

Sidonie au Japon
Short: Finding Shaker
7:30pm
102 min

In her 125th film appearance, the brilliant Isabelle Huppert plays Sidonie Perceval, a famous writer and recent widow who travels to Japan to promote a new translation of her debut novel. She is accompanied on the tour by her handsome Japanese publisher and, on occasion, the ghost of her late husband. The film, like a haiku, is graceful, wistful and hauntingly romantic.

October 23, 2024

Zurawski v Texas
12:00pm
99 mins

Women denied abortions under Texas' unforgiving laws provokes a fearless attorney to sue the state. As the women wrestle with an immovable Attorney General, they recount their traumatic experiences in the hope of regaining their reproductive rights. Premiered at the Telluride Festival.

Armand
Short: The Rest of Your Life
2:00pm
140 mins

At the end of a school year, a six-year-old is accused of some very bad behavior. Parents are summoned and what transpires in the classroom where they gather is the subject of this intense and haunting film, which won the Camera d'Or for Best First Feature at Cannes in May. Some critics were perplexed, but others recognized that the filmmaker, grandson of Ingmar Bergman and Liv Ullmann, learned from his forebears how to ratchet up tension between characters so deftly that the story enters the territory of dreams.

On Becoming a Guinea Fowl
5:00pm
95 mins

In the second feature of Zambian-Welsh writer-director Rungano Nyoni, Shula stumbles across the body of her uncle Fred on a deserted road in the middle of the night. At his funeral, unexpected and unwanted secrets are unveiled that turn her family upside down. This absurdist film surprises at every turn, and comedy gives way to darkness as the consequences of Uncle Fred's abusive behavior to the women around him are revealed. Nyoni won Best Director at Cannes' Un Certain Regard.

Brews and Clues: Movie Trivia at Chatham Brewery
6:30pm

Mirror, mirror, on the wall — who's the brainiest cinephile of them all? Test your knowledge of all things movies while enjoying the award-winning brews and bites of Chatham Brewery. No era or genre of film is off-limits as you compete for prizes as an individual or in teams.

Blitz
7:30pm
114 min

The indefatigable Oscar-winner Steve McQueen recreates London in 1940-1941 under German bombing. Citizens hunker down in subway stations and children are sent to safety with relatives in the countryside. But nine-year-old George does not want to leave home; he returns to London, much to the distress of his mother who goes looking for him all over the city. Blitz opened the London Film Festival and closed the New York Film Festival.

October 24, 2024

No Other Land
12:00pm
95 mins

Made by a Palestinian/Israeli collective and filmed in the West Bank between 2019 and mid-2023, No Other Land chronicles the systematic destruction of the homes and schools of Masafer Yatta, a mountain village, by the Israeli military and the repeated displacement of the native population. Shown at the Berlin, Toronto and New York film festivals.

Local Film Program
The Herd, The Art of Metaphor, and Arrested Moment
2:00pm
105 mins

A Catskill herd of shaggy Belted Galloway cattle is the inspiration for this lovely meditation on —Belted Galloway cattle! — that, in case you're cow-ignorant, are beautiful black or brown creatures with a broad belt of white circling their midriffs that turn your everyday cow into an aesthetic statement. Moreover, they show traces of what humans might call personality n truth, not much happens in this documentary; they graze, chew their cuds, nuzzle their calves, just doing what cows do. In short, they just are, and as such, exert a surprisingly hypnotic power over the human viewer, forcing us to think again about our fellow animals.

Santosh
5:00pm
120 min

Filmmaker Sandhya Suri has crafted a gripping tale about the terrifying power of authority. In rural India, Santosh, a widow, takes over her late husband's police job just when a young low-caste girl, reported missing, is raped and murdered. Sharma, a respected and fierce policewoman who is investigating the crime, enlists Santosh as her assistant, who soon learns that finding a murderer requires some extra judicial actions as well.

Endurance
7:30pm
103 min

American premiere. In a legendary feat of leadership and perseverance, Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton kept alive his crew of 27 men for over a year despite the loss of their ship, the Endurance, crushed by a frigid ice pack in 1915. Over a century later, a team of modern-day explorers set out to find the sunken ship. The film weaves together the Shackleton survival story and the search for the wreck of the Endurance at the bottom of the Weddell Sea. The Shackleton story uses restored and colorized footage that was shot in 1915, while the contemporary expedition is shot verite' style with interviews explaining Shackelton's ill-fated mission.

Hollywood Karaoke
9:30pm

Sing out, Louise! Show off your Oscar-worthy vocal abilities with a movie melody or cheer others on from the crowd. Hosted by Regina Sapphire. Present your FilmColumbia ticket stub for half-off your first drink!

October 25, 2024

Sisters and Neighbors!
(Nos Belles-Soeurs)
12:00pm
102 mins

A summer hit in Quebec, Sisters and Neighbors!, a musical, is set in working-class Montreal in the mid-1960s. A housewife wins a million "green stamps" and dreams of all the appliances that she will receive once the stamps are pasted into the innumerable booklets that come with the stamps. She invites family and neighbors to her kitchen for a stamp licking party, not thinking that her women "friends" might be envious of the life she may soon have.

All Shall Be Well
Short: The Color Yellow
120 mins
2:00pm

All Shall Be Well
A sexagenarian lesbian couple live comfortably in Hong Kong as part of an extended family. When one dies, property, which is expensive and coveted on that crowded island, becomes an issue. Does the surviving partner really need the apartment? The title is ironic, the tone refreshing, and the ending puts a different yet optimistic spin on the idea of "happy." Winner of the Teddy Award for the best LGBTQ-themed film at the Berlin Film Festival this year.

Traumnovelle
5:00pm
109 min

In 1926 Arthur Schnitzler wrote Traumnovelle (Dream Story), a novella about nightmares and sexual passion in his hometown, Vienna. Movie adaptations have transported the story elsewhere, most famously to New York (Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut). Now, the young German filmmaker Florian Frerichs effectively situates the chilling story in contemporary Berlin where strange and disturbing nocturnal happenings upset a marriage.

Unstoppable
7:30pm
116 min

The adage "truth is stranger than fiction" certainly applies here: Anthony Robles, born without a right leg, overcomes physical and domestic challenges to become a champion college wrestler. For his first feature film, director William Goldenberg has assembled a star-studded cast including Jharrel Jerome as Robles, who actually plays Jerome's body double in some scenes, and Jennifer Lopez as Robles' indomitable mother. Premiered in the Special Presentations section at the Toronto International Film Festival.

October 26, 2024

Screenwriting Panel
with Scott Cohen and Anastasia Traina
10:00am

Join actor Scott Cohen and screenwriter Anastasia Traina for an inspiring two-day workshop at FC! Whether you're working on a screenplay, play, or TV script, bring in a 5-10 page scene to be read by professional actors and receive thoughtful, artful feedback.

You'll gain invaluable storytelling tools, insights into character development, and practical advice to refine your script. On the second day, bring a new scene or the same one with edits for additional critique.
Come for one day or both — whatever works for you. Just be sure to bring copies for each character, plus one for the moderators. Don't miss this chance to elevate your writing!

Memoir of a Snail
94 min
12:00pm

Grace, an orphaned twin, hoards snails. In spite of a ridiculously hard life she maintains a sunny disposition. Adam Elliot, the Australian master of stop-motion "claymation" has taken eight years to tell Grace's wacky story in an exquisitely handcrafted style that won Memoir the top prize at Annecy, the world's leading animation festival. Screen Daily praised its heart wrenching gallows humor. Recommended for children over fourteen, and any adult who wants to experience something truly different.

Look Into My Eyes
Short: My Cousin Tom
109 min
2:00pm

Are psychics just frauds, or do they really have the extraordinary mental powers they claim they have? This documentary's look at an array of New York City psychics and their clients circling around this question. It may not answer it, but in the end, you might want to ditch your shrink and take a walk on the wild side.

Eephus
98 min
5:00pm

On a late October day in New England sometime in the 90's, two teams of middle-aged guys — Adler's Paints and Riverdogs — gather for amateur baseball. This may be their last game, as the field will soon be the site of a school. Carson Lund, the director and editor, and his team follow the play from morning to evening cheering on the men who pitch, hit, steal bases, quarrel-and drink beer. Eephus, Larson's debut feature-length comedy drama, is elegiac, wistful and all too human. Among its joys are the cameo of Boston Red Sox pitcher Bill "Spaceman" Lee, and legendary documentarian Frederick Wiseman as a radio announcer. Premiered at Cannes, and made its U.S. debut at the New York Film Festival.

Saturday Night Sneak
7:30pm

FilmColumbia's 'Secret Screening' featuring a multiple award winner with sex, songs, crime, and laughs. Multiple award winner with sex, songs, crime, and laughs.

Party at the Pub
10:00pm

Join the festivities, in or out of costume and just steps from the Crandell Theatre, as The People's Pub rings in the Halloween season with music, dancing, and drinks! Half off your first beverage with a FilmColumbia ticket stub.

October 27, 2024

Screenwriting Workshop
with Scott Cohen and Anastasia Traina
10:00am

Join actor Scott Cohen and screenwriter Anastasia Traina for the second day of this popular event. Bring a 5-10 page scene from your screenplay, play, or TV script and hear it come to life by professional actors. Get insightful feedback, critique, and creative support to elevate your work.

Every Little Thing
Short: Love Letters
128 mins
12:00pm        

Every Little Thing
Hummingbirds are fragile marvels and, although they may be the tiniest of birds, they amaze way above their size. They are also easily wounded. Terry Masear, a bird rehabilitator in the Hollywood hills, rescues injured and orphaned hummingbirds, and names them. When and if they regain their "wings" she releases them. Every Little Thing is a shimmering tribute to a remarkable woman, her dedicated team, and to nature's small wonders.

A Real Pain
3:00pm
90 min

Written, directed, and produced by Jesse Eisenberg, this comedy follows mismatched cousins (Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin) on a tour of Poland in honor of their grandmother. It somehow manages to be funny and heartfelt at the same time, and if you couldn't get enough of Culkin in Succession, here's a chance to sate your appetite. Played the Sundance Film Festival.

Sex
5:00pm
125 min

Two chimney sweeps in Oslo are pals. When one tells the other of his strange dream about being a woman, the other replies with an account of an unlikely sexual encounter he had. Each then tells his respective wife his story. The wives react differently, one casually, the other with confusion. This comedy about identity, fidelity and family life floats high over Oslo's rooftops like helium.

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
(Les Parapluies de Cherbourg)
7:30pm    
91 min

A 2024 restoration of the original 1964 negative, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg is that rarity — a key work of cinema that transformed the art. Not only did Jacques Demy succeed in making a movie with colors so astonishing that one critic called it "a singing Matisse," but the dialogue is completely "sung" in recitative, something that had not been done before. The story is one of first love, amplified by color and music that deepen its heartbeat. Umbrellas won the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 1964, received five Oscar nominations, and made a global celebrity of its young star, Catherine Deneuve.

Date: October 18 - 27, 2024

Location: Various Venues

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