Characteristically, the Brooklyn Film Festival (formerly known as the Brooklyn International Film Festival) has made Brooklyn films and filmmakers a priority. While other New York area festivals focus on national or international content —not to say that BFF ignores it; it’s an international competition festival— this Williamsburg-basd festival stays true blue. Founded in 1998, the festival has been slowly growing in its stature. In addition to a load of new indie films, the festival now boasts an industry panel day which they are calling the BFF Exchange and whose sessions run this Saturday. But it’s bread and butter are the 104 features and shorts, including 28 world premieres and 28 U.S. premieres. This past year there were some 2,000 submissions so the secret is definitely out. And this blogger should know; he was a screener for their documentaries.
A few standouts among those Brooklyn-centric films are Kelly Anderson’s “My Brooklyn“, Su Friedrich’s “Gut Renovation” and Katie Dellamaggiore’s “Brooklyn Castle“. All are worthy of your time & money and are having screenings over this coming weekend. Anderson’s “My Brooklyn” will enjoy a Filmwax Film Series screening some time in the fall, date to be announced.
The Brooklyn Film Festival, Decoy Edition, which runs from June 1st through the 10th, screens at both indieScreen & The Brooklyn Heights Cinema. The festival is owned and operated by Marco Ursino & Susan Mackell; Nathan Kensinger is the Director of Programming.
