2020 Film Festival Program

FILM FESTIVAL POSTPONED
ticket holders please click here for more information

The Film Festival was due to be held on March 13-15. However, Columbia University, which includes the Campbell Sports Center (the venue for the Festival), has updated their events policy to suspend non-essential events of more than 25 people for the upcoming week due to the coronavirus. This includes the Inwood Film Festival. We’d like to emphasize that the festival has been postponed and not cancelled, and we are committed to showcasing our hardworking and talented filmmakers and providing exciting arts programming for the community. Along with Columbia University and the staff at the Campbell Sport Center, we are exploring options to reschedule the Inwood Film Festival in late Spring 2020 and we hope the program, detailed below, will remain unchanged.

Inwood Art Works proudly announces the programming for its fifth annual Inwood Film Festival. The festival will expand to a total of 12 programs, including nine screening sessions and three special seminars — Stykz Digital Animation for Kids, Sound Design for Documentary Filmmaking, and Filmmaking A to Z. Details of the screenings and all the films are listed below.

The festival includes a special Opening Night Benefit on Friday, March 13, at 6.30pm featuring a special presentation of the Past, Present, and Future of the Inwood Film Festival and delicious food and beverages from Indian Road Café, Dyckman Beer Company, and ChocNYC.

Before and after the festival screenings you can mingle in The Red-Carpet Community Room, a hip hub to connect filmmakers and audiences that is for the exclusive use of all Inwood Film Festival ticketed patrons before and after each screening. Enjoy a glass of wine from Indian Road Café or a Dyckman Beer and come to connect with neighbors before the show, stay afterward to discuss the films, meet like-minded folk, and hob-nob with local movers n’ shakers.

After the last screenings on each day there will be conversation with some of the day’s filmmakers. Following the final post-screening discussion, at approximately 8:00pm on Sunday, join us in the theater for the announcement of the Inwood Film Festival’s awards for Excellence in Filmmaking, presented by Manhattan Borough President, Gale A. Brewer.

And on both Saturday (10pm) & Sunday (9pm) evenings, Indian Road Café will host the after-parties where you can join filmmakers, film aficionados, and the Inwood Art Works team at Indian Road to raise a glass to our Inwood community and its vibrant arts scene.

This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council. This program is funded in part by the Columbia University Medical Center Neighborhood Fund.

Tickets and Location

FILM FESTIVAL POSTPONED. TICKET HOLDERS CAN OPT TO RETAIN TICKETS FOR THE RESCHEDULED FESTIVAL (DATE TBD) OR REQUEST A FULL REFUND. Click here for instructions.

Saturday Program

Seminar: Stykz Digital Animation for Kids | Saturday, 12:05pm

$25 Lab fee – Laptop provided. Appropriate for 3rd to 6th grade students. Cap of 15 students.

Dr. Rurik Nackerud will teach you the basics of animation using open source software suitable for Windows or Macs to create your very own animated video short.

Long Shorts | Documentary Portraits under 25 minutes | Saturday, 1:35pm

(55 minutes total screening time)

Con Dios
Con Dios (student film), directed by Anthony Rojas

A short documentary exploring the hardships, achievements and courage of Carmen Rojas; a community leader and historical figure of Washington Heights.

Tumbling Towards Home
Tumbling Towards Home, directed by Imelda O’Reilly

An Irish immigrant moves to New York in 1989 to study acting. He works through the grief from the loss of his mother’s passing and of his friend Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Layers of a Baker
Layers of a Baker, directed by Carla Franchesca

Owning your own business in New York City could be the perfect definition of the “American Dream’; but for Marcos, a baker, that dream can show many layers.

Maria Torres: Neighborhood Artist
Maria Torres: Neighborhood Artist, directed by Davis Hall

What if making art could save your life? For this Peruvian-born New Yorker, painting helps heal physical and emotional trauma.

Ydanisville
Ydanisville, directed by Cristobal Vivar

Community activists defend their neighborhood from a government rezoning that threatens their neighborhood, Inwood New York. This short movie shows their last attempts to stop the plan in the last week before the City Council votes.

Long Shorts | Uptown: Criminal Intent | Saturday, 3:35pm

(45 minutes total screening time)

Kimchi Taco
Kimchi Taco (Student Film), directed by Seran Kim

Traumatized by the brutal murder of her husband in Spanish Harlem, a Korean shopkeeper finds an unexpected ally’s in a young Mexican woman with a secret.

Tubby Hook
Tubby Hook, directed by Nelson Estevez and Nell Teare

After three thieves succeed in a dangerous heist, their loyalty is tested when gangsters show up to reclaim the loot.

Fran Gil, Notario
Fran Gil, Notario/P.I., directed by Victor Yanik

Notary and private investigator, Fran Gil, is hired to investigate a possible death threat. When he learns that his client is found dead, he sets out on a path to find the truth.

Seminar: Sound Design for Documentary Filmmaking | Saturday, 5:05pm

Learn the ins and outs of designing sound from the pros! Panel hosted by Jonathan Bell. Pay-what-you-can.

Long & Short Shorts | The Long and the Short Shorts of it | Saturday, 6:35pm

(50 minutes total screening time)

Roaming the Ruins
Roaming the Ruins (Student Film), directed by Vivien McNab

Based on a true event, a mother and daughter travel to Rome and get lost for hours in the Palatine Hill ruins.

Dancy Nancy
Dancy Nancy, directed by Miguel Mercado

Documentary showcasing fitness specialist, Nancy Bruning, who promotes exercise classes in city parks for people who want to have a healthy lifestyle in New York City without going to the gym.

The Replacement
The Replacement, directed by Michael Pizzano

While fending off the office bully, a business exec must help the front desk face his possible firing and replacement.

A La Mode
A La Mode (Student Film), directed by Charles Gomez

When a young woman’s obsessive behavior for wearing makeup turns ugly. Showing a different perspective of what we don’t see behinds doors.

Nevertheless
Nevertheless, directed by KarynRose Bruyning

Deeper meaning is the thing everyone seems to be looking for after heartbreak. What if you got the answer to all of the “whys” would it matter? Nevertheless is story of WHY and what happens after.

Don’t Blink Twice
Don’t Blink Twice, directed by Kristin Macomber and Steven Burneson

A couple navigates what it means to hang out.

The First Time I Saw You
The First Time I Saw You, directed by Dylan Scott Tuccillo

A young man sees a woman shoplifting and decides to follow her. Hours later he’s obsessed, following the woman everywhere she goes. As days turn into weeks, he learns everything about her, and his life will never be the same. But she has a secret that even he doesn’t know about. The film pays homage to the silent film era in that it contains no dialogue.

Anya | Feature Film | Saturday, 8:05pm

(80 minutes, plus a special post-screening conversation with the filmmakers)

Anya
Directed by Carylanna Taylor and Jacob Akira Okada

A young couple’s personal quest to have a child becomes a provocative, yet utterly dramatic, exploration of some of the most challenging issues facing humanity today.

Sunday Program

Long Shorts: Heath & Wellness | Short films under 25 minutes | Sunday, 1:35pm

(63 minutes total screening time)

Cultivate
Cultivate (Student Film), directed by Alex Baglio

When food critic Brian visits Cultivate, the hottest new restaurant in town, he’s challenged by the establishment’s quirky waiter before chowing down.

Desert Shadows
Desert Shadows (Student Film), directed by Robin Zerbe

Returning from his latest tour of duty, a guilt-ridden soldier battles his inner demons while trying to find peace in his civilian life.

Nourishing Japan
Nourishing Japan, directed by Alexis Agliano Sanborn

Embark on a delicious journey from farmer’s field to school classroom that celebrates how one country has reimagined school lunch and food education. At the heart of Japan’s 2005 Food Education Law are the incredible people whose daily work nourishes the next generation’s relationship to food, the earth, and one another.

Without a Scratch
Without a Scratch (Student Film), directed by Samantha Farinella

Without a Scratch is an experimental short documentary that takes the viewer on the journey of the queer filmmaker’s experience with a pituitary tumor, exploring the interconnectedness and complexity of healing, memory and love.

Long Shorts: Now, That’s Comedy! | Short films under 25 minutes | Sunday, 3:35pm

(58 minutes total screening time)

The Meditater
The Meditater [sic], directed by Justin Giegerich

Bennett is an unpaid intern. He hates it, but his boss keeps promising him a promotion. The stress of the job keeps mounting and the promotion keeps getting delayed. To deal with it all, Bennett starts meditating, but when the voice of his Meditation App starts talking directly to him, Bennett realizes peace might take more than just some deep breaths.

Not So Hilarious Anymore
Not So Hilarious Anymore, directed by Adam Karsten

When Eliza catches Todd watching old Louis CK clips in the middle of the night, the couple reckon with their feelings about a man they once admired and wonder, among other things, in the age of Hannah Gadsby, how a man who was so tuned in before can be so tone deaf now, before ultimately saying goodbye.

Murmur
Murmur, directed by Sabrina Seidner

Desperate to increase attendance in her unconventional grief support group, Dr. Dee Dee Daniels admits the distraught Lizzie Marks who disrupts the counseling group when everyone discovers she’s in the wrong meeting. Shot on location in Inwood, this is a sweet tale of quirky characters who learn to accept each other and offer some relief from their devastating losses.

Little Italy, Los Angeles
Little Italy, Los Angeles: Un Taglio all’Italiana, directed by Adriano Valentini

The new way to shave.

Seminar: Filmmaking A to Z | Sunday, 5:05pm

Facilitated by Samantha Farinella with established filmmakers Erin Greenwell and Megan Rossman. Pay-what-you-can.

Are you interested in creating a film and it’s your first time? Have you already made a film but are looking for ways to make the process more streamlined? Here is what you need to know.

Sometimes Why | Feature Film | Sunday, 6:35pm

(59 minutes, plus a special post-screening conversation with the filmmakers)

Sometimes Why
Directed by Dileepan Ganesan

The story of two dreamers, brought together by chance, who navigate the trials and tribulations of life and love in NYC

5th Annual Awards for Excellence in Filmmaking | Sunday, 8:05pm | FREE!

Join us in the Theater following the final screening on Sunday, March 15 for the announcement of the Inwood Film Festival’s Awards for Excellence in Filmmaking by Manhattan Borough President, Gale A. Brewer.