Festival of Cinema NYC kept the red carpet fun going with the first of two mid-week photo calls

Jayson Simba’s Festival of Cinema NYC in Forest Hills/Queens is a reminder of the joy a film festival can be for an independent filmmaker in New York City. Let’s face it, there are other much more famous…or infamous film festivals in New York that trip off the tongue, but what trips off the tongue is not complimentary if you are truly an independent filmmaker – and we all know what I mean, when I say a “truly” independent filmmaker, right?

Anyway, Festival of Cinema NYC is also one of the last hold outs in terms of having a longer run (a full week or more) versus the more optimal four or five day fest. And in that case, it means more opportunities to put the filmmakers front and center and give them their rock star moments on the red carpet. FOC NYC had two red carpets and two photo calls between them. No filmmaker left behind (well, as few as possible) when it came to the photos and interviews. It’s just one part of the equation for what a film festival really SHOULD do on behalf of their filmmakers, but an incredibly important part when so many of those filmmakers have to do everything for themselves now.

Therefore, the first FOC NYC photo call featured Daniel Merino Villavicencio’s SWEET PEA & GLASS (Important note: Villavicencio has attended every FOC NYC fest, from fan to volunteer to filmmaker. That’s a very cool progression to any of us that love the film festival circuit and believe in it, as I most definitely do.), and Nathan Buck, the director and writer of UNDER SPANISH SKIES was also there, having made the trip from Berlin to attend the film festival. You make that kind of trip to attend a film festival then you best be getting more out of it than your garden variety Q&A.

The photo call also featured short films in a prominent way. Teams from THE DELLA MORTE SISTERS, THE FOUR WALLS OF CHARLOTTE MORELAND, DERRICK & BOYD, SURVIVAL JOB, TRUE CRIME, and more got to strut their stuff in fun and style. Let’s face it, there are escalating degrees of difficulty in shooting and completing a film, making a watchable film, and making a watchable film that gets accepted into a film festival. So, that should be a legit celebratory event for the filmmaker, their crew, cast, and participants to reward that accomplishment. A lot of film festivals don’t understand that equation because they assume way too much about the experience and have never actually had it from that side of things. Festival of Cinema NYC gets it – and these photos from that first photo call (following an earlier red carpet) really show it.