Festival of Cinema NYC

Queens-based Festival of Cinema NYC 2024 announces film lineup

By John Wildman 2 years ago

Festival of Cinema NYC Founder and Executive Director Jayson Simba, said, “This year’s edition of the film festival continues the growth of our event. Our mission to establish a bridge between community and the arts, by exhibiting the work of talented filmmakers, gets stronger every year. It always begins and ends with great films, but it becomes special by highlighting why we love to come to the movie theater and celebrating the artistic accomplishments of our filmmakers who foster that connection between us.”

Festival of Cinema NYC 2023 Announces Filmmaker Awards

By John Wildman 2 years ago

Festival of Cinema NYC Founder and Executive Director Jayson Simba, said, “Our film festival, like many festivals, looks at the filmmakers and the films’ cast and crew or documentary subjects as an extended family of film artists. Once again this year, attendees from all over New York City came out in large numbers to celebrate cinema with those filmmakers, some of whom who flew in from Europe to share their work. and became the latest members of our FOC NYC extended family. From our Opening Night party to That enthusiasm and support was evident – from the Forest Hills Community to the final award being announced it always thrills us to see friendships and relationships had been forged throughout the 10 days at our film festival. I don’t know of another NYC-based fest that can claim that.”

Festival of Cinema NYC 2023 announces films, events, and a home-grown honoree for August fest

By John Wildman 3 years ago

Festival of Cinema NYC returns to the Regal UA Midway and the Queens Library at Forest Hills for its 7th year, August 3 – August 13. The festival opens with Christina Kallas’ indie NYC favorite Paris in Harlem and closes with Anna Baumgarten’s multiple award-winning drama Disfluency. Dito Montiel will be honored with FOC NYC’s inaugural Achievement in Filmmaking Award in conjunction with a special screening of his film, A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, and Greg Brownderville and Bart Weiss’ groundbreaking Southern Gothic multi-media project Fire Bones will be presented live in New York City for the first time.

Redux’s Heimir Bjarnason, John Gray, Melissa Jo Peltier, Marilys Ernst: Festival of Cinema NYC’s 2nd Photo Call highlighted Iceland, NYC filmmaking, and SUSHI

By John Wildman 3 years ago

Festival of Cinema NYC hosted a second photo call as the film festival headed into its final weekend (It’s one of the rare film festivals to still have a long enough schedule that it has TWO weekends) The carpet saw a visiting filmmaker from Iceland (REDUX’s Heimir Bjarnason, a filmmaking team with two flms at the fest (John Gray, Melissa Jo Peltier, and Marilys Ernst with the films THE GAME IS UP: DISILLUSIONED TRUMP VOTERS TELL THEIR STORIES and THE LITTLE DRUMMER BOY), Michelle Girolami, who was put through her paces all over New York City in the sci-fi thriller IMPLANTED, the trio (Tim Martin, Nickolas Manesiotis, and Alexx Diaz) from the short film SUSHI, and DANCE TILL DAWN’s Ayesha Adamo making her last appearance at a fest in the states before moving to study in Amsterdam. In other words, there was actually a lot going on for a modest film festival photo call.