The Lake Placid Film Festival:
November 7 -10
Information about tickets, film schedules, events and seminars:adirondackfilm.org.
The 23rd Lake Placid Film Festival will screen twenty-one feature films this November, and a variety of short subjects.
Causing a lot of “buzz” this year, personal appearances by U.S. Hockey Gold Medalist Buzz Schneider, who scored the first goal against the Russian team in the 1980 Olympics. He’s in town to celebrate the 20th anniversary showings of the film Miracle, the story of the famed “Miracle on Ice.” Schneider will participate in Question-and-Answer sessions with documentary producer Paul Frederick.
Enjoy comments from Festival director Gary Smith here. He says another item of local interest is the North American premiere of the documentary Nathan Farb and the Cold War, about the acclaimed photographer of New York City and the Adirondack Mountains. The film follows the artist to Russia, as he remembers a career-changing moment in 1977, when an exhibition brought him to Siberia for the first time. Post film discussions will feature the documentary producer, director and Nathan Farb himself.
Filmmakers and community members will also be on hand to discuss movies including the civil rights story A Binding Truth, the film Seeds about the cultural issues facing a Mohawk online influencer, and the film She Rises Up, about women aiming to create job opportunities for women while reducing poverty in their communities.
Many of the films at the festival will screen at the Palace Theatre in Lake Placid, and the theatre itself even appears in one of the films this year. You may see its cameo in a movie celebrating the collecting of celluloid, Film is Dead. Long Live Film! The piece explores the vanishing world of private film collecting – an obsessive, secretive, often illicit world of basement film vaults, piled-high with forgotten reels, and inhabited by passionate cinephiles devoted to the rescue and preservation of photochemical film.
The Red Carpet Cocktail this year will feature three artists-in-residence, filmmakers Jacob Krueger, Jonathan Burkhart and acclaimed MGM+ producer Jill Burkhart, three film experts and writing coaches answering questions about the development of film projects.
Smith says among the many seminars this year is one geared for people who want to make movies in the Adirondacks: Made Upstate: Building a Crew Base. Other seminars treat topics including women directors, pitching a project, post-production and financing a film.
The Lake Placid Film Festival is one of the major events produced by the organization Adirondack Film.
Spotlight is made possible, in part, by the Glenn and Carol Pearsall Adirondack Foundation, dedicated to improving the quality of life for year-round residents of the Adirondack Park. Spotlight is also supported by Hill and Hollow Music.