FilmColumbia Festival

FilmColumbia, Columbia County's premier annual cultural event, screens the very best upcoming American and international films for ten days in late October. Launched in 1999 as the Crandell Theatre's "little local festival that could," FilmColumbia is now an acclaimed, nationally recognized film event.

FilmColumbia was recently recognized by MovieMaker Magazine as one of the "25 Coolest Film Festivals in the World." Said Tim Molloy, MovieMaker's editor-in-chief, "Obviously a lot of New Yorkers are now discovering the beautiful small communities just a short drive from New York City, and we think they'll be delighted to learn more about FilmColumbia, a fest that blends a gorgeous location, local color (both people and leaves) and Oscar-caliber films, lovingly programmed by a revered team with exquisite taste."

Schedule of Events:

Sisters and Neighbors!
(Nos Belles-Soeurs)
12:00pm
102 mins

A summer hit in Quebec, Sisters and Neighbors!, a musical, is set in working-class Montreal in the mid-1960s. A housewife wins a million "green stamps" and dreams of all the appliances that she will receive once the stamps are pasted into the innumerable booklets that come with the stamps. She invites family and neighbors to her kitchen for a stamp licking party, not thinking that her women "friends" might be envious of the life she may soon have.

All Shall Be Well
Short: The Color Yellow
120 mins
2:00pm

All Shall Be Well
A sexagenarian lesbian couple live comfortably in Hong Kong as part of an extended family. When one dies, property, which is expensive and coveted on that crowded island, becomes an issue. Does the surviving partner really need the apartment? The title is ironic, the tone refreshing, and the ending puts a different yet optimistic spin on the idea of "happy." Winner of the Teddy Award for the best LGBTQ-themed film at the Berlin Film Festival this year.

Traumnovelle
5:00pm
109 min

In 1926 Arthur Schnitzler wrote Traumnovelle (Dream Story), a novella about nightmares and sexual passion in his hometown, Vienna. Movie adaptations have transported the story elsewhere, most famously to New York (Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut). Now, the young German filmmaker Florian Frerichs effectively situates the chilling story in contemporary Berlin where strange and disturbing nocturnal happenings upset a marriage.

Unstoppable
7:30pm
116 min

The adage "truth is stranger than fiction" certainly applies here: Anthony Robles, born without a right leg, overcomes physical and domestic challenges to become a champion college wrestler. For his first feature film, director William Goldenberg has assembled a star-studded cast including Jharrel Jerome as Robles, who actually plays Jerome's body double in some scenes, and Jennifer Lopez as Robles' indomitable mother. Premiered in the Special Presentations section at the Toronto International Film Festival.

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