Albany Film Festival Focuses on Storytelling

ALBANY, N.Y. (March 29, 2022) — The second annual Albany Film Festival, featuring conversations with writers, actors and directors, workshops and film screening, will be held April 2 on the Uptown Campus.

The event, presented by the NYS Writers Institute, is free and open to the public.

“As a celebration of storytelling on screen, the Albany Film Festival is a natural extension of the Writers Institute’s mission of fostering conversations about the craft of writing in all its forms,” Writers Institute Director Paul Grondahl said. “The niche that makes our film festival different is a focus on stories and books adapted into films, collaborations between fiction writers and directors, and the intersection of writing and cinema.”

The festival shines the spotlight on filmmakers as storytellers, focusing on topics such as writing vs. visual storytelling, screenwriting, criticism, and film history and biography — primarily through conversation and Q&A with guests.

“Highlights include a conversation between bestselling novelist Wally Lamb and acclaimed director Derek Cianfrance about his adaptation of Lamb’s novel, I Know This Much Is True,” Grondahl said. “Acclaimed filmmakers Stanley Nelson and Marcia Smith will discuss their Oscar-nominated documentary, Attica. Award-winning actor Karen Allen (Raiders of the Lost Ark’ will discuss her directorial debut, a short film based on a Carson McCuller’s story, A Tree. A Rock. A Cloud. Novelist Russell Banks will join director Michael Caplan in a discussion of Caplan’s film, Algren, a documentary about Nelson Algren, one of the most underrated writers of the 20th century, who was an important influence on Banks.”

Francis Ford Coppola launched the first Albany Film Festival with a preview event in Fall 2019. Coppola received the first Ironweed Award for Exemplary Achievement in Film and talked about his director's cut of The Cotton Club with Writers Institute founder William Kennedy, who wrote the original script. The planned April 2020 Festival was ultimately canceled because of COVID, and the Writers Institute held a virtual film festival in April 2021, featuring Kasi Lemmons, James Ivory, Rosie Perez, Darnell Martin and Sam Pollard.

For this year’s film festival, the Ironweed Award will be presented to filmmakers Stanley Nelson, Marcia Smith and Derek Cianfrance. Screenings of the Albany Film Festival’s Short Film Award winners’ films will take place throughout the event and the short film award winners will be announced at the closing ceremony.  

“The festival builds on the success of our Classic Film Series, which has featured screenings and conversations with filmmakers for more than 30 years,” said Mark Koplik, assistant director of the Writers Institute. “We have long celebrated film as a storytelling art, on an equal footing with books, and we have built a large regional audience for film programming. And in keeping with the mission of the University at Albany, the festival is also very focused on equal opportunity and on diversity in all its forms.”

Highlights of the 2nd Annual Albany Film Festival:

• Major American novelist Wally Lamb (She's Come Undone) and noted film director Derek Cianfrance (The Place Beyond the Pines) about their recent HBO adaptation of Lamb's novel, I Know This Much is True, starring Mark Ruffalo.
• Eminent documentary filmmakers Stanley Nelson and Marcia Smith (The Black Panthers, Jonestown, Freedom Riders, Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool) about their new film Attica, nominated for a 2022 Oscar for Best Documentary — the story of the famous Upstate New York prison uprising.
• Major American novelist Russell Banks and filmmaker Michael Caplan in conversation about the film Algren, a tribute to Banks's mentor, Nelson Algren (The Man with the Golden Arm).
• Leading film actress Karen Allen (Raiders of the Lost Ark, Animal House) about her film adaptation of a short story by Southern fiction writer Carson McCullers, A Tree. A Rock. A Cloud.
• George McNamee, prominent Albany investor and philanthropist, about The Trial of the Chicago 7, a film that was nominated for a 2021 Best Picture Oscar and based on a book of court transcripts that McNamee published as a college student in 1970. Directed by Aaron Sorkin, the film stars Sacha Baron Cohen as '60s radical Abbie Hoffman.
• A variety of personnel involved in producing the lavish new HBO series filmed in Troy, The Gilded Age.
• Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting survivor Samantha Fuentes and film director Kim Snyder on the new documentary Us Kids, about the continued political activism of Parkland school shooting survivors.
• UAlbany alum Glen Trotiner (assistant director of The Untouchables and Biloxi Blues) and director James Camali, about their new film, The Mental State.
• Filmmaker and former NYS Writers Institute videographer Hugo Perez (Once Upon a Time in Uganda), with his film Omara, about the legendary Afro-Cuban singer.
• Filmmaker D. W. Young about his critically acclaimed film The Booksellers, a journey into the world of rare books, featuring Fran Lebowitz and Parker Posey.
• Filmmaker Daniel Swinton about his film The Hard Places, the story of Delmar, N.Y., optometrist and humanitarian aid worker Dr. Tom Little, who was killed while helping to provide people with the gift of sight in war-torn Afghanistan.

Events and guests are subject to change. For more information and a complete schedule of events, visit www.albanyfilmfestival.org.