2008 Festival Information

Event Venues

Festival History

So, how many films can you watch in a day? Well, now that my arthritis has kicked in, the rickety old seats at the Crandell Theatre are a challenge. But last year I used my gold pass to enjoy Film Columbia, the Festival of the Chatham Film Club fully. And, when you're talking independent films, you're talking time, one hundred twenty minutes, minimum, and lots of it slow, contemplative shots, not action, but making you feel its voice and vision. Surrender--to the seats, the self-indulgent pace of the film--the voyeur perspective brings rapture.

I came to the first film, intriguingly titled -- "The Loss of Nameless Things"-- with raves from two friends. A documentary about a quixotic theatre person, Ashley Hall III, charismatic leader of a NY theatre commune in the Catskills from the sixties, Loss brings a legend to life. And this resonates: who hasn't looked back at a youthful moment and wondered where that person went?

Each film transformed an issue into its human dimension: globalization drove the redundant paper engineer to hunt down his potential competitors in "The Ax"; homophobia threatened the love of two cowboys juxtaposed against the vast scenes in "Brokeback Mountain." A good film spins out another reality, the viewer invited to partake, be entertained, and experience another way of seeing.

Standing in line, I couldn't help but kibitz. Asked whether she had an apartment in Rome, an Italian woman said, "Sure, I go there to vacuum. The same in Abruzzi, and Park Avenue. But here in Columbia county, no vacuuming." A man told his companion about the Crandell's owners, Tony Quirino's business philosophy: he hasn't raised the ticket price in five years because, as Tony recounts, "I get by fine." And the biggest box-office week of the year, the week before Christmas, the Crandell is closed. Why? Says Tony, "Because I can."

Whether you've just met them, had a nodding acquaintance, or been friends for years, people who have just seen the same films are great to talk with. Each topic evokes more images, replaying the film as you speak. And whether you're wowing them with your sensitive insight, eloquence, the reverse or both, you're connecting, sharing your individual perspectives. These conversations begin to merge, becoming the story of our having seen the film. How often people say, "when I discussed it with so and so," thereby adding another layer.

Yet another dimension dramatized the medium: there were two readings, one of Rose Ross' screenplay, "Tar Beach," and the other a panel on acting in film. Though I knew the script intimately, being with over a hundred people glued to Rose's voice and story was to "see" the film. People laughed, grew sober, were touched or shocked, at all the right moments. And even though there was no set, action, or lighting, from the opening funeral scene to the voice-over summary at the end, the actors told the story. People recounted their reactions to "Tar Beach": how it brought back childhood in the Bronx, in the fifties; how it explored the silence the second generation had to survive. But also it exposed the anomalies of incest, homosexuality, and abuse.

A panel of actors convened by Scott Cohen described various scenarios of working in film. Their acting was simply one element in the film, like the screenwriter's, out of their hands after the shooting. To demonstrate, the actors read scenes, one of them mine. They read each scene cold, with no knowledge of the action or characters beyond demographics. The five minutes they read mine, I was riveted, both with what they made of it, totally different from what I'd written, and with being exposed, tested. Their response was very kind and open, but how vulnerable my voice was to their intuitive choices. And so, besides learning how to watch a film, this weekend I discovered a cool way to hang out authentically, less spry but more knowing than I was at sixteen. And who knows, maybe I'll finish my screenplay, even sell it. But I know I'll see another movie, soon.