FilmNewYork's blog

by Sandy Mandelberger, Film New York Editor

The Connecticut Film Festival has two laudable goals and some difficult challenges. The first is to offer adventurous local audiences an alternative to the summer blockbuster movie season that has taken hold at the local multiplex. The second, equally laudable and difficult, is to help revitalize a downtown Danbury, Connecticut that is slowly emerging from decades of neglect and physical deterioration.

Danbury is located about one hour north of New York City. It boasts some impressive buildings from the late 19th and early 20th centuries that speak to its early influence as a banking and entreprenurial center. As was the case with many cities and towns in the Northeast, the prosperous decades of the first half of the 20th century gave way to a steady decline that peaked in the 1960s and 1970s, and that devastated inner cities and their attendant populations. Even today, there are many who live in the Danbury vicinity (myself included, a resident of nearby tony Ridgefield, Connecticut) who has never set foot in the city's downtown.

City Center Danbury, a not-for-profit organization designed to spruce up Danbury's image and to rekindle interest in the downtown area, has supported several initiatives to bring music, culture and the arts to the city's beleagured inner city core. Among those are the Connecticut Film Festival, which will present a heady week-long festival of not only the best in independent and international cinema, but extensive networking and educational events and sidebars on interactive technology and the burgeoning Connecticut music scene. This is quite an ambitious program but one filled with enthusiasm, good spirits and the fervor of bringing unique cultural choices to Connecticut's sophisticated population.

The Festival, which began on Tuesday evening, utilizes several theatrical venues during its week-long affair, with the heart being the renovated Palace Theater located, appropriately enough, on Main Street. Festivities kicked off with the local premiere of TIMER, an innovative romantic comedy that mixes old-fashioned sentiment with new fangled technology by debut helmer Jacqueline Schaeffer. The after-party in the lobby of the Palace Theater was well attended by local cultural and business reps and audience members looking for something a little different for a Tuesday evening.

The film program is quite ambitious, with a particular emphasis on American independent cinema. In all, the Festival will present some 140 films (features, documentaries and shorts included), 100 seminars and educational events and 70 performances by local musicians on the verge of breakout hit status. In addition, several high profile receptions are being held at venues all over town, to give visitors and even local residents a real flavor of Danbury's evolving restaurant and bar scene.

Among the highlights are the Italian comedy DUBBLE, the Carlos Saura-directed FADOS, the American duckumentary LITTLE MISS DEWIE, the Marcia Gay Harden/Joe Pantoliano starrer CANVAS, the hot Romanian drama BOOGIE, the animated QUEER DUCK: THE MOVIE, the award-winning documentary UP THE YANGTZE, the Kazahk charmer TULPAN, several programs of short films and the Festival closer and Sundance Film Festival sleeper CHILDREN OF INVENTION. 

Kudos to the Festival organizers, sponsors and programmers for bringing locals (myself included) an ambitious program of film, music, interactive and educational discoveries. The challenge to compete with STAR TREK and A NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM is a formidable one, but one worthy of praise and community support. For a complete list of programs and events, visit the festival's website: www.ctfilmfest.com

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