Connecticut Film Festival:

Newtown Films, Tickets And Reception Details Announced

By Shannon Hicks

The Connecticut Film Festival will have a special one-day event in Newtown this year.

Four films plus a collection of shorts will be screened Saturday, April 25, at Edmond Town Hall. In addition, a postscreening discussion is planned following the debut of Dislecksia, the latest film from Newtown native Harvey Hubbell V, as well as a reception for that featured film at The Inn at Newtown.

Mr Hubbell’s feature is the centerpiece of the daylong, multifilm program that has been coordinated by Newtown Cultural Arts Commission (NCAC). The Newtown event is a first for the festival, which will continue with five days and nights of screenings and related programs in Danbury, June 2–7.

“We wanted to highlight Newtown, and having Harvey Hubbell present a sneak preview of Dislecksia: The Movie was the perfect fit,” NCAC Chairperson Jennifer Johnston.

The Newtown schedule has been finalized and the day will open at 1 pm with a screening of The Flyboys, a 2008 film directed by Rocco DeVilliers; continue with a collection of four shorts at 3:15 pm; and then a screening of Monsters from The Id at 4:45.

The feature program, discussion and party will be presented at 6:30, and then the screenings will resume at 9:15 with a showing of Doug Hawes-Davis and Drury Gunn Carr’s Brave New West.

“We chose the films in conjunction with Tom Carruthers and The Connecticut Film Festival,” said Ms Johnston. “The commission wanted a wide variety of films to cover a diverse population, so there is a little bit of everything for everyone, from children to adults.”

The Films

*The Flyboys, the first film of the day, follows Jason McIntyre and Kywe Barrett — young friends from different sides of the tracks who become embroiled in the adventure of their lives when they discover a mysterious airplane, sneak aboard for a look and unexpectedly find themselves airborne over the Arizona desert. That is just the start of their adventure — or troubles — because next they learn that they are involved in a mob heist.

Director Rocco DeVilliers co-wrote the film with his brother Jason, with the two purposely creating a screenplay for the kind of film they would have wanted to see as 12-year-old boys.

He cast Tom Sizemore as Angelo, the elder brother and mob kingpin, and Stephen Baldwin as Silvio, the younger, underachieving brother. The two lead roles for the boys went to Jesse James and Reiley McClendon, both of whom have been working since age 8.

“The size of their roles, the intense physicality of the stunts and the fast pace of the production schedule would be a challenge for an actor of any age. Both James and McClendon continually showed their talent and professionalism as actors with their energy, endurance and grasp of their characters’ personalities,” Mr DeVilliers told Moving Pictures last year.

The film has a running time of 118 minutes. It was shot on location in Utah and Nevada and also features a Twin Beechcraft 18 as a main character.

The film’s tagline is “For the first time in their life they’re trying to get grounded.”

The Flyboys was included in the 2008 Newport Beach Film Festival and the 2008 Sedona Film Festival, where it won the Audience Choice Award for Best Feature.

The Flyboys will be coupled with the 11-minute short For a Few Marbles More (Voor een Paar Knikkers Meer; Netherlands, director Jelmar Hufen; 2006). When four 10-year-olds are kicked out of their favorite playground by two aggressive drunkards and realize that their parents are not going to help them, they come up with only one solution: Find a way to get the toughest boy in the neighborhood to help them. The short has won more than 30 awards, including Best Cinematography (WILDsound Film Festival, 2007; 5th Dixie Film Festival, 2008; and 9th Arrivano I Corti: International Short Film Festival, 2007), Best Film – July (WILDsound Film Festival, 2008), Grand Prize (Prvi Kadar: First Short Film Festival, 2008), and Best Short Film (11th Zimbabwe International Film Festival – 2008 and 2008 Prince Edward Island International Film Festival).

*Shorts Program: Beginning at 3:15 the festival will offer four short films (one ticket covers all four shorts).

In Theodore Melfi’s The Beneficiary (18 minutes; 2008), three lives are tragically altered when an ordinary event ignites a chain reaction of paranoia and murder. After truck driver Roy Tidrow cuts off a random car on the freeway, a complaint is phoned in and Roy is immediately fired. Sent into a violent rage, Roy threatens his wife Valerie, who is the receptionist at the trucking company. She gives him the name of the complainant, Joe O’Neil. Days later Joe has been murdered…

Free Lunch (written, directed and produced by Rick Curnutt; 35 minutes) follows Walter Tanner Jr (newcomer Mike Cavalero), who is done with handouts, his privileged past, and having to answer to people. Realizing the value of hard work, Walter sets off on the road to the American dream… in a lunch truck.

Together, Walter and his friend Casey (Charles Peroraro) serve the working people of LA, competing with those who have been making a living out of the meals-on-wheels business for generations. Walter struggles with the realities of entrepreneurship and the pitfalls of running a business.

15-40 (director Christian Bagger; 23 minutes) is the true story of the Danish tennis player Kai Bjorn Hansen who, during the Nazi occupation of Denmark, had to make the decision of his life.

Hansen, now in his late 80s, is the director’s grandfather. The tennis star helped Jews escape out of German-occupied Denmark during World War II. He is portrayed in the short — which the director hopes to one day turn into a full feature — by Neil Jackson. The film’s second role, of the Jewish tennis player Erik Bjarnson, was played by Steven Brand.

The film premiered in April 2008 at the Vail Film Festival, has played several festivals since (winning two honorable mentions), and picked up The Jimmy Stewart Memorial Crystal Heart Award at the 2008 Heartland Film Festival.

The final film in the shorts session is Empire (director Alex DeMille; 15 minutes), “a war film for the media age” (The Big Easy Shorts Festival) about a troubled young man who seeks revenge against a prominent right wing news commentator.

*Monsters From The Id (71 minutes) weaves the intersecting themes of more than 30 classic sci-fi films in order to explore the 1950s, an idealistic time in American history when people were filled with hope, opportunity and wonder that was also The Atomic Age, when new technology promised to both save humanity as well as put it in jeopardy. These factors combined, says director David Gargani, and gave birth to one of the most prolific genres in film history: 1950s Science Fiction Cinema.

Monsters From The Id explores the continuation of The Mad Scientist, and decades of monsters and invaders of many forms, and the evolution of a new character, The Modern Scientist.

The Mad Scientist was evil, intent on using science for his own personal gains no matter the outcome. The Modern Scientist, conversely, was created to calm the fears associated with the atomic age. He was handsome, brilliant, polite, thoughtful, charming, and became a role model for young boys and girls across America.

*Dislecksia: The Movie will be featured as a work in progress, and will give the audience a firsthand look at Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Harvey Hubbell’s latest project. In the comic documentary, Mr Hubbell — with assistance from dyslexic writer Jeremy Brecher and several dyslexic crew members — will present the latest scientific knowledge about dyslexia and the experiences of dyslexics.

Viewers come to know dyslexics and those who teach them and study them not just as statistics of talking heads but as people. Viewers also learn a lot about the condition: its causes, its effects and what can be done about it. Dislecksia will give viewers, says Mr Hubbell, a better understanding of the condition while giving dyslexics and their families hope and a crash course on how to laugh at their own condition.

*In Brave New West (directors Doug Hawes-David and Drury Gunn; 80 minutes), “Old West” meets “new West” when writer, publisher, artist and activist Jim Stiles began publishing the politically progressive Canyon Country Zephyr, an independent paper hopelessly clinging to the past in the heart of conservative Mormon Utah.

The film is a story about the eccentric, humorous and inspiring world of Mr Stiles, whose dedication and imagination has produced one of the country’s most original newspapers. Working alone since 1989 in his small home in Moab, Utah, Mr Stiles combines art, humor and commentary with honest stories to create an extraordinary historical archive of the rapidly changing landscape and culture of the American West. Brave New West tells the tale of how one man’s passion for the natural world fueled the creation of an enduring newspaper that has become an unlikely institution in the American West.

Tickets & Pricing

Tickets are $7 per screening. A number of special packages have also been set up, however: There are $10 tickets available for the screening of Dislecksia and a postscreening panel discussion; $25 tickets that include the featured film’s screening, post panel discussion and a reception at The Inn at Newtown; and $35 VIP Pass tickets that are combined Day Passes and feature film events (screening, discussion and reception) passes.

Screening packages and individual tickets will be available at the Edmond Town Hall box office on the day of the festival only.

VIP Pass quantities are limited to 200 people and must be purchased in advance online at NewtownArtsCommission.org (click on Events).

Following the presentation of Dislecksia: The Movie, Harvey Hubbell will lead a panel discussion and Q&A section to dissect the anatomy of his thought-provoking film on a subject that plagues about one in seven Americans, including the filmmaker. Several film industry members, medical professionals and parents will make up the panel for the postfilm discussion.

After that, ticket-holders will be treated to “an upscale film industry cocktail reception,” promise NCAC organizers.

Newtown’s Board of Selectmen voted unanimously in February to allocate $10,000 to the Newtown Cultural Arts Commission to host the one-day Connecticut Film Festival event. Later that month Mr Hubbell was in town to offer three extended clips from the film, which will be premiered during the Connecticut Film Festival.

The 2009 Connecticut Film Festival will take over the city of Danbury and campuses of Western Connecticut State University for a six-day festival and conference of independent film, music, interactive and social media, gaming and script writing, June 2–7.

The weeklong event will be highlighted by more than 100 films and educational workshops and panels, keynotes, 100 musical performances by independent artists, industry networking events, parties, a 24-hour film competition, a five-day Writers Unblocked Screenwriter’s Immersion Program, and a high school student filmmaker and musician summit.

For more information about the screenwriter’s immersion project, schedule details or tickets for the Danbury events, visit CTFilmFest.com or send email to CTFilmFestWritersProgram@yahoo.com.

Jennifer Johnston and the Newtown Cultural Arts Commission are still looking for volunteers for April 25. Volunteers can help pass out CTFF-Newtown fliers at the regular movie screenings at Edmond Town Hall for the next couple of weeks, as well as help on the day of the event with taking tickets and ushering.

Anyone interested can contact Ms Johnston at 426-9299.