2009 Gen Art Film Festival Line Up Revealed

Today, Gen Art Film Festival presented by Acura announced the line up for their annual seven-day shindig of one feature, one short and one par-tay per day to take place at the newly refurbished Visual Arts Theater, which The Film Panel Notetaker recently visited. Derick Martini’s Lymelife with a star-studded cast including 30 Rock’s Alec Baldwin, a couple of Culkins, Cynthia Nixon and more opens the fest on April 1, along with Topaz Adizes’ short Trece Años, which premiered at Sundance back in January.

Check out my notes from the 2007 Gen Art Film Fest Panel, Media Ecology, which I put in my top 10 panels of that year. Will this year's panel live up to that highly informative moment in notetaking history? Only time will tell. Panels taking place at the festival this year are expected to be announced soon. In the mean time, please peruse the feature and short slate below.

Opening Night
Wednesday, April 1

Feature: Lymelife
Directed by Derick Martini
Cast: Alec Baldwin, Kieran Culkin, Rory Culkin, Jill Hennessy, Timothy Hutton, Emma Roberts and Cynthia Nixon

Short: Trece Años
Directed by Topaz Adizes

Thursday, April 2

Feature: Gigantic
Directed by Matt Aselton
Cast: Paul Dano, Zooey Deschanel, John Goodman, Edward Asner and Jane Alexander

Short: Adelaide
Directed by Liliana Greenfield-Sanders

Friday, April 3

Feature: Peter and Vandy
Directed by Jay DiPietro
Cast: Jason Ritter, Jess Weixler, Jesse L. Martin, Tracie Thoms and Noah Bean

Short: Bridge
Directed by Hillman Curtis

Saturday, April 4

Feature: My Suicide
Directed by David Lee Miller
Cast: Gabriel Sunday, David Carradine, Mariel Hemingway, Brooke Nevin and Nora Dunn

Short: Acting for the Camera
Directed by Justin Nowell

Sunday, April 5th

Feature: Punching the Clown
Directed by Gregori Viens
Cast: Henry Phillips, Ellen Ratner, Audrey Siegal, Matthew Walker, Guilford Adams, Wade Kelly, Evan Arnold, Mik Scriba, Mark Cohen

Short: Asshole
Directed by Chadd Harbold

Monday, April 6

Feature: Picture Me: A Model’s Diary
Directed by Ole Schell
Cast: Sara Ziff, Ole Schell

Short: Veer!
Directed by Patrick Barry

Closing Night
Tuesday, April 7

Feature: Finding Bliss
Directed by Julie Davis
Cast: Leelee Sobieski, Matthew Davis, Donnamarie Recco, Denise Richards, Kristen Johnston and Jamie Kennedy

Short: Boob
Directed by Honest

Visiting the Visual Arts Theater

The School of Visual Arts will officially open its brand new screening facility this spring in the heart of New York’s Chelsea neighborhood. A culmination of a nearly 40-year vision by its director Gene Stavis, the Visual Arts Theater will be a world-class cultural center and laboratory for the visual arts providing a state-of-the-art cinema experience. This afternoon, fellow notetakers A.M. Peters, Liz Nord and I took a little field trip over to the theater where we were very honored and privileged to be escorted by Stavis on a sneak peek tour of the theater, which is currently under renovations. Login to Facebook and check out the pictures from our visit here.

The Visual Arts Theater, formerly Chelsea West Cinemas and several other incarnations before that, is being redesigned and refurbished by the celebrated Milton Glaser and other architects and artists. Unlike any other New York theater, it will feature an exterior 40-foot wall that will be transformed four times a year into a showcase for cultural events, works of art and social causes. Its sheltering marquee will be topped with Glaser’s kinetic sculpture that comes to life every hour on the hour.

The theater will have a stylish and elegant new lobby, perfect for receptions, that leads to two large auditoriums (a 495-seater and a 280-seater) both equipped with high-tech equipment with crystal clear projection in all formats including 70mm, 35mm, 16mm and D-Cinema, all in Dolby surround sound as projected by the world’s best projectionist, James Bond (not 007), who also designed the projection at the Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago. The D-Cinema equipment in both theaters can handle multiple formats of HD content, including 3D digital, live video feeds and multiple inputs from PC or Mac computers, and the entire facility is equipped with WiFi Internet access.

Both theaters have newly-installed lecture stages, perfect for film panel discussions (and a bastion for film panel notetaking), presentations, and Q&As. Modest performances can also be staged using professional theatrical lighting and dimming and full multimedia capabilities.

The three basic uses of the facility will be for:

• Students, faculty and alumni of SVA
• A professional presentation facility for original programming
• A facility available for rental to outside groups

There will be no commercial runs at the theater, but it will be available for premieres, private parties and other events. Its rental package is unique in that it includes everything from the theater’s management, projectionists, technicians, security and maintenance, altogether in one package, where other theaters charge extra for these services.

The Visual Arts Theater already plans to house a number of some of New York’s favorite film festivals including the Gen Art Film Festival and NewFest.

While the theater is still under renovation, some programs, lectures and classes will take place there including a live satellite feed from the TED conference in California this Thursday at 7pm.

Stavis said he expects to have an official opening ceremony on the first sunny day this spring. In this day and age when it’s hard enough to even keep a theater open, Stavis is very fortunate and happy to see his vision come to fruition. New York has something really spectacular to look forward to this spring and beyond.