The Rockaway Film Festival is back for its eighth year from August 20 to 24 with a packed lineup of cinematic and artistic events on the Rockaway peninsula.
Highlights include Sundance Grand Jury Winner "Atropia" from writer-director Hailey Gates, a wild war satire inspired by real U.S. military training camps. Starring Alia Shawkat as an aspiring actress and Callum Turner, this story is more relevant now than ever as Hailey Gate's bold, feature debut embodies the flimsiness of the American Empire.
There's also SXSW Special Jury Award Winner, Xander Robin's "The Python Hunt," produced by Lance Oppenheimer, a story of eccentric amateur hunters over the course of ten days as they compete in a high stakes contest to remove invasive pythons from the Everglades.
Special presentations include a preview screening of the Quay Brothers' "Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass," a veteran animator's first feature in 20 year which Variety is calling "a surreal stop-motion fantasia." Check out the North American Premiere of Swiss filmmaker Alain Tanner's new restoration of César-winning "In the White City" (1983). As a collection of William Wegman shorts for all-ages with a focus on his charming canine collaborators, many of them appearing on televison shows like Sesame Street.
The festival will conclude this year with two of Paul Clipson's rarely screened works in 16mm with live music by his close collaborator Jefre Cantu-Ledesma.
Events will be held at the festival's flagship Averne Cinema and other local sites. While some events are free, you can get a festival "Shell Pass" offering unlimited access to all events for $75.
"We view our festivals as a complete, continuous sequence where one program flows into the next and this year we took inspiration from stories of renewal where endings become beginnings," Courtney Muller, the event's program director said in a press release.
The full program for this year's festival can be found here.