The Hamptons

The Hamptons' PR News Wire!

2019 HAMPTONS INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL ANNOUNCES OPENING FILM: JUST MERCY FORD v FERRARI announced as Saturday Centerpiece + MORE!!

theater + film :: The Hamptons International Film Festival


The Hamptons International Film Festival (HIFF) today shared their first wave of programming with the announcement of JUST MERCY opening the 2019 festival with its East Coast Premiere on Thursday, October 10, at Guild Hall. A powerful and thought-provoking true story, directed by Destin Daniel Cretton, JUST MERCY follows young lawyer Bryan Stevenson (Michael B. Jordan) and his history-making battle for justice as he fights a merciless legal system stacked against him and his clients at every turn. The film also stars Jamie Foxx, Rob Morgan, Tim Blake Nelson, Rafe Spall, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Karan Kendrick and Brie Larson.

Saturday Centerpiece selection is FORD v FERRARI directed by James Mangold. The film is based on the remarkable true story of the visionary American car designer Carroll Shelby (Matt Damon) and the fearless British driver Ken Miles (Christian Bale), who together battled corporate interference, the laws of physics, and their own personal demons to build a revolutionary race car for Ford Motor Company and take on the dominating race cars of Enzo Ferrari at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in France in 1966.

In celebration of one of this year’s most talked about performances for her role in Chinonye Chukwu’s CLEMENCY, the festival will honor Alfre Woodard with a special “A Conversation With…” featuring the Emmy Award winner, Academy Award-nominated and Golden Globe-winning actress in-person for a career spanning discussion. In CLEMENCY, official selection of the festival, Woodard plays prison warden Bernadine Williams, who is dealing with the emotional strain of carrying out death row executions.

In addition, HIFF has announced the World Premieres of four films, including Treva Wurmfeld’s CONSCIENCE POINT, a ground level documentation of the Shinnecock Nation and their ongoing fight for recognition of their ancestral rights in Southampton, which will premiere in Views from Long Island section; Ben Steele’s IN MEMORIAM, an intimate and powerful look at the human cost of the country’s mass shooting epidemic and Mark Landsman’s SCANDALOUS, an expansive and probing look into the true story of The National Enquirer, the most infamous tabloid in U.S. history, both of which will premiere in the World Documentary Cinema section; and Anthony Baxter’s FLINT, a riveting documentary about the water crisis in Flint, Michigan, that brought a national spotlight to issues of economic depression and water treatment across the country, which will screen in the festival’s Air, Land & Sea section.

“We are honored to have Alfre Woodard at this year’s festival and look forward to a captivating and engaging conversation, with her as well as our Lifetime Achievement Award recipient Brian De Palma,” said Anne Chaisson, Executive Director of the Hamptons International Film Festival.

“Each of these films tell a unique, thrilling story and we are excited to share them with our passionate audiences out east, with a truly remarkable lineup of some of the year’s most anticipated films, events and world premiere screenings,” said David Nugent, Artistic Director of the Hamptons International Film Festival.

HIFF previously announced that they will honor legendary director Brian De Palma with a Lifetime Achievement Award and artist and founding Chairman of the Board of HIFF Toni Ross will be the recipient of this year’s Dick Cavett Artistic Champion Award. De Palma will also participate in a “A Conversation With…” at the festival with Festival co-chair Alec Baldwin.

The 27th annual Hamptons International Film Festival will take place Columbus Day Weekend: October 10 – 14, 2019. The Festival is pleased to welcome back returning Premiere Sponsor Audi, Lead Sponsors Delta and Altour, Signature Sponsors Netflix, Douglas Elliman, and JP Morgan, and Official Media Sponsors WNBC, The East Hampton Star, and Purist Magazine. For more information please visit www.hamptonsfilmfest.org. Passes and packages for the 2019 festival will go on sale September 5, and individual tickets will go on sale on October 1.

2019 Hamptons International Film Festival Lineup

JUST MERCY
*Opening Night Film
East Coast Premiere
Director: Destin Daniel Cretton
A powerful and thought-provoking true story, JUST MERCY follows young lawyer Bryan Stevenson (Michael B. Jordan) and his history-making battle for justice. After graduating from Harvard, Bryan had his pick of lucrative jobs. Instead, he heads to Alabama to defend those wrongly condemned or who were not afforded proper representation, with the support of local advocate Eva Ansley (Brie Larson). One of his first, and most incendiary, cases is that of Walter McMillian (Jamie Foxx), who in 1987 was sentenced to die for the notorious murder of an 18-year-old girl, despite a preponderance of evidence proving his innocence and the fact that the only testimony against him came from a criminal with a motive to lie. In the years that followed, Bryan becomes embroiled in a labyrinth of legal and political maneuverings and overt and unabashed racism as he fights for Walter, and others like him, with the odds—and the system—stacked against them.

FORD v FERRARI
*Saturday Centerpiece
Director: James Mangold
Academy Award® winners Matt Damon and Christian Bale star in 20th Century Fox’s FORD v FERRARI, based on the remarkable true story of the visionary American car designer Carroll Shelby (Damon) and the fearless British driver Ken Miles (Bale), who together battled corporate interference, the laws of physics, and their own personal demons to build a revolutionary race car for Ford Motor Company and take on the dominating race cars of Enzo Ferrari at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in France in 1966.

CLEMENCY
Director: Chinonye Chukwu
Years of carrying out death row executions have taken a toll on prison warden Bernadine Williams (Alfre Woodard). As she prepares to execute another inmate, Bernadine must confront the psychological and emotional demons her job creates, ultimately connecting her to the man she is sanctioned to kill.

CONSCIENCE POINT
World Premiere
Director: Treva Wurmfeld
For decades, the home of the Shinnecock Nation has been the subject of a brutal fight for ownership in The Hamptons, with an increased push for real estate development coming to a head against both the safety margin of Long Island’s environmental equilibrium and ties to ancestral homelands throughout the region. Following longtime Shinnecock activist Becky Hill-Genia and those fighting by her side, CONSCIENCE POINT takes a ground-level approach to documenting the almost two-decade-long battle for preservation that has come to encompass not only questions of land ownership, but the moralities of environmental use and income inequality within one of America’s wealthiest zip code.

FLINT
World Premiere
Director: Anthony Baxter
More than half a century removed from its status as a leading force in the U.S. manufacturing industry, the city of Flint, Michigan, has now become synonymous with a water crisis forcing a national spotlight on issues of economic depression and water treatment across the country. Narrated by Alec Baldwin and directed by HIFF Alum Anthony Baxter (YOU’VE BEEN TRUMPED, A DANGEROUS GAME), FLINT reveals how the city’s life-threatening water crisis has gradually evolved into a crisis of accountability and trust in authorities, a battle between science and pseudoscience, and an institutionalized failure in local infrastructure. Looking at not only the crisis itself, but the enduring issues of partisan politics and environmental resources on which it continues to shed light, FLINT is an illuminating look at a modern American tragedy.

IN MEMORIAM
World Premiere
Director: Ben Steele
In the United States, an active shooter incident now occurs every 12 days. IN MEMORIAM looks at the human cost of the country’s mass shooting epidemic through the surviving communities of three of the deadliest in U.S history: the Las Vegas Route 91 Harvest Music Festival, the Sutherland Springs Baptist Church in Texas, and the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Moving beyond the debates that often dominate the discourse following mass shootings, filmmaker Ben Steele looks to the survivors, relatives and locals left grieving in the aftermath to examine the painful memories, lingering effects, and necessary questions left in their wake.

SCANDALOUS
World Premiere
Director: Mark Landsman
For over 60 years, The National Enquirer has been at the center of the American public’s fascination with the rich and famous, as its salacious headlines and coverage of events—ranging from Elvis’s death to the O.J. murder trial—have fueled the darkest curiosities of a hungry audience. With rare archival footage and revelations about the alleged blackmail and payoffs used to get their most defining scoops, SCANDALOUS presents an expansive and probing look into the true story of the most infamous tabloid in U.S. history, charting how it pushed its own particular brand of fake news from the fringe to the mainstream.


About Our Local International Festival


The 27th Annual Hamptons International Film Festival will be held over Columbus Day Weekend – October 10 – 14, 2019. HIFF is a year-round 501(c)3 non-profit organization with events, screenings, film workshops, comprehensive summer programs and an annual film festival each October. The Festival is the premiere film event on New York State’s east end, and is an intimate showcase of some of the year’s best offerings in contemporary cinema from around the world. With cash and in-kind prizes handed out totaling more than $200,000, HIFF continues to attract some of the best films of the year. Selections from all of our programs continue to play an important role during awards season. Selections from all of our programs continue to play an important role during awards season. 2019 marked the 9th time in a row that a film in the Festival has become the eventual Best Picture winner at the Oscars, making HIFF the only Festival on the East Coast with such a distinction. hamptonsfilmfest.org


You can keep up with updates by following us on twitter @hamptonsmedia and bookmarking our People & Parties pages for full write-ups and videos and interviews…or even use the rss feed on this blog! You can find handy links to both The Hamptons International Film Festival plus lodging and/or dining from Westhampton to Montauk on “The Hamptons”.com

thehamptons.com lifeguard stand


August 23rd, 2019 Posted by | theater & film, thehamptons.com | no comments

No Comments

No comments yet.

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.