Vera Farmiga (left) in Down To The Bone, one of the many films at the 2004 Woodstock Film Festival that was shot in the Hudson Valley.

THE FIFTH-ANNUAL WOODSTOCK Film Festival will run from October 13  to 17 this year, presenting over 110 films in venues located in Woodstock, Rhinebeck, and Hunter.  The event, which has grown in just a few years into one of the most exciting regional festivals in the country, will feature some of the finest of the 2004 crop of independent films, including the follow-up to Dylan Kidd's award-winning Roger Dodger.  A new film from Next Stop Wonderland director Brad Anderson, and the debut film from NYU Graduate Film Program alumna and prize-winning short-filmmaker Nicole Kassell will also be featured.

In spite of their "independent" status, these films star top-tier Hollywood actors, as well as experienced veterans of the indie-film scene - including Academy Award winners and nominees.  Laura Linney, Gabriel Byrne, Marcia Gay Hardin, Kevin Bacon, Kyra Sedgewick, Christian Bale, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Benjamin Bratt, Mos Def, and David Alan Grier are just a few among the names that will appear in this season's credits.

Elizabeth Perkins and D.B. Sweeney in Speak.

Over the course of the Festival's five-day run, films will be presented (and prizes awarded) in 10 broad categories ranging from fiction features and documentaries to shorts and experimental work.  In addition to the screenings there will be question and answer sessions with many of the presenting filmmakers and panel discussions on topics of interest.  New York Women In Film and TV 's case-history study of Debra Granik's Down To The Bone (see sidebar) is scheduled for October 17 at 11am.  The writers, the director, some of the actors, and the couple who provided the model for the characters will participate in a discussion and answer audience questions.

A panel that reflects the Festival's ongoing commitment to the role of film in society and community, called Film and the Political Equation: Why Now, will explore the recent upsurge in films with a distinct political point of view or subtext and examine this phenomenon in the context of current events.  Held on October 16 at 2:30pm, it will be moderated by NPR Film and Entertainment Commentator David D'Arcy and will feature representatives from both the artistic and the business sides of the industry.

One of the opening films is Dylan Kidd's P.S., starring Linney, Topher Grace, Lois Smith, Byrne, and Hardin.  It is the story of a mature college admissions officer's complex relationship with a young graduate student who applies to her program - and who bears an uncanny resemblance to her long-dead first love.  Linney, who has repeatedly crossed the line between independent and mainstream productions with great success, takes on the challenging central role of Louise Harrington.

Christian Bale in The Machinist.

Director Kidd compares the theme of this film with his critically acclaimed Roger Dodger: "These two films form a sort of 'cinema of arrested development.'  They involve characters with all the trappings of adult life - the wardrobe, job success - who gradually reveal themselves to be locked in place emotionally."

The other opening-day offering is The Machinist, from Brad Anderson, an intense psychological thriller starring the always-edgy Bale and Jason Leigh.  It is the story of Trevor Reznik's (Bale) journey through an insomniac nightmare of confusion, paranoia, guilt, anxiety, and terror in an attempt to discover the source of his mysterious affliction.

The closing film will be Nicole Kassell's freshman effort, The Woodsman, a controversial and challenging story about a convicted sex-offender's struggle to find reconciliation with his past and redemption for his future after his release from prison.  Kassell's script (which took first prize in the 2001 Slamdance screenplay competition) and her short-film work were impressive enough to attract Kevin Bacon to play the difficult and demanding lead role, and his real-life wife Kyra Sedgewick to play the woman who offers him shelter.  Others in the first-rate cast include Bratt, Mos Def, and Grier.

WHILE SOME OF THE OLDER and larger festivals have "gone Hollywood," the Woodstock Festival clings tenaciously to its identity as a "fiercely independent" event.  It is the determination to champion truly independent film that sets Woodstock apart - a determination based in the history of its founders, Meira Blaustein and Laurent Rejto.

Kevin Bacon in The Woodsman.

The couple share a background in independent film, having spent more than 20 years making movies.  They attended many festivals as filmmakers and observed many of the pitfalls of the process.  In addition, Blaustein worked at various times for the now-defunct Hudson Valley Film Festival and for the Film Society of Lincoln Center's New York Film Festival.  There she acquired first-hand experience in the organization and management of such events.

During their stints making films, the two have had to wear all the various hats such endeavors require: accountant, publicist, screenwriter, director, producer, transportation-coordinator, caterer, and many more.  The same kind of networking and organization that is required to put a low-budget movie together - gathering and managing a largely volunteer crew, handling a multitude of tasks simultaneously, arranging sponsorships and negotiating donations of goods and services, fundraising, scheduling, and generally doing the impossible with too few people - are all skills that can be applied to the Festival as well.

Blaustein, who takes the lead role on the Festival, says that it is this orientation - of a festival created by filmmakers, for filmmakers - that gives Woodstock its special flavor.  It is also what has given the Festival its unique ability to attract and inspire the cream of independent film and of exciting independent talent.  "It was created," she says, "out of love - out of love for the art of film and out of love for the community."

In their long and varied careers the two have made many important contacts in the film community.  Their familiarity with that world has enabled them to target Festival marketing to a wide spectrum of people with a professional and vocational involvement in the business.  Their contacts have often been able to give them an inside track to up-and-coming young filmmakers as well as interesting new projects by more established talents.  The presence of industry insiders, particularly voting members of the Academy (of whom Blaustein says a surprisingly large number live within the Festival's range), is a strong draw to independent filmmakers, who often have to struggle to get their work seen - much less to be considered for awards.

Laura Linney and Topher Grace in P.S.

Speaking of awards, another unique aspect of the Woodstock Festival has been its recognition of aspects of film that most festivals don't highlight.  In particular, thanks to the active interest of Academy Award-winning composer and local resident Elmer Bernstein, the festival developed an award for excellence in scoring.  Bernstein unfortunately passed away this past July, but Blaustein and Rejto have dedicated this year's event to his memory and are determined that the award for composition that bears his name will carry on.

FOR THE FIRST TIME THIS YEAR, the Festival will be presenting an award for excellence in editing, which will be judged by some of the leading practitioners of the little-understood art.  This rather technical facet of the cinematic process rarely attracts public attention, but most filmmakers agree that a good film can be ruined, and a mediocre one vastly improved, by what goes on in the editing room.  The Woodstock Film Festival has instituted this award in order to help educate the audience and offer some measure of public respect and recognition to these mostly unsung heroes of the industry.

The second facet of the Festival is the Woodstock Film Commission, of which Rejto is the lead organizer.  Starting with a mission to promote "sustainable economic development by attracting and supporting local film, video, and media production," the Film Commission has developed a catalog of resources, both natural and human, to meet the needs of filmmakers and others in the media.

In organizing the first festival in 2000, Rejto and Blaustein discovered a wealth of talent and interest in film in the area.  "There were all these great people," Blaustein recalls, "living out in the woods, isolated, not knowing who their neighbors were.  The Festival provided a sort of a magnet, a center for everybody to connect."

Meira Blaustein, director and co-founder of the Woodstock Film Festival.

The Commission is a clearinghouse for information on films that are currently considering the region or actually being made here, as well as a networking resource that allows film professionals to put together crews and arrange all of the many ancillary services that may be needed, from catering to locations, transportation to housing, with the cooperation of knowledgeable local assistance.

The opportunity to plug into this network is another reason why many filmmakers are eager to attend the Festival.  Film is a business that has a strong component of "who you know," and an event like the Woodstock Film Festival is an opportunity for people to make connections that can positively influence their careers.

In encouraging and supporting filmmakers seeking to produce movies in this area, the Film Commission has also provided content for the Festival.  In this year's edition, Debra Granik's film Down To The Bone is a clear demonstration of the interplay between Festival and Film Commission (see sidebar).

THE FESTIVAL WILL BEGIN THIS YEAR with a major musical event.  On Wednesday, October 13, banjo virtuoso Bela Fleck and bassist Edgar Meyer will present a concert in the Frank Gehry-designed Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson.  In addition to having a direct connection through the film described below, this concert also underlines the Festival's commitment, outlined in their Mission Statement, "to present an annual program and year-round schedule of film, music, and art-related activities that promote artists, culture, inspired learning, and diversity."

Edgar Meyer & Bela Fleck will perform at the festival.

Fleck is a seven-time Grammy Award winner who has taken the instrumental banjo in many innovative directions  and who has won distinction with his many tours and recordings with his band, the Flecktones.  Meyer is the only bassist to receive the Avery Fisher Prize, and is also a recipient of a MacArthur "genius grant."  The two have been working together for more than 20 years, and shared a Best Instrumental Arrangement" Grammy for their album Perpetual Motion - which also won a Grammy for Best Classical Crossover"

The concert will cover the "Three Bs," which Fleck and Meyer define as "Bach, banjo, and bass," but there will also be bluegrass, jazz, and baroque thrown in for texture.  It will provide a live segue into the documentary film Obstinado, shot by Fleck's brother Sascha Paladino, which will screen at the Film Festival.  The movie is an exploration of the unique collaboration between Fleck and Meyer, shot on the first leg of their current tour.  You can find more about Fleck on the internet at www.flecktones.com, and about Meyer at www.edgarmeyer.com.

Tickets for the benefit concert are available through a link from the Festival's Web site; a schedule of the shows and information on individual tickets and discount passes for all the festival events there.

www.woodstockfilmfestival.com / 845.679.4265

A Tale of Bones

One of the films featured at the 2004 Woodstock Film Festival will be Debra Granik's first feature, Down To the Bone.  Granik, who has deep ties to the area, chose to shoot the film on location in and around Ulster County.  It stars part-time New Paltz resident Vera Farmiga, and the Woodstock Film Commission - a sort of conjoined-twin of the Festival - played a supporting role in getting the film made, including finding local crew members for the production.

Down To the Bone has also been selected for a case-history study, performed by the organization New York Women In Film and TV, which will be presented as a part of a panel discussion at the Festival.  Granik plans to attend in her roles as both director and co-screenwriter, as will Susan Leber (executive producer), Farmiga, and Richard Liekse and Corinne Stralka, who appeared as themselves in Granik's award-winning precursor to this film, Snake Feed.  Liekse and Stralka provided the "life models" for the characters for the current film and Liekse is credited as co-screenwriter.

Snake Feed developed out of a class project Granik undertook at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts Graduate Film Program.  She began filming a couple she had met in Ulster County for some exercises in shooting technique and editing.  These "documentary" sequences (political documentaries were the source of Granik's original interest in film, inspired by people like Barbara Kopple) gradually began to resolve themselves into a film that was part documentary character study, but also part dramatic "story."

At NYU she was fortunate enough to be studying with the Russian filmmaker Boris Frumin, someone who, as Granik says, "loved filmmaking from a tradition of using a lot of material from life."  She acknowledges his influence on a large number of successful younger filmmakers, pointing out that "this year at Sundance, five of the films that were there were by students of Boris."  At the same time, she notes, "Not everyone got the same thing out of how he approaches things.  For me it was about the fact that many details of life hold the prime material to look at."

With feedback from Frumin, whom she describes as "a really talented provocateur," Granik went on to craft that footage - and additional sequences - into the short film Snake Feed (featuring the people in the documentary "playing" themselves), which won the prize for the best short film at the 1998 Sundance Festival.  That success led to an invitation to the Sundance Institute's Screenwriters/Filmmakers Lab, where Granik was encouraged to develop a feature script based on the same material - which then became Down To the Bone.

When she started production on the feature, the Woodstock Film Commission played a key role in facilitating Granik's work.  They helped her make contact with local crew members and helped her find and secure access to locations.  Through the festival screening they are giving the film, which was well-received at last January's Sundance Festival, highly desirable exposure.

The story of Down To the Bone's development - which will be told in much greater detail in the Panel Discussion mentioned above - is a clear demonstration of how the Woodstock Film Festival and Film Commission take a strong role in developing, supporting, and promoting the regional film community.  Not content to be a passive observer, the Woodstock Film Festival/Film Commission is contributing its own creative energy to the rise of a vital regional film scene.