Known for his action-packed films and morally gray characters, Walton Goggins is a dynamic actor who’s supporting roles have earned him Emmy nominations in “Fallout” and “Justified.” With his new movie, The Uninvited, Goggins takes a break from playing compelling anti-heroes as the lead in Nadia Conner’s dramedy. Goggins, who moved to Columbia County during the pandemic, is this year’s honoree at FilmColumbia.
At the 24th FilmColumbia, running from October 18-27, over 50 pre-released films will be shown at Chatham’s Crandell Theatre.
The programming has a wide range of insightful international films as well as domestic. All We Imagine As Light is an Indian film directed by Payal Kapadia about two hospital nurses in Mumbai navigating their love life, one who has a distant husband and the other in a taboo interfaith relationship. A Palestinian film, No Other Land, directed by Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham, and Rachel Szor, documents the Israeli Defense Force’s destruction of homes in Masafer Yatta between 2019 and 2023.
FilmCloumbia features the work of local filmmakers with three shorts on October 24. The Herd, a reflective documentary, directed by Michel Negroponte, pictures shaggy belted galloway cattle in the Catskills. The 60 minutes of cattle grazing and interacting with one another allows the audience to meditate on their similarities with our fellow animals. The Art of Metaphor, directed by Kate Taverna, tells the story of artist Donna Dennis who creates under-scaled houses to honor lost friends while facing the threat of eviction. An Arrested Moment, directed by Dev Benegal, is a Met Museum movie based on the “Ink and Ivory” exhibit currently on display. The film explores filmmaker James Ivory, and his passion for Indian art.
Calliope Nicholas, director of FilmColumbia, says the passion of the audience makes it all worth it. “Watching people talking about the films after the screening, the excitement that’s on the streets around the film festival—that makes for satisfying work,” she says. This year, FilmColumbia is introducing an audience award so participants can vote on their favorite film.
The audience will also get the opportunity to work with actor Scott Cohen and screenwriter Anastasia Traina during a screenwriting workshop on October 26 at the Tracy Memorial. “[Workshop attendees] end up leaving feeling inspired, more focused as far as the direction they need to go. I think filmmakers come in really enjoying seeing what others are doing,” Nicholas said. Anyone can bring a 5 to10 page scene and get creative critiques on their work.
Nicholas says that it’s the people in the Hudson Valley that make it a perfect space for a festival like FilmColumbia. “I think a lot of the towns have a really wonderful sense of community evolving around the arts and to me, that’s what kind of makes it different from other areas,” she says.
Each year, festival-goers come from New York City, Boston, Park City, Utah, and all over the country. People have gathered at the Crandell since the festival launched in 1999. Since then, 106 of the films shown have received Academy Award nominations and FilmColumbia has earned its reputation as an internationally recognised festival.
“Seeing these films up on the big screen really enhances them and creates an aspect to it that you can’t get off the television. I think people have been realizing and appreciating that,” Nicholas says.
Not-To-Miss Films at Film Columbia 2024
The Room Next Door
Starring Tilda Swinton and Jullianne Moore, this is Pedro Almodóvar’s first English language film and won the Golden Lion award at the Venice Film Festival. The Room Next Door follows two women, Ingrid and Martha, who reconnect in “Upstate New York” when Martha undergoes cancer treatment. (Primary filming took place in Madrid.) It’s a reflective story about the ethics of death and friendship. As the director gets older, Almodóvar’s films have explored more topics of mortality and the ethics of death.
Flow
Although Flow is a Latvian film, it transcends language barriers. Flow, or Straume in Latvian, is a non-speaking, animated film directed by young filmmaker Gints Zilbalodis. A cat escapes a great flood when he finds a boat with other animal friends aboard. The cat, a capybara, a lemur, a bird, and a dog embark on a journey through their new water-filled world.
The Uninvited
This dramedy premiered at South by Southwest. The Uninvited is directed by Nadia Conners and stars her husband and FilmColumbia’s honoree, Walton Goggins, alongside Pedro Pascal, Lois Smith, Elizabeth Reaser, and Rufus Sewell. The film takes place in the Hollywood Hills and follows a husband and wife who have an unexpected guest in their home. The Uninvited is inspired by a real encounter that Goggins and Conners had in their house when an elderly woman showed up thinking it was her own home. The showing on October 19 will be followed by a Q&A with Conners.
Blitz
Steve McQueen’s latest film is set in World War ll London. Rita (Saoirse Ronan), searches for her missing son amidst the violence of the German bombing. With Blitz, McQueen wanted to encapsulate the spirit of Londoners and shed a light on what happened to working class families during the war. Blitz opened the London Film Festival and closed the New York Film Festival.
Endurance
On October 24, the Crandell will show the premier of this Nat Geo documentary. The film tells the story of Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton who kept his crew alive for a year after their ship, the Endurance, was crushed by an ice pack in 1915. A modern day crew sets out to find the shipwreck to learn more about Shackleton’s survival story. The documentary portrays the two expeditions parallel to each other, showing the difference that a century has on marine voyages. The 2022 expedition led by Dr. John Shears is the second attempt to find the ship and the stakes are high. Endurance uses restored and colorized original footage from 1915. After the showing Bob Eisenhardt, local editor and co-producer of the film, will do a Q&A.
This article appears in October 2024.
