It’s the 20th year of one of Upstate NY’s most popular and successful film festivals. FilmColumbia kicks off this weekend in Chatham, NY with a special tribute to James Schamus, the former CEO of Focus Features. Schamus has been nominated for three Academy Awards, one for “Brokeback Mountain” and the other two for “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”.
FilmColumbia is screening several highly-anticipated awards season contenders this year, including “Waves”, starring Sterling K. Brown (“This is Us”) and Kelvin Harrison, Jr. (“Luce”). There’s also “Marriage Story” with Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver, “Frankie” with Isabelle Huppert and Greg Kinnear and “Clemency” starring an incredible Alfre Woodard. “Parasite” is also part of the lineup, joining Terrence Malick’s three-hour drama “A Hidden Life”.
As always, FilmColumbia holds a “Saturday Night Sneak”: you don’t know what the film is until the curtain opens. That’s on October 26th. And to wrap things up on Sunday the 27th is “The Current War”. Two years ago, FilmColumbia was set to show the film, starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Michael Shannon, but they had to pull it at the last minute.
In 2017, “Current” was a Weinstein Company release. And just a few days before showtime, the Harvey Weinstein meltdown began. So the studio was no longer going to release “Current” or have it be shown anywhere. FilmColumbia was quickly able to secure NEON’s “I, Tonya” as a replacement – and it ended-up being a fantastic choice.
I’ve seen 20 films to date at FilmColumbia, including Oscar winners “Silver Linings Playbook”, “Dallas Buyers Club”, “The Imitation Game”, “Spotlight”, “Call Me by Your Name”, “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” and “Green Book” weeks before their official release dates. I congratulate the team on 20 years and look forward to another terrific festival!
To buy tickets to any of the movies at FilmColumbia 2019, click here.