Film Events
Brooklyn International Film Festival May 30-June 8 Brooklyn Lyceum, Brooklyn Heights Cinema, Brooklyn Central Library, Lumenhouse, East Coast Aliens (Greenpoint), and Studio B. [www.wbff.org/events/2008/festival.asp](http://www.wbff.org/events/2008/festival.asp)
Brooklyn celebrates independent filmmakers, beginning with the U.S. premiere of director Paul Kriks Able Danger, a feature about 9/11 conspiracy theorists (Krik will be fielding questions after the screening.) The festival also boasts the East Coast premiere of Austin Chicks August, and the New York premieres of Tao Ruspolis The Fix and David Modiglianis Crawford. The festival showcases documentaries, features, shorts, animation from the far-flung reaches of Italy, England, Spain, Australia, France, Brazil, Mexico, Estonia, Poland, Canada and beyond.
HBO Bryant Park Film Festival Mondays, June 16-Aug. 18 Bryant Park, 42nd & Fifth Ave. [www.bryantpark.org/calendar/film-festival.php ](http://www.bryantpark.org/calendar/film-festival.php )
This annual film festival brings joy to the hearts of Midtown office workers every Monday through the summer months. The lawn opens at 5 p.m.; eager suits can be found loitering with their blankets and picnic baskets from 4:30 onwards, even though the movies dont start until dusk (anywhere between 8-9 p.m.). Spots used to be easy to come by; these days, the experience is more like trying to squeeze into the F train during rush hour after a torrential downpour and bomb scare. Bring your own booze: Although its easy to feel like a bourgeois pig chugging red wine while some oblivious cop ejected a tramp from the corner for sipping his brown-paper-covered Colt 45.
This year, the festival begins with the first Bond girl, Ursula Andress, rising from the ocean in a slinky bikini to cavort with the infamous British spy in Dr. No and ends with Superman saving the planet. Along the way, The Apartment sees Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine take on that favorite topic of New Yorkers conversations, Paul Newman does his smoldering cowboy turn in Hud and Cary Grant vies for screen time amid the corpses in Arsenic and Old Lace. Dont miss Robert Redford in The Candidate on August 11, a how-to-guide on the making of a political candidate.
Human Rights Watch International Film Festival June 13-26 Walter Reade Theater. West 65th St., (betw. Broadway and Amsterdam Ave.), 212-875-5600 [www.hrw.org/iff](http://www.hrw.org/iff)
Feel indignation at the injustices of the world by visiting the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival this summer, which includes 32 films from 20 countries and also features 20 films by female directors. Frown as Pinochets coup sends Chileans into oblivion in A Promise to the Dead: The Exile Journey of Ariel Dorfman; wince during To See if Im Smiling as Israeli women describe their time in their nations compulsory military service; and throw your hands up in despair as Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya is murdered by (allegedly) a government assassin, documented and recalled in Letter to Anna.
MOMA: Celebrating Summer June 1–26 The Roy and Niuta Titus Theater, MOMA. 11 West 53 St., 212-708-9400 [www.moma.org](http://www.moma.org)
Think of summer moviesbig blockbusters, too much popcorn and tales of American teen vacations in Europeand trust MOMA to expose its dark underbelly. The museum celebrates the rising temperatures of New York with My Hustler, Andy Warhols bright and breezy tale of what happens when rich folk take a male prostitute along on a day trip to the sands of Fire Island; Spielbergs Jaws (the sunshine of Amity Island, ruined by the sudden rending of limbs from bodies); and Otto Premingers Bonjour Tristesse, a tale of incest-by-the-sea featuring the lovely Jean Seberg, in the sunny days before the barbiturates claimed her.
Movies with a View: Brooklyn Bridge Summer Film Series July 10, 6 pm-11 pm Lawn, Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park section of Brooklyn Bridge Park [www.brooklynbridgepark.org ](http://www.brooklynbridgepark.org )
This is the ninth year of films under the bridge; the movies themselves havent been announced at press time (last years lineup included The Muppets Take Manhattan and West Side Story), but each will be preceded by a short and followed by music from the DJs of Brooklyn Radio. Sit back, enjoy the view of Manhattan, watch the water taxis going back and forth; and from mid-July onward, if all goes to plan, youll be able to gaze out at Olafur Eliassons waterfall installation under the Brooklyn Bridge.
Nakadai at Film Forum June 20-August 7, 2008 Film Forum, 209 W Houston St [www.filmforum.org](http://www.filmforum.org)
Japanese film legend Tatsuya Nakadai visits NYC as the Film Forum pays homage to his screen career, which began way back in the 1950s. His movies included a long-term collaboration with director Masaki Konayashi, producing such notable films as The Human Condition triology, Harakiri and Kwaidan. Expect flashy swordplay, a smidgeon of assassination and lots of ritual suicide by disemboweling. Messy.
New York Asian Film Festival June 20-July 6, 2008 IFC Center & Japan Society [ www.subwaycinema.com](http://www.subwaycinema.com)
The big film of this festival will undoubtedly be the latest Death Note movie, L: Change the World. Directed by Hideo Nakata (The Ring), L focuses on a teen as he does battle with a cult of terrorists threatening to destroy the world with their nasty flesh-destroying virus. While most of the movies hail from Japan, this festival also features flicks from China, Indonesia, Korea, Hong Kong and Thailand. Look out for Quentin Tarantinos cameo appearance in Takashi Miikes Sukiyaki Western Django, and enjoy Masaya Kakeis gory horror fest, Accuracy of Death.
New York International Latino Film Festival July 22-27 Venues: Directors Guild of America Theater, The Florence Gould Hall Tinker Auditorium, The Imaginasian Theater, JCC in Manhattan, and Riverbank State Park. [ www.nylatinofilm.com](http://www.nylatinofilm.com)
The imaginatively titled 638 Ways to Kill Castro (one of them mustve worked) is just one of the roughly 90 films that will be shown as part of the ninth celebration of emerging Latino directorial talent in the United States and Latin America.
One Night French Film Festival May 30, 8 p.m. East Village, Avenue B & 6th Street
A brand-new festival, this cinema sur lherbe takes place at the Community Garden on Avenue B in the village. It opens with Samia, a film about a 15-year-old Algerian girl living with her Muslim family in Marseille, France (with a nod to Persepolis, perhaps.) The screening will be followed by a discussion and drinks. Those French sure know how to organize a good one-night stand.
Open Roads, New Italian Cinema June 6-12 Walter Reade Theater, Lincoln Center [ www.filmlinc.com](http://www.filmlinc.com)
The country that gave us Bernardo Bertolucci and Sophia Loren celebrates the best and latest in Italian cinema at Walter Reade this summer. Now in its eighth season, Open Roads showcases new and upcoming movies and their auteurs, along with a special 25-year anniversary screening of Franco Piavolis Blue Planet. The festival also features a screening of Biùtiful Cauntri, a documentary that explores the problem of waste disposal in Naples, which resulted in piles of stinking garbage around the city that disgruntled residents so much that they began to set fire to them in protest. And you thought New York smelled bad.
River Flicks: Movies at Hudson River Park July 9-Aug. 20 Pier 54 at 14th St.
The theme this year is music: Get warmed up with La Bamba, then croon along with Cat Stevens during Almost Famous, see the little tiny Prince in Purple Rain, watch Travolta strut in Saturday Night Fever and sway with Beyoncé and that chick from American Idol. There are movies billed for kids too, but if you feel like braving the hordes of toddlers and screaming infants, youll be rewarded with the likes of E.T. and The Goonies.
Rooftop Films May 31-September 27 Various venues [ www.rooftopfilms.com ](http://www.rooftopfilms.com )
A plethora of underground movies comes out of the basement and returns to the rooftops and parks of New York this summer. The festival kicks off in Fort Greene Park with the cheerily titled At the Death House Door, a documentary about Texan penitentiary executions. Its directors, Frederick Marx and Steve James, received an Oscar nomination for their last collaboration, Hoop Dreams, back in 1994. Cineastes and picnickers can also enjoy sitting out on the roof of the Old American Can Factory in Gowanus, the lawn at Automotive High in Williamsburg, the rooftop at El Museo Del Barrio in East Harlem, the Open Road Rooftop on the Lower East Side and the East River Pier at 23rd Street.