The Lower East Side Film Festival returns to New York April 30-May 4 at the Village East Cinema to champion independent movies in Manhattan.
IndieWire exclusively announces the lineup and star-packed jury for this year’s edition. The festival will open with Sundance favorite “Run Amok,” from writer/director NB Mager and starring Alyssa Marvin, Patrick Wilson, Margaret Cho, Elizabeth Marvel, and Molly Ringwald. The film centers on a teenage girl who stages a musical to confront the aftermath of a school tragedy.
The festival will close with another Sundance pick, David Shadrack Smith’s documentary “Public Access,” about New York’s public access TV boom in the 1970s and ’80s.
A highlight of this year’s festival will be a 25th-anniversary screening of Terry Zwigoff’s cult favorite “Ghost World,” starring Thora Birch and Scarlett Johansson as disaffected teens on their way out of high school, adapted from Daniel Clowes’ graphic novel. Select cast members will be in attendance for a Q&A.
Back for its second year, the Lower East Side Film Festival’s Stay Indie Project development lab adds a Stay Indie spotlight screening with the New York City premiere of “The Ark.” The film takes us inside eastern Ukraine at the start of Russia’s 2022 invasion, where a family’s quiet rural life is upended overnight.
“Movies are meant to be experienced together, in a room full of strangers, where something unexpected can happen,” said Festival Director Roxy Hunt. “As the media landscape continues to evolve, LESFF remains proudly independent, creating a home for bold voices, creative risks, and filmmakers who are pushing the boundaries of what storytelling can be.”
The feature lineup also includes the world premiere of the surreal dark comedy “Homunculus,” from Owen Kibby; “Occupy Cannes,” Lily Hayes Kaufman’s documentary about the battle for independent art at the Cannes Film Festival; Mtume Gant’s “The Hand That Feeds”; Lucy Sandler and Mechi Lakatos’s “Danny Is My Boyfriend”; Jessica Barr’s “The Plan”; and Ethan Fuirst’s “Can’t Get Over It.”
The film jury features a compelling lineup of talent from both sides of the camera: actor Mamoudou Athie; actor Lucas Hedges; actor/filmmaker Avan Jogia; “The Alabama Solution” co-director Charlotte Kaufman; actor Arian Moayed; actor/writer/director Mary Neely; Francesca Scorsese; producer Christine Vachon; director Whitney White; and actor Constance Zimmer.
Additionally, more than 30 short films will premiere at the festival. Passes to Lower East Side Film Festival are now on sale, with tickets available starting April 15.
