Grab a good seat and a bag of popcorn – a brand new film festival is coming to Kew Gardens this summer.
From Friday, Aug. 4 to Sunday, Aug. 13, the Kew Gardens Festival of Cinema will present over 150 remarkable films from 24 countries at Kew Gardens Cinemas, Maple Grove Cemetery and the Queens Museum.
“After more than a year of planning, Kew Gardens Festival of Cinema is finally here!” said Founder and Executive Director Jayson Simba. “We hope our festival will help this historic hamlet of Queens continue to thrive and prosper both economically and culturally, and plan to keep this tradition going every year hereafter.”
The festival will kick off on Friday, Aug. 4 with at Austin’s Ale House’s Trackside Cafe by the Long Island Rail Road Kew Gardens station at 8 p.m. The event will include free beer tastings from some of the top breweries in Queens and a plaque dedication to the late Rodney Dangerfield, who grew up in Kew Gardens. This event is free and open to the public, but all guests must RSVP by Aug. 3.
Throughout the 10-day festival, films will be competing for awards in the following categories: Narrative Feature, Documentary Feature, Narrative Short, Documentary Short, Animation & Experimental Film. Winners for each category will be chosen by the festival’s specially selected jury and will receive a personally engraved unique statuette at the Grand Awards Gala on the final night of the Festival, Sunday, Aug. 13, at Terrace on the Park.
Among the films being screened during the festival include the World Premiere of Zachary Raines’ comedy “Accidents,” Francesco Calogero’s “Second Spring,” Heather Fink’s “Inside You” and more. The documentary features will include Susanne Helmer’s “Melanie,” Eve Lamont’s “Neighborhood Utopia,” Todd Nilssen’s “The Last Stop,” Sean Kernan’s “Crow Stories” and Jessie Auritt’s “Supergirl.”
The festival also presents a number of Queens-made films including the World Premiere of Forest Hills filmmaker Louie Cortes’ “Good Day,” Kew Gardens Hills resident Jermaine Manigault’s narrative short “Language is Dead,” and the feature “Nowhere, Michigan” by Robert Vornkahl of Woodhaven.
To see a full lineup for this year’s festival, visit www.kewgardensfestivalofcinema.com.
Tickets for film screenings and events are now available at www.kewgardensfestivalofcinema.com/shop. For the screenings at Kew Gardens Cinemas, tickets may also be purchased at the box office starting Aug. 4.
