Film Festival Returning to Midway Theater Next Year

Kew Gardens Festival Of Cinema Rebranded As FESTIVAL OF CINEMA NYC,

Returns To Regal UA Midway In Forest Hills And Queens Museum

Aug. 2-11, 2019

Ranked By FilmFreeway In The Top 2% Of Film Festivals And Creative Contests Around The World, FESTIVAL OF CINEMA NYC Call for Submissions For 2019 Edition Now Open

Kew Gardens Festival of Cinema has big changes in store for its third annual event taking place August 2-11, 2019, and submissions for the festival are now open. With its new home and location at the Regal UA Midway in Forest Hills, Queens, this past 2018 festival, Kew Gardens Festival of Cinema is rebranding itself as FESTIVAL OF CINEMA NYC going forward. This rebranding will allow the festival to expand its appeal, helping attract attendees and filmmakers from around the world, to the city’s most ethnically diverse borough.

In just two years, FESTIVAL OF CINEMA NYC has been ranked as one of the ‘Top 100 Best Reviewed Festivals” on FilmFreeway. According to reviews from real FilmFreeway users, the festival ranks in the top 2% of more than 6,000 film festivals and creative contests around the world.

FESTIVAL OF CINEMA NYC is sponsored by the Queens Museum and Regal Entertainment Group —the second largest theater chain in the United States. Screenings will take place at the Regal UA Midway in Forest Hills on grand screens with state of the art sound and projection. Attendees experience each screening in the comfort of the theater's recliner seats.

At the Queens Museum in Flushing Meadows Corona Park, filmmakers and festival guests can take advantage of free programming, industry panels, workshops and additional screenings.

The support of these established organizations allows FESTIVAL OF CINEMA NYC to bring truly independent cinema to mainstream audiences, breaking the stereotypes that are often associated with lower budget independent films.

Hailed by The Wall Street Journal as an event that New Yorkers are “taking note of,” and with coverage in major media including The New York Times, The Huffington Post and Time Out New York, FESTIVAL OF CINEMA NYC aims to put independent filmmakers in the spotlight by offering opportunities like no other independent film festival.

The Festival's publicity team works to get the most news and media coverage for as many of the films as possible. In the past, the Festival's filmmakers have been spotlighted on such news media as Page Six and NY1 News on Spectrum Time Warner Cable. Further promotional opportunities available to our filmmakers include participation on the Festival Talks Daily Podcasts, Red Carpet interviews, as well as opportunities for filmmakers to participate on filmmaker panels to discuss the challenges faced in the independent film industry.

This year, the Festival will partner with a variety of local and international sponsors who will be presenting panels and workshops. Sponsors include The New York City Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment, SAG-AFTRA, Moviemaker Magazine, Variety 411, Final Draft, Simple DCP, Soundview Media Partners, Synimatica, The Acting Studio NYC, Seed & Spark, Yelp and Big City Graphics. Plus, every filmmaker that submits their film(s) will automatically receive a one-year subscription to Videomaker Magazine, a leading subscription service that focuses on guiding independent filmmakers with online tutorials and publications (a $20 value). In addition, all selected filmmakers will receive Full Access film badges that allow entry to all screenings and networking events, as well as the latest edition of Variety 411 (choice of NY or LA edition.)

FESTIVAL OF CINEMA NYC is a competitive festival that accepts films and media of all lengths, genres and subjects. Awards in over 15 categories include Best Feature and Short Narrative, Best Documentary, Best Animation, Music Video & Experimental, and Best Web Series. Audience choice for Feature and Short film are also awarded. Winners can expect to walk away with a custom statuette as well as over $15,000 in prizes being offered from sponsors.  

Organizers says FESTIVAL OF CINEMA NYC will be an amazing experience for everyone that attends - so filmmakers and guests can expect networking events that include Karaoke, Trivia night, Comedy Night, Billiards Night and After Parties taking place throughout the area, hosted by local sponsors.

In the past, the Festival has hosted panels and workshops that strongly appeal to filmmakers. Subjects including diversity, women in film, distribution and production resources, as well as workshops by industry leaders such as SAG-AFTRA and Seed & Spark have been very popular amongst filmmakers and attendees.

Past panelists and Jury Board members have included Anna Garduno, Executive Producer at Netflix; Charles E. Williams, two-time Emmy award winner at CBS; and Doug LeClaire, founder of Asbury Shorts USA.

To submit your film(s) to the 2019 FESTIVAL OF CINEMA NYC, visit FilmFreeway, Withoutabox, or http://bit.ly/2lBnNdL.

Queens Museum's New Website

The newly-renovated Queens Museum just launched its new website. Click the image below:

Queens Museum Reopening: Inauguration Ceremonies from Around the Borough and the Globe

Saturday, November 9, 11:00 am – 9:00 pm, 2013

In this first of three consecutive days celebrating the reopening of the Queens Museum,Target Wide Open Weekend (November 9-11) kicks off with the opportunity for diverse communities to tell us how they would open a building and bless our new space. How do you inaugurate a space in India, Bulgaria, Mexico, or Taiwan? In addition join us for the Opening Reception and numerous performances related to Queens International 2013, and the other inaugural season exhibitions featuring solo exhibits of artists Pedro Reyes, Peter Schumann, and Jeff Chien-Hsing Liao as well as a group show of Cuban contemporary works. You’ll also have access to the first open studios of our new Artist Studio Program, and new installations of our permanent exhibitions. See Detailed Schedule of the day below:

Rendering of the new Queens Museum facade

11 – 2 pm
QI artist Lynley Bernstein‘s “Fishing for the Elusive Snakehead” a 2.5-hour guided fishing trip in search of the infamous Snakehead fish identified by the city authority to inhabit waterways in Flushing Meadows Corona Park. Once caught, it must be submitted to the city. Gear and Bait provided, meets offsite, and ends at the Museum. For more information and to RSVP, please email: exhibitions@queensmuseum.org.

12:30-4:30pm

Video screenings of works by QI Taiwanese artists: CHANG Chien-Chi, CHEN Chieh-jen, HSU Chia-Wei, Jun YANG and YU Cheng-Ta

2 – 4 pm
Poets in the Galleries: Tan Lin
The Poets in the Galleries series utilizes the Museum’s exhibition space as an invigorating site for exploration, interactive readings and discussions. For four Saturdays in November and December 2013, a different poet will conduct a lively presentation in response to the Museum’s current biennial of Queens-based artists, Queens International 2013.

Today features poet Tan Lin. Tan Lin is the author of Lotion Bullwhip Giraffe, BlipSoak01, Ambience is a Novel with a Logo, Heath (Plagiarism/Outsource), 7 Controlled Vocabularies and Obituary 2004 and The Joy of Cooking (2010). His work has appeared in numerous journals including Conjunctions, Artforum, Cabinet, New York Times Book Review, Art in America, and Purple. His video, theatrical and LCD work have been shown at the Marianne Boesky Gallery, Yale Art Museum, Sophienholm Museum (Copenhagen), Ontological Hysterical Theatre, and as part of the Whitney Museum of American Art’s Soundcheck Series. Lin is the recipient of a Getty Distinguished Scholar Grant for 2004-2005 and a Warhol Foundation/Creative Capital Arts Writing Grant to complete a book-length study of the writings of Andy Warhol. He has taught at the University of Virginia and Cal Arts, and currently teaches creative writing at New Jersey City University.

Schedule and participating artists:
November 9: Tan Lin
November 16: Stephen Motika
December 7: Charles Bernstein with Susan Bee
December 14: Patricia Spears Jones

3-5 pm

Multicultural Welcoming & Blessing Ceremonies including: Aztec Blessing by Calpulli Cetilitzi; Andean Ceremony by Estudiantina NY; Taiwanese artist Chin Chih Yang will perform as a master calligrapher, Using a brush specifically designed for the occasion to create innovative calligraphy to render logotypes and lucky words for guests. QI artist Vlada Tomova’s New York Bulgarian Women’s Choir presentig a new pieceA!Capella!Blessing!

3 – 6 pm
Opening in the Museum’s Community Partnership Gallery: An Inclusive World, a group exhibition organized by COPE NYC, a program that examines how art transforms the lives of those with a wide array of needs and abilities.

3 – 6 pm
Queens Museum Studio Program – Open Studios

4 – 5 pm
QI artist Joseph Heathcott offers Brooklyn-Queens Borderlands, a virtual guided walking tour along the Queens-Brooklyn border in the Panorama of the City of New York. While there you are welcome to enjoy the large scale photos of our buildings in various stages of construction, New York City Building Time Lapse, 2009 – 2013: Photographs by Jeff Chien-Hsing Liao

5:30-6 pm

Performance Llego FeFa by Magdalena Maria Campos-Pons and Neil Leonardcelebrating the reopening of the Museum and the opening of Citizens of the World: Cubans in Queens in the new The Shelley and Donald Rubin Gallery.

6- 630 pm

Fuijui Wang

QI artist Fujui Wang presents Hyper Transmission, a site-specific sound performance in the Atrium capturing locally sampled electromagnetic waves rendered in a specially devised directional speaker

630 – 8 pm
QI artist Matthew Volz’s Meanwhile Back in Queens, a live concert in collaboration with the Juan Wauters with Carmelle Safdie

8- 9pm

Joro-Boro

QI artist Joro-Boro presents Smuggled Party, a participatory DJ performance mashing up collected tunes from museum visitors’ MP3 players while also in collaboration with fellowBulgarian Collective performer Vlada Tomova‘s New York Bulgarian Women’s A Capella Choir.

_______________________________________________________________

Wide Open Weekend at the Queens Museum is generously supported by Target.

Queens International 2013 is supported by the Ministry of Culture, Taipei Cultural Center of TECO in New York, Contemporary Art Foundation, La Guardia Corporation, and Target.

Additional funding provided by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

Reception sponsor Khajuraho Lite Beer.

The Queens Museum Reopens

.... and there are a ton of changes. The article in today's Times details them. It sounds really great.

A Local Place for a Global Neighborhood

On Saturday, the much-changed Queens Museum reopens, focusing on the wide world of art found in the cosmopolitan breadth of its borough’s population.

And here's the write-up from Time Out NY:

The Queens Museum reopens after major renovations 
Gone is the old World’s Fair ice-skating rink, replaced with skylit galleries, an airy atrium, event spaces, a café and artists’ studios. The new additions have doubled the institution’s size to 105,000 square feet—about two and a half times the size of Grand Central Terminal’s Main Concourse.

You can get to the museum via the 7 train and then by walking through the Park.
Flushing Meadows–Corona Park near 111th St and 49th Ave entrance, Queens (718-592-9700, queensmuseum.org). Wed–Sun noon–6pm; suggested donation $8, seniors and students $4, members and children under 5 free.

Interesting...

This sounds neat...

CHRISTINE BARANSKI, MATT DAMON, & GLORIA REUBEN JOIN THE FREE PUBLIC FORUM! The Public Theater and The Aspen Institute Arts Program PresentA Free Public Forum Event WHAT ARE WE WORTH? SHAKESPEARE, MONEY, AND MORALS Christine Baranski, Matt Damon, and Gloria Reuben join the previously announced Alan Alda,  Marsha Stephanie Blake, Raúl Esparza, Hamish Linklater, Jesse L. Martin, Lily Rabe, and Vanessa Redgrave for readings from Shakespeare's plays. Plus a town-hall discussion led by renowned political philosopher, Harvard professor, and best-selling author Michael Sandel Monday, June 17 at 8pm The Delacorte Theater Are there some things money can't buy? Do we have obligations to each other as citizens? In the spirit of free exchange epitomized by more than 50 years of The Public’s Shakespeare in the Park, join in an evening of theatre and public debate. This one-night-only Public Forum will include Shakespeare readings about money and justice as well as a lively town-hall conversation with the audience conducted by Harvard professor and best-selling author Michael Sandel about the way the language of money has been taking over our lives – the subject of his recent book, What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets. This Public Forum event is presented in partnership with the Aspen Institute Arts Program. Click here for more information on this exciting free event! TICKETS ARE FREE! Free Public Forum tickets will be distributed, two per person, at 12pm on June 17 at the Delacorte Theater and via the Virtual Ticketing drawing atwww.shakespeareinthepark.org. Reserved seats are also available by becoming a Public Forum Supporter with a tax-deductible donation of $75*. For information and to donate, call 212-967-7555.

Beautiful....

From The Times:

ARTS
At the Metropolitan Museum, a New Wing, a New Vista
Published: October 27, 2011

On Nov. 1, after eight years of renovations, the Metropolitan Museum of Art will open its new Islamic wing.