‘Full-blown’ film fest ready for action
Annual event returning to normal year after COVID forced changes
WOODSTOCK, N.Y. >> The Woodstock Film Festival, which morphed into a drive-in and remote event last year because of the COVID pandemic, will return to form this year with movie house screenings, in-person workshops and panel discussions, other events and celebrity guests, the festival’s executive director said Thursday
“We are gearing up bigtime for a full-blown festival,” Meira Blaustein said. “It’s all in the works, and we are continuing to finalize.”
The festival, now in its 22nd year, is scheduled for Sept. 29 to Oct. 3 at venues in Woodstock, Kingston and Saugerties. Passes will go on sale later this month, at prices still to be announced; and the film lineup will be announced in early September.
Blaustein said the festival will feature about 50 full-length films and 70 short films, numbers that she said are in line with the totals of pre-COVID festivals.
In Woodstock, films are to be shown at the Tinker Street Cinema, Woodstock Playhouse and Bearsville
Theater. Films also will be
shown at the Orpheum Theater in Saugerties, and the festival awards ceremony (and possibly some screenings) will be held at the Ulster Performing Arts Center in Kingston, Blaustein said.
She said Upstate Films in Rhinebeck and the Rosendale Theatre in Rosendale, which have held festival screenings in the past, will not be among this year’s venues.
Last year’s festival comprised drive-in movies, online workshops and remote youth labs, among other things, and Blaustein said such things probably will be offered again before and after this year’s festival.
“COVID pushed us to be innovative and pushed us to do new things that we have not done before,” Blaustein said.
“I think everyone is anticipating it (the festival) more,” Blaustein said. “This is kind of like coming back, but then again, we never left.”