Northside Festival

Presented by Oscilloscope, curated by Filmwax. 

Written and directed by Hannah Fidell

Starring Lindsay Burdge

76min/2013/USA/English 

Part psychological thriller and part provocative character study, A TEACHER explores the unraveling of a young high school teacher, Diana (Lindsay Burdge), after she begins an affair with one of her teenage students, Eric (Will Brittain). What starts as a seemingly innocent fling becomes increasingly complex and dangerous as the beautiful and confident Diana gets fully consumed by her emotions, crossing boundaries and acting out in progressively startling ways. Lindsay Burdge delivers a deeply compelling and seamlessly naturalistic performance that brings us into the mind of an adult driven to taboo against her better judgment.

 

 

Presented by Reverse Shot (in honor of their 10th Anniversary) and Janus Films

Directed by: William Greaves

 

Starring: Patricia Ree Gilbert, Don Fellows, Jonathan Gordon, Bob Rosen, William Greaves

75 mins/1968/USA/English

In his one-of-a-kind fiction/documentary hybrid Symbiopsychotaxiplasm Take One, director William Greaves presides over a beleaguered film crew in New York’s Central Park, leaving them to try to figure out what kind of movie they’re making. A couple enacts a break-up scenario over and over, a documentary crew films a crew filming the crew, locals wander casually into the frame: the project defies easy description. Yet this wildly innovative sixties counterculture landmark remains one of the most tightly focused and insightful movies ever made about making movies. --Criterion Collection

 

Presented by IFP and NoBudge Films

Black Metal

Directed by: Kate Candler 

Starring: Jonny Mars, Heather Kafka

9min/2013/USA/English

After a career spent mining his music from the shadows, the actions of one fan create a chain reaction for the lead singer of a black metal band.

 

 

Go Down Death 

Directed by Aaron Schimberg

Starring: Doug Barron, Rayvin Disla, Lucy Kaminsky, Sammy Mena, Bryant Pappas, Simone Xi

88 minutes/2013/USA/English

Go Down Death is a wry, sinister realization of a strange new universe, a cross-episodic melange of macabre folktales supposedly penned by the fictitious writer Jonathan Mallory Sinus. An abandoned warehouse in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, stands in for a decrepit village haunted by ghosts, superstition, and disease, while threatening to buckle under rumblings of the apocalypse. Soldiers are lost and found in endless woods; a child gravedigger is menaced by a shape-shifting physician, a syphilitic john bares all to a young prostitute, and a disfigured outcast yearns for the affections of a tone-deaf cabaret singer. Highlighted by offbeat narrative construction, stunning black-and-white 16mm cinematography and immaculately detailed production design, Go Down Death is a distinctively original film informed by American Gothic, folk culture and outsider art.

 

 

Presented by BAMcinemaFest

Directed by Joe Swanberg

Starring: Jane Adams, Sophia Takal, Kent Osborne

 

79 min/2012/USA/English

Jane Adams plays a woman living in a house perched precariously on stilts above the beach in Malibu who clings to her life's ambitions in much the same way. With her age exempting her from more and more acting opportunities, her future is uncertain. That's when her young niece — a superb Sophia Takal — comes for a weekend stay. The film captures their night conversations, fears and stories that emerge in the witching hours. Swanberg has become a master at eliciting inspired performances from his actors. Here, he's working at the height of his powers and, with Adams, he's clearly tapped into an actor with creative reserves. Negotiating the language and relationships of 21st century Americans, Swanberg's alchemy is at its best. [Synopsis courtesy of Lane Kneedler and AFI Fest]

 

 

Presented by IFC Films 

Directed by Franck Khalfoun

Starring: Elijah Wood

89 min/2012/USA/English

Frank is the withdrawn owner of a mannequin store, but his life changes when young artist Anna appears asking for his help with her new exhibition. As their friendship develops and Frank’s obsession escalates, it becomes clear that she has unleashed a long-repressed compulsion to stalk and kill. A 21st century Jack the Ripper set in presentday L.A., MANIAC is a re-boot of the cult film considered by many to be the most suspenseful slasher movie ever made – an intimate, visually daring, psychologically complex and profoundly horrific trip into the downward spiralling nightmare of a killer and his victims.

 

 

Presented by The L Magazine

Directed by Ernst Josef Lauscher

Starring Christoph Waltz

102 min/1981/Austria/In German with English subtitles

Markus Dorn (Christoph Waltz) does not get along with his mother. When an argument between then escalates and she calls the police, Markus refuses to cooperate. He is sent to a mental institution, where they administer unnecessary electroshock treatment.

 

 

Presented by Filmmaker Magazine 

 

Play House

Directed by: Brandon LaGanke

Starring: Larry Petersen, Angela Pierce, John Reese, Gianna LePera and Megan Mann

10 Min/2012/USA/English 

 

The only thing keeping Harold's family bound is his unconditional love for them.

 

 

 

 

The Invader

Directed by: Nicolas Provost.

 

 

Starring: Issaka Sawadogo, Stefania Rocca,

95 min/2011/Belgium/in French and English

Amadou, a strong and charismatic African man, is washed up on a beach in southern Europe. Fate leads him to Brussels where, full of optimism, he tries to make a better life for himself.

Exploited by traffickers, his daily life is slowly drained of hope, until he meets Agnès, a beautiful and brilliant businesswoman. She is seduced by his charm and force of character, while he projects all his hope and dreams onto her. The illusion quickly shatters, and Agnès breaks all contact with Amadou, who little by little sinks into destructive violence, struggling with his inner demons.

 

 

 

Presented by IFC Films

Directed by: Michael Winterbottom

Starring: Steve Coogan

Runtime: 101min/2013/UK/English 

 

The true story of British adult magazine publisher and entrepreneur Paul Raymond. A modern day King Midas story, Raymond became one of the richest men in Britain at the cost of losing those closest to him.

 

Screening with

 

Gawking Red presented by Brooklyn Filmmakers Collective
Directed by Iva Radivojevic
5:00/2011/USA/English
This films documents an experience at the red light district in Amsterdam.
It emphasizes the divide between the polished Western European culture, aesthetic and nature and the underworld that is the red light district, occupied mostly by tourists and foreign sex workers from Eastern Europe, Africa and the Caribbean. The film draws up the relationship between the spectators and the women of red.