2nd Annual chashama Film Festival Announces $2 Student Tickets and The Final Cut Lounge

The second annual chashama Film Festival is pleased to announce special student discount tickets are available for the festival. Student tickets are $2.00 with student I.D. Student tickets can be purchased at the chashama Theater Space, 217 East 42nd Street and the newly opened Final Cut Lounge, located at 679 Third Avenue at 43rd Street. $2.00 student tickets are good for a two hour screening block.

The Final Cut Lounge is a wi-fi ready lounge that serves $1.00 food and drink. The lounge includes an art gallery and will feature live entertainment through the duration of the festival. The Final Cut Lounge is an ideal venue for filmmakers, screening audiences, and students to network, relax, or enjoy the art gallery environment. The Final Cut Lounge hours are 9:30 am to 11:30 pm.

Funded and curated by film director/producer Rick Kariolic, The Festival of the Worlds, explores global expression through film making, while setting the stage for audiences and filmmakers to cultivate the unknown in various cultures. The chashama Film Festival has become a platform for a spectrum of cultural, political, and philisophical ideologies, presented in an environment designed to foster creative and intellectual expansion. The 2008 chashama Film Festival spanned three days and screened fifty-four films from all over the world. This year cFF will screen 80 movies from over 30 countires spanning all seven continents.

Screenings are to take place at The Black Box Theater at 217 East 42nd Street, between Second and Third Avenues. Highlights include Marathon Beirut, a celebration of the resilience and dedication of the 2007 Beirut Marathon amidst the country's political upheaval after the war in the summer of 2006 and the assassination of government minister Pierre Gemayal; Pause Replay, a love story between a camera and a camcorder that investigates issues of watching, memory, love and death and Ein weites Feld (Expansive Grounds), a documentary by a daughter of a Nazi Party member that contemplates German perspectives of the Holocaust amidst the construction of a Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin.A comedic tale, One Hit Wonder examines a man in his early 30's who pursues his dreams of becoming a rock star after losing his job as a stockbroker; and Dirty Step Upstage, following independent filmmaker Amber Moelter as she shoots a documentary about an up-and-coming singer at the Midem Music Market in the south of France and gets more than she bargained for.

The chashama Film Festival will take place from October 22, 2009 to October 26, 2009 at the flagship chashama Theater Space, located at 217 East 42nd Street, and other theatres to be announced. For complete screening schedule and to purchase festival passses and tickets, please go to: www.chafilmfest.com.

Press Reservations or interview inquiries with Rick Kariolic: Please call Michael Martinez, 212-712-7362

Location: chashama Theater Space
217 East 42nd Street
between 2nd & 3rd Ave.

Subway: 4, 5, 6, 7, and shuttle trains to Grand Central