New Ohio Theatre's NYC INDIE THEATRE FILM FESTIVAL Announces In-Person Screening Schedule

New Ohio Theatre's NYC Indie Theatre Film Festival (NYCITFF), now in its 7th year, has announced the in-person screening schedule for their 2023 film festival. This year's festival will be a hybrid of in-person and online film screenings and will present work from independent theatre artists that are defying labels and branching out into digital media and film.

NYCITFF runs in person at New Ohio Theatre from February 16 -19, followed by an encore online presentation from February 20 - 26. Feature-length films, short films, filmmaker Q&As, and panels with industry professionals will be presented.

Six new feature films will be showcased including THE GODDAMN TOONEY LUNES, LEON'S FANTASY CUT, MENDACITY, MIDDAY BLACK MIDNIGHT BLUE, A POEM AND A MISTAKE, and UNPACKING. In addition, 35 short films (two thirds directed by women and non-binary creators) will be presented across four programs. All films will be available both in person and online.

In addition to film offerings, NYCITFF will also present two interactive workshops, including one that focuses on virtual reality, led by improviser and XR (expanded reality) artist Kevin Laibson. The workshop will focus on technologies, platforms, and distribution models in XR. Actor and creator Jocelyn Kuritsky, along with her collaborators, will also lead an interactive workshop with their company, Staging Film. The workshop explores new ways to tell theater stories with film, particularly within the New York, avant-garde scene. The company has worked with many theatre luminaries including Tony nominees Leigh Silverman and Heidi Rodewald.

All-access passes are $50, which provide access to both in-person and online programming, and both in-person only and online-only passes are $35 each. Individual screening tickets are $14. Tickets to workshops are $20. Passes and individual tickets are now on sale at https://nycitff2023.eventive.org.

The NYCITFF is a production of New Ohio Theatre, an award-winning non-profit theatre company in Manhattan's West Village. All in-person screenings take place at the New Ohio (154 Christopher Street, New York, NY 10014).

IN PERSON FESTIVAL LINEUP 2023

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 16 - OPENING NIGHT

FESTIVAL OPENING NIGHT RECEPTION at 6pm

MIDDAY BLACK MIDNIGHT BLUE at 8pm (feature film) - New York Premiere

Writers/Directors: Samantha Soule, Daniel Talbott

Featuring Will Pullen, Samantha Soule, Chris Stack, Merritt Wever (Primetime Emmy Award winner Nurse Jackie & Godless)

Isolated in an empty house on the Pacific Northwest coast, Ian remains mired in grief and shame over the loss of Liv, a woman he loved dearly, who died some years prior. Ian's reality becomes increasingly haunted by visions and fantasies, and the only person who identifies the extent of his spiral is Liv's surviving sister, Beth. With the memory of Liv clamoring to be released, and his daily existence turning ever darker, Ian will have to find a way to let her go, even if it kills him.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17

WORKSHOP: INFINITE SPACE - MAKING THEATER IN VIRTUAL REALITY at 2pm

Virtual and augmented reality (AR) are creating new opportunities for artists and creatives every day. In a VR project, it's not a camera in the middle of a scene; it's an audience member. Which makes mixed reality (XR) entertainment much more like theater than film. In this workshop, theatermaker and XR artist Kevin Laibson (kevinasarobot) will walk you through the technologies, platforms, and distribution models in XR. They'll share best practices for making theater with nearly unlimited potential audience reach and production capabilities. After all, a virtual space is just like a black box theater, but without the limitations of physics.

MENDACITY at 4pm (feature film)

Director: Reid Farrington | Writer: Sara Farrington
Featuring Kevin R. Free, Rafael Jordan, Jennifer McClinton, Laura K. Nicoll, Adam Patterson

MENDACITY is a darkly comic imagining of the three months between Nov 3rd, 2020 and Jan 20th, 2021 told through a transformed version of Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and with the added element of new media & video projection.

SHORT FILM PROGRAM: NONTRADITIONAL STORYTELLING at 6pm

Short films from music to dance to spoken word, dive into these unique films.

ART IN SESSION 6

Directors: Soomi Kim, Gein Wong

THE DANCE AFTER THE LAST DANCE

Director/Writer: Candice Holdorf

THE GIRL WHO GOT FROZEN - New York Premiere

Director: Joseph Gallo | Writer: Rossella Lopez

I DIGRESS: THE INTIMATE INSIGHTS OF A CHILDHOOD WEIRDO - New York Premiere

Director: April Sweeney | Writer: Sauda Aziza Jackson

IN BETWEEN - US Premiere

Director/Writer: Anabella Lenzu

K2 TOG

Director: Ari Veach | Writers: Siena D'Addario, Cooper Gordon

LIBERTY SPEAKS - World Premiere

Director: Lucia Bellini | Writer: Gabrielle Fox

MY BODY IS MY TEMPLE - World Premiere

Director: Elizabeth Piccoli | Writers: Julian Blackmore, Daniel F. Levin

PAPER PLAIN - New York Premiere

Directors/Writers: William Myers, Rana San

RETRIBUTION'S CHILD

Director/Writer: Cary Patrick Martin

LEON'S FANTASY CUT at 8pm (feature film)

Writers/Directors: Josh Caras, Jonathan Valde

Featuring Josh Caras, Paul Cooper, Ella Rae Peck, Jonathan Valde

Two first generation Ukrainian-American brothers George and Iggy know they are destined for great things. George is a wannabe business scion festering in a cell phone store. Iggy is a small-time pot dealer and an aspiring Rap mogul. They are stuck together in a suffocating studio apartment in South Brooklyn and are constantly at each other's throats. They know that their situation has to be temporary-- after all this is America. But both of them learn that their dreams are elusive and that unrealized ones can make a person lose their mind.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 18

SHORT FILM PROGRAM: DATING DRAMA at 12pm

Relationships aren't always perfect, but they are always interesting.

EXCAPE - World Premiere

Director: Molly Rose Heller | Writer: Taylor Steele

FULL DISCLOSURE

Director/Writer: Mia Rovegno

INTIMACY WORKSHOP

Director/Writer: Eddie Prunoske

JULES & DEE - New York Premiere

Director/Writer: Juliet Perrell

MADE IN HEAVEN

Director/Writer: Yiqing Zhao

ME, MYSELF, VS. I - World Premiere

Director/Writer: Uzunma Udeh

RED

Director: Katia Koziara | Writer: Phoebe Dunn

YOU CAN KISS ME

Director/Writer: Jan Jalenak

PANEL/WORKSHOP: STAGING FILM - TRICKS OF THE TRADE, MERGING STAGE AND FILM at 2pm

Staging Film - an experimental initiative that explores invigorating, new ways to tell theater stories with film - will conduct an interactive panel discussion and workshop, offering unique insight about producing this cross-medium work, particularly within the New York, avant-garde scene. For the workshop, there will be a special focus on 'liveness.' Staging Film (The Bad Infinity, NYCITFF 2021) will also present screenings of some of their short films, showcasing a range of experimental aesthetic ventures. The initiative has collaborated with some of the most impactful theater artists of the last several decades, including Obie winners Caridad Svich and Mac Wellman, Tony nominees Leigh Silverman and Heidi Rodewald, Lilly Award winner Chisa Hutchinson, among many more.

HAPPY HOUR 4pm to 6pm

Take some time to unwind and relax between all the screenings at the 2023 NYC Indie Theatre Film Festival, and join festival filmmakers for happy hour. Available to passholders!

SHORT FILM PROGRAM: EVERYTHING CHANGES at 6pm

Nothing stays the same - and everyone is affected.

THE BIG PIVOT

Director/Writer: Chris Harcum

GREAT LISTENER

Director: Tristan Nash | Writer: Rachel Lin

METALERO - World Premiere

Director: Daniella Caggiano | Writer: Karsten Otto

NONE OF THE ABOVE

Director: Ana Moioli | Writers: Deniz Bulat, Luísa Galatti, Ana Moioli, Maria Luiza Müller, Giorgia Valenti

THIS IS HARRIET

Director: Robin Weigert | Writer: Nastaran Ahmadi

WAITING PERIOD - New York Premiere

Director: Taylor Lee Nagel | Writers: Julia Greer, Julia Weinberg

WENDY

Director: Maren Lavelle | Writer: Matt Steiner

WOMEN AND ELEPHANTS

Director: Barbara Stepansky | Writer: Marlowe Holden

UNPACKING at 8pm (feature film) - New York Premiere

Directors: Alexandra Clayton, Michal Sinnott | Writers: Alexandra Clayton, Joseph Schollaert, Michal Sinnott

Featuring Dania Arancha, Sam Bianchini, Katie Braden, Alexandra Clayton, Gandhi Fernando, Jessica Rotondi, Michal Sinnott, Stephanie Ann Whited, Natalie Mitchell

Six women, sold on the promise of radical transformation, travel to Bali into the hands of an Instagram guru and her Indonesian assistant--and get slapped with reality: change is messy AF (!).

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 19

A POEM AND A MISTAKE at 12pm (feature film) - North American Premiere

Director: Tamilla Woodard | Writer: Cheri Magid
Featuring Sarah Baskin

A POEM AND A MISTAKE follows the story of Myrrha, a grad student in the classics, who is grappling with how to handle the 50 sexual assaults in Ovid's Metamorphoses. When one of her professors refers to the poem as, 'being about love'. Myrrha becomes so distraught that she inadvertently pushes him, and suddenly, like the characters in Metamorphoses itself, the professor is transformed into a young woman who looks exactly like Myrrha.

SHORT FILM PROGRAM: FRIENDSHIP BONDS at 2pm

There are all kinds of friendships - watch our characters' relationships be tested in extreme circumstances.

ANDY & KALIOPE

Directors: Crystal Arnette, Catriona Rubenis-Stevens | Writer: Rachel Handler

THE BOTTOM

Directors: James Kautz, Morgan Ruaidhrí O'Sullivan | Writer: James Kautz

EYEBALLS - World Premiere

Director: Robert Thaxton-Stevenson | Writer: Molly Powers Gallagher

LINDSAY LINDSEY LYNDSEY

Director: Claire Mathiot | Writer: Billy McEntee

THE ONE THEY WANTED

Director: Catriona Rubenis-Stevens | Writer: Byran Harlow

SCENE STUDY - New York Premiere

Director/Writer: Trace Pope

SAKRE FIS (SACRIFICE)

Director: Bandar Albuliwi | Writer: Nily Refal

TWO WOMEN ON A BRIDGE - New York Premiere

Director/Writer: Tom Bean

WE (DON'T) KNOW HOW TO LIVE - US Premiere

Director: Perrie Voss | Writers: Jayne McLendon, Khadijah Roberts-Abdullah, Perrie Voss, Hilary Wirachowsky

THE GODDAMN TOONEY LUNES at 4pm (feature film)

Director: Carsen Joenk | Writer: Molly Bicks
Featuring Breezy Diabo, Violet Falkowski, Jordin Palmer, Bonnie Jean Tyer

A group of geeky teens in backwoods New Hampshire start a punk band as a way to make sense of their high school angst, raging hormones, and raucous personalities. When they accidentally attract a cult following and become local town legends, they struggle to balance their wayward persona with the looming pressures of adulthood.

ABOUT THE NYC INDIE THEATRE FILM FESTIVAL

Led by Co-Producers/Co-Programmers Allyson Morgan and Marc Weitz, The NYC Indie Theatre Film Festival presents work from New York City independent theatre artists and artists across the country that are defying labels and branching out into digital media and film. For our 7th year, we're taking the festival both in person and online, continuing to include indie theatre artists from across the United States! We're excited to take advantage of the internet's wide reach to meet a new, national community of fellow theatre artists, and showcase new perspectives and voices from across the country. North & South. Coast to coast. NYCITFF is both local and national.

New Ohio Theatre is a two-time OBIE Obie Award-winning theatre under the leadership of Robert Lyons, Artistic Director, and Jaclyn Biskup, Creative Producer. The New Ohio serves New York's most adventurous theatre audiences by developing and presenting bold new work from downtown's diverse independent theatre community. They believe the best of this community, the small artist-driven ensembles and the daring producing companies who operate without a permanent theatrical home, are actively expanding the boundaries of what theatre is, how it's made, and who makes it. From their home in the West Village's historic Archive Building, the New Ohio provides a high-profile platform for downtown's most mature, ridiculous, engaged, irreverent, gut-wrenching, frivolous, sophisticated, foolish, and profound theatrical endeavors. For info visit www.newohiotheatre.org

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