FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contacts: Brett Bossard, Cinemapolis: brett@cinemapolis.org
Patricia Zimmermann, FLEFF: patty@ithaca.edu
Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival and Cinemapolis Collaborate for Historic 25th Edition
February 25, 2022 (ITHACA, NY) – Cinemapolis, Ithaca’s member-supported independent movie theater, is once again partnering with the Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival (FLEFF) to host the 25th installment of the annual event.
Presenting a “hybrid” festival organized under the theme of ENTANGLEMENTS, this year’s FLEFF will run for three weeks—featuring a blend of virtual and in-person offerings—from March 21 to April 10.
Cinema lovers can experience the festival at home via 25 film programs on the virtual cinema platform and face-to-face at 3 special screening events at Cinemapolis. Tickets are $10 per individual screening, with discounted Five Pack passes for $35 and an all-access pass to all 28 screenings for $125. Ticketing and pass sales will go live on March 1st at FLEFF.eventive.org.
Launched for last year’s all-virtual FLEFF, the online Eventive cinema platform will host feature-length documentary and narrative films from 16 countries including Argentina, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Czech Republic, China, France, Hong Kong, Israel, Kosovo, Morocco, Niger, Rwanda, Tunisia, United Kingdom, and United States. Each week of the festival offers a new curated menu of titles available for at-home viewing.
Long known for engaging conversations and in-depth cinema analysis, this year’s FLEFF will go on-line to convene 12 interactive discussion-driven Zoom talkbacks. These free forums are open to the public each weekend of the festival and will bring together filmmakers, archivists, activists, musicians, journalists, and scholars from around the country and across the globe. Scheduled speakers include Louis Massiah, Yi Cui, Rikun Zhu, Tony Buba, Carmel Curtis, Scott MacDonald, John Scott, Deborah Hoard, Abel Sanchez, Andres Alegria, Aisha Sultan, Trish McAdam, Hai Wen, and Jinyan Zeng.
Programmatic highlights from FLEFF 2022:
- The New York State premiere of Ithaca College professor John Scott’s new feature documentary, Elizabeth Bishop and the Art of Losing (2022), featuring the filmmaker and Ithacans on the production team - IN PERSON on April 9
- A celebration of the civil rights legend Dorothy Cotton in partnership with AKA of Ithaca, and featuring a screening of There’s Your Ready Girl with film director Deborah Hoard – IN PERSON on April 2
- A five-film program of innovative environmental films probing water, coal mining and opioids, farmworkers organizing, housing, and gig workers
- A three-film retrospective of the works of legendary African American film director William Greaves (1926-2014) including Ida B. Wells: A Passion for Justice (1989), Nationtime (1972) and Symbiopsychotaxiplasm Take One (1971)
- Spotlight on dissident films from China and Hong Kong by women or dealing with sexuality
- Spotlight on afour-film programming block on contemporary French transnational cinema
- Spotlight on five documentary and narrative films from Africa
- Spotlight on three films exploring music and politics
- A collection of cutting-edge Eastern European narrative films from Bulgaria and the Czech Republic
Partners for the FLEFF screenings at Cinemapolis include the Center for the Study of Globalization and Culture at the University of Hong Kong; Scribe Video Center in Philadelphia; ArtMattan Films; UniFrance; Museo del Cine Pablo Ducros Hicken, Argentina; the Park Center for Independent Media; and Louise Archambault Greaves, as well as Ithaca College’s Latin American and Caribbean Studies Program, Health Promotion and Physical Education Department, and the MBA Program in Entertainment and Media Management.
Patricia Zimmermann serves as Director of the FLEFF. Brett Bossard, Executive Director of Cinemapolis, is an associate programmer this year. Leah Shafer is associate producer for the talkbacks. For the full festival program of over 65 events, check out www.ithaca.edu/fleff
About FLEFF
The Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival (FLEFF) at Ithaca College embraces and interrogates sustainability across all of its forms: economic, social, ecological, political, cultural, technological, and aesthetic. FLEFF was launched in 1997 as an outreach project from the Center for the Environment at Cornell University. Always dedicated to films with a message, the festival, under program director Christopher Riley, expanded to become a major regional event in upstate New York.
In 2004 Ithaca College was the major sponsor and host of the festival. In 2005 the festival moved permanently to Ithaca College, where it is housed in the Office of the Provost as a program to link intellectual inquiry and debate to larger global issues. At Ithaca College, the festival grew from a regional event into a national and international event. It also expanded beyond film to feature new media, art installations and exhibitions, music, scholars across many disciplines, archives, writers, filmmakers, artists, musicians, activists, policy analysts, and public health professionals.
About Cinemapolis
Cinemapolis is a non-profit media arts organization, encouraging central New York residents to explore the power of film to entertain, educate, and to celebrate the human experience. Attracting on average 75,000 patrons annually, it is Central New York’s premiere art house cinema, presenting a year-round program of first-run independent, international, and locally produced films alongside special programming to engage and enrich the community. Programming at Cinemapolis is made possible in part by support from the New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency, the Tompkins County Tourism Program, and the generosity of hundreds of member “Cinemapolitans.” For more information, visit Cinemapolis.org or contact Executive Director, Brett Bossard - brett@cinemapolis.org.
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