When Woodstock Film Festival founder/director Meira Blaustein stepped onstage on opening night of this year’s extravaganza to introduce the world premiere of Nicol Paone’s dark comedy The Kill Room at the Woodstock Playhouse, she noted that this was WFF’s 24th year and promised that next year’s 25th anniversary would be “really special.” Many in the audience must’ve been taken aback by the premise that something really special wasn’t already happening. For this movie buff, 2023 proved to be the year that WFF truly felt like it was back up to speed for the first time since the COVID pandemic forced a hybrid of streaming and drive-in theater screenings in 2020.
Tops on this reviewer’s list of great moments for WFF 2023 was not a movie, but a panel discussion: “The Picket Line: A Road to Pay Equity and Sustainability,” hosted on Saturday afternoon at White Feather Farm and presented by New York Women in Film & Television (NYWIFT). Film critic Thelma Adams moderated a freewheeling talk with two Writers’ Guild of America East representatives, Dana Weissman and Jo Miller, along with author/showrunner Neil Gaiman. Less than a week had passed since WGA had announced a tentative agreement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, and the mood was feisty and upbeat as the panelists described how WGA’s creative tactics on the picket line, strong social media game and solidarity with fellow strikers at Screen Actors’ Guild/AFTRA had guided them to a relatively happy outcome. War stories were shared of how bad things were in the film and television industry before the strike, especially for younger writers exiled to “mini-rooms.”
On the screening side, lucky audiences got intriguing tastes of movies headed to theaters in the weeks and months to come. Two to look out for especially were The Listener, an acting tour de force by Tessa Thompson as a telephone crisis counselor, directed by Steve Buscemi; and Warwick Thornton’s The New Boy, set in Australia during World War II and starring Cate Blanchett as a rebellious nun and talented newcomer Aswan Reid as a young Aborigine boy with mystical gifts who is sent to the orphanage that she runs.
Audience favorites in this year’s WFF were Tony Goldwyn’s Ezra in the Feature Narrative category and Matthew Heineman’s American Symphony as Feature Documentary. Other award-winners, in addition to James Ivory’s Lifetime Achievement Maverick Award, were:
Rachel Hendrix, Victor Nuñez – Gigantic Pictures Award for Best Feature Narrative
Beyond Utopia, Madeleine Gavin – Leon Gast Award for Best Feature Documentary and Best Editing Documentary
Asleep in My Palm, Henry Nelson – Best Editing Narrative (Max Ethan Miller) and Haskell Wexler Award for Best Cinematography (Tatjana Krstevski)
Razing Liberty Square, Katja Esson – World of Ha Change-Maker Award
No Right Way, Chelsea Bo – Ultra Indie
Three Birthdays, Jane Weinstock – NYWIFT Excellence in Narrative Filmmaking
No Accident, Kristi Jacobson – NYWIFT Excellence in Documentary Filmmaking
Ricky, Rashad Frett – Short Narrative
Deciding Vote, Jeremy Workman & Robert Lyons – Short Documentary
Swim Captain, Christa Haley – Short Student
Sunflower Field, Polina Buchak – Animation
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