The Hamptons International Film Festival (HIFF) will open on Thursday, October 5, with the East Coast premiere of Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin’s NYAD. The film, which is set to be released by Netflix later this year, marks the narrative feature directorial debut for the Academy Award®, BAFTA® and Emmy Award®-winning filmmaking duo Vasarhelyi and Chin, known for their documentary work. The 31st annual edition of HIFF will take place October 5-12, 2023, with in-person screenings and events across the Hamptons.
NYAD, which stars Academy Award® nominee Annette Bening, Academy Award® winner Jodie Foster, and Rhys Ifans, tells the remarkable story of American marathon swimmer Diana Nyad (Bening), and is based on Nyad’s 2015 autobiography “Find a Way.” Nyad, at the age of 64, became the first person to complete the “Everest of swims,” executing a 53-hour, 110-mile swim from Cuba to Florida, through dangerous open ocean, without a shark cage. Vasarhelyi is scheduled to attend the festival and will participate in a post-screening conversation on the film.
Vasarhelyi and Chin’s previous works include Wild Life (2023), Return To Space (2022), The Rescue (2021), and Free Solo (2018), the latter of which was awarded Best Documentary Feature at the 91st Academy Awards.
“After welcoming Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin’s incredible documentary film The Rescue at the 2021 edition of our festival, it is an honor to celebrate their narrative debut as this year’s opening night presentation,” said HamptonsFilm artistic director David Nugent. “Vasarhelyi and Chin are two of this generation’s most compelling storytellers, and NYAD is further proof that their creativity and eye for filmmaking knows no bounds. We are thrilled to share their story with our audiences.”
“Following another successful summer of programming, it is with great enthusiasm that we begin to unveil the lineup for this year’s 31st annual festival,“ said HamptonsFilm executive director Anne Chaisson. “We are grateful to our audiences out East for their continued support and we look forward to bringing the community another diverse, engaging, and entertaining festival curation.”
Additional programming will be announced in the coming weeks.
(Editor’s note: Directors Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin are handled in the commercialmaking/branded content arena by production house Stept Studios.)
Review: Writer-Director Coralie Fargeat’s “The Substance”
In its first two hours, "The Substance" is a well-made, entertaining movie. Writer-director Coralie Fargeat treats audiences to a heavy dose of biting social commentary on ageism and sexism in Hollywood, with a spoonful of sugar- and sparkle-doused body horror.
But the film's deliciously unhinged, blood-soaked and inevitably polarizing third act is what makes it unforgettable.
What begins as a dread-inducing but still relatively palatable sci-fi flick spirals deeper into absurdism and violence, eventually erupting — quite literally — into a full-blown monster movie. Let the viewer decide who the monster is.
Fargeat — who won best screenplay at this year's Cannes Film Festival — has been vocal about her reverence for "The Fly" director David Cronenberg, and fans of the godfather of body horror will see his unmistakable influence. But "The Substance" is also wholly unique and benefits from Fargeat's perspective, which, according to the French filmmaker, has involved extensive grappling with her own relationship to her body and society's scrutiny.
"The Substance" tells the story of Elisabeth Sparkle, a famed aerobics instructor with a televised show, played by a powerfully vulnerable Demi Moore. Sparkle is fired on her 50th birthday by a ruthless executive — a perfectly cast Dennis Quaid, who nails sleazy and gross.
Feeling rejected by a town that once loved her and despairing over her bygone star power, Sparkle learns from a handsome young nurse about a black-market drug that promises to create a "younger, more beautiful, more perfect" version of its user. Though she initially tosses the phone number in the trash, she soon fishes it out in a desperate panic and places an order.
The one rule to follow is that... Read More