The Cranberry Hour was shot in Yonkers parks and streets
Yonkers Film Festival runs from Nov. 10-19, YoFiFest.com
YoFi Fest launched its annual festival eleven years ago as a small non-profit with a mission to raise the level of arts and culture in its community by showing the work of independent filmmakers and providing educational and cultural opportunities that otherwise wouldn’t exist in the area.
This year, the organization is more committed than ever to not only continuing that mission, but actually expanding on it. From November 10th through November 19th, YoFi Fest’ 11th annual film festival will present films from around the world, including showcasing some of Yonkers’ own local talent.
On Saturday, November 18, as part of its Locals Weekend, the fest is running its “DIY: Done In Yonkers” showcase. These independent short movies are all by local filmmakers and cover a wide rage of topics and styles, including dramas, comedies, sci-fi, animation and experiment work.
Helado, directed by Melissa Rodriguez, is about a young woman who reaches her breaking point after she’s sent to fetch ice cream for the family late at night.
Lisa, directed by Kingsley Osei-Abrah, is a comedic drama of a man who’s able to let go of pain he has held for a long time.
Running, directed by Louise Olay, is a live-action-meets-animation-musical about the struggles of a first generation Filipino artist in pursuit of artistry.
Some Kind of Heavenly Fire, directed by Eric Vincent Riley, is a a sci-fi, family drama involving a blackout, levitation and extra-terrestrials.
The Cranberry Hour is an experimental Narrative with Comedy & Horror made via long distance collaboration between artists G. W. Duncanson and Andy Heck Boyd. It’s shot in Yonkers parks and streets on Super16mm film.
Besides the DIY: Done In Yonkers showcase, other films with a local connection include documentaries by Yonkers residents, including Ben Fraternale’s Inside the Last Polaroid Factory in The World (Saturday, November 11 at 4PM) and Simon Nathan Feldman’s Revival (Monday, November 13 at 7PM), about the Volunteers and Musicians at Clearwaters’s Great Hudson River Revival Music Festival. Other Yonkers-connected work include Yonkers’ natives Zef Cota’s film Westway (Saturday, November 18 at 4PM), Chandler WIld’s The Dancing Monkey (Saturday, November 18 at 2PM) and Zen Brownie, Alison Bartlett’s documentary about Yonkers’ Greyston Bakery, narrated by Oscar Winner Jeff Bridges and featuring ice cream icons Ben and Jerry (Sunday, November 12 at 2PM).
The festival provides an amazing opportunity for audiences to watch films that they might not see anywhere else. Most of the film programs will be followed by a live Q&A where the audience has the opportunity to ask the filmmakers questions about their movies.
FilmFreeway named YoFiFest one of the “Top 100 Best Reviewed Festivals” nine times. It’s also been named “Best of Westchester” twice by Westchester Magazine, and it was named as one of the top ten reasons Yonkers was voted the “Hippest Town in the Lower Hudson Valley” by The Journal News/LoHud.
All the screenings and workshops are being held in downtown Yonkers within a few blocks of each other at either the Yonkers Riverfront Library theater or YoFi’s own year-round DMAC (Digital Media Art Center). The festival is convenient to public transportation, as well as several nearby parking lots.
Information and tickets are available at YoFiFest.com.
