"I still consider myself a New Yorker, even though these days I have been spending more and more time in Los Angeles", filmmaker Noah Baumbach explained on the stage of the Jacob Burns Film Center on Saturday afternoon immediately following a screening of his latest "dramedy" GREENBERG, which is set in the City of Angels. "Admittedly, I am seeing that city differently these days......maybe because my wife Jennifer Jason Leigh grew up there, so some...

Cinema According to Véra Belmont featuring special screenings with Véra Belmont and Jackie Raynal April 6 - April 27, 2010 FIAF · Florence Gould Hall 55 East 59th Street, NYC This April, the French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF), New York's premiere French cultural center, will celebrate France's "Grande Dame" of cinema for the last 45 years with a new CinémaTuesdays series entitled, Cinema According to Véra Belmont. The series will examine the prolific artist's...

  Oscar, meet Precious........the Academy Awards have just gotten their first blast of ghetto love with the rising tide surrounding the urban drama PRECIOUS: Based On The Novel Push By Sapphire by producer-turned-director Lee Daniels. The film, a major hit out of Sundance and screened to great acclaim in Cannes, Toronto and New York, opened theatrically in the United States this past weekend…..and broke box office records for its per-screen performance. Logging in an astonishing $100,00...

 Wednesday, October 17---------In this busy theatrical film season, as many as a dozen films premiere every Friday at local multiplexes. Many films that would benefit from a slow build up and the essential qualities of  "word of mouth" fail to ignite fire on their intial weekend openings and often disappear without a trace in a scant week or two. In the ferocious environment of theatrical distribution, if one's opening weekend is below expectations, the results can be disasterous. Di...

 Monday, August 6-------Two-time Academy Award winner Robert Benton was especially eloquent as he was interviewed by film critic Janet Maslin at the Jacob Burns Film Center in Westchester County last Wednesday evening, following the screening of Benton's latest film, FEAST OF LOVE. The ensemble drama, based on Charles Baxter's acclaimed novel, features a superb cast headed by Morgan Freeman, Greg Kinnear, Jane Alexander and Radha Mitchell. The film will be released on September 28th by...

Wednesday, June 20---------Members of the Jacob Burns Film Center, Westchester's most adventurous arthouse complex, will be treated to a special advance preview of one of the summer's most provocative films, Michael Moore's SICKO. The film opens wide on June 29th in wide release and is sure to stimulate discussion and serve as a lightning rod, as much if not more than Moore's previous triumph FAHRENHEIT 911. Burns Film Center members can among the first audiences to see the film...

Tuesday, June 18-------Films always begin with the written word. That ethos is celebrated at the annual Nantucket Film Festival, held on the exclusive island resort just off the Massachussets coast. Now in its 12th year, the Festival accentuates the role of screenwriters in the collaborative art form of filmmaking.  "Our festival focuses on screenwriting and the process of filmmaking", Artistic Director Mystelle Brabbée stated. "We had an amazing response to our screenings as w...

Tuesday, January 30----Coming on the heels of the Sundance Film Festival, the film world's annual love fest with American indie cinema, it was perfect timing for the Jacob Burns Film Center to invite veteran indie producer Christine Vachon to give a talk as part of the Center's Women Filmmakers series. Drawing on experiences from her recently published tell-all book on the inner workings of the indie film scene, A KILLER LIFE, the prolific Vachon was in fine form as she was interviewed on stage...

Saturday, December 30-----For Westchester County film buffs, and intrepid New Yorkers not adverse to going off-island, the Jacob Burns Film Center is a distinctive cultural resource in the heart of New York’s northern suburbs. For the past five years, the Film Center has offered a serious alternative to the megaplex monotony of film theaters outside of Manhattan, with unique special programs and the best of independent and international cinema. This is clearly evident in just the first we...