8 THE QUEENS COURIER • MAY 27, 2021 FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM
Queens World Film Festival meets with fi lmmakers
and volunteers in Flushing Meadows Corona Park
BY GABRIELE HOLTERMANN
showcases 196 fi lms from 33 nations
sitting on my shelf on my computer,”
editorial@qns.com
ranging from documentaries and fi ction
Engel said. “So for this to happen, especially
@QNS
to animation and musicals.
to get the reception it has so far, it’s
One of the 42 features selected for the
very validating.”
Queens World Film Festival (QWFF)
festival is “Mouse,” which tells the story
Jena Ellenwood, a fi lmmaker, who
invited fi lmmakers, actors, volunteers and
of a lonely groundskeeper in a beautiful
worked as a bartender at Sparrow Tavern
sponsors for a get-together and photo-op
neighborhood who deals with the crushing
in Astoria for the past 10 years, is featured
in Flushing Meadows Corona Park, home
guilt of a local murder he witnessed.
in the documentary “Last Call — Th e
of the Queens Th eatre and the iconic
Eventually, he loses himself as he desperately
Shutdown of New York Bars” by director
Unisphere, on May 22.
tries to keep an innocence he never
Johnny Sweet.
Th is year, the festival, which runs
truly lost.
Th e documentary showcases the psychological
from June 23 through July 3, is especially
Filmmaker Adam Engel and his crew
impact of the coronavirus on
meaningful for Katha Cato, QWFF’s
and production assistant Kelly Noll, costume
a group of young, single adults working
executive director and board president,
designer Christina Andrevi and cinematographer
in the hospitality industry during the
who said that she was “feeling emotional
Derek Mindler were excited
unprecedented crisis.
and feeling full as Queens will welcome
that their fi lm was not only admitted
Ellenwood said what makes “Last Call”
the world back,” referring to the COVID-
to Queens World but that it’s also going to
so special is that it follows her and her
19 pandemic which ravaged the borough,
open the festival on June 23.
coworkers through a hard time for everybody.
which became the “epicenter” in the early
Engel called it “a big deal,” especially
days of the crisis.
since the fi lm was entirely shot in Forest
“But it also shows how resilient we
“We will be part of what heals. Th ese
Hills in Queens by an all-Queens crew,
were,” Ellenwood said.
stories will be part of what heals you,”
and the entire team agreed that it was validating
She used the pandemic shutdown to
Cato said, adding that she hopes that
to fi nally see their fi lm on the big
start her own business, fi lming cocktail
everyone who contributed to the festival
screen aft er the unpredictability of the
videos featured on YouTube and
knows they are part of the healing process.
COVID-19 pandemic.
Instagram.
Engel said last year came with a lot of
“Johnny got the moment where I actually
“When the lights are down, and you’re
uncertainty, as the pandemic stalled his
said, ‘F— it, I’m gonna do it,’ and he
all in there together and you all gasp at
fi lm and its release.
got it on camera,” Ellenwood said.
the same thing and the light comes up,
“It’s now a complete fi lm,
Th e documentary “Reclaim Idaho” by
and you look to the right, and the left ,
wife and husband directing team Laura
and you realize you would have never
Wing-Kamoosi and Jim Kamoosi from
spoken to that person, but you felt the
Brooklyn, tells the grassroots story of
same thing,” Cato said. “So perhaps you
Emily and Garrett Strizich, who, with a
have more in common with each
baby in tow and no political experience,
other than you think.
drove around Idaho in a green 1997 RV
And that’s what it’s
with “Medicaid for Idaho” painted on the
about.”
side, campaigning for Idaho’s Medicaid
QWFF, named
expansion bill.
one of the 50 fi lm
Emmy-nominated director
festivals “worth
Laura Wing-Kamoosi
the entry fee
explained that they talked
in 2021” by
to every single person
MovieMake r
Ma g a z i n e ,
that they could
about the issue,
and it ended up
passing two to
one.
“So
now, over
110,000
people in
Idaho
have
healthcare
where they
didn’t before
this campaign,”
Wing-Kamoosi
said.
Film maker Henry Arroyo was excited
that he has two fi lms featured at the festival:
“Tea” and “My Friend John,” a narrative
fi lm about a young boy named Gio,
who imagines that an astronaut named
John will save him from his emotionally
abusive environment and take Gio to an
imaginary planet. Th e Cradle of Aviation
Museum on Long Island even donated an
original astronaut costume for the movie.
“I’m always very excited for people to
watch the work, you know? As many people
as I can get to watch a fi lm, Ialways get
super excited about that, because that’s
why we do it, at least to me: It’s so that
people can come and watch,” Arroyo said.
“Couple of Guys,” a half-hour comedy/
drama starring Sal Rendino, Lukas Hassel
and Abigail Hawk, tells the story of newly
divorced lawyer Richard Durant (played
by Sal Rendino), who unexpectedly falls
in love with a man, former rocker Jon
Graham (Lukas Hassel).
Producer Debra Markowitz, who is currently
pitching the show, merged the fi rst
two episodes for the fi lm festival and
shared that the third episode is a wrap and
the fourth is in the works.
“I’m very excited. It’s been a long time,
and we didn’t want to play it during the
pandemic because we want people to
come,” Markowitz said.
Two of the “Blame It on the Pandemic”
category fi lms are “Henrietta” by Jesse
Holtermann and “Ordinary” by Kim
Cummings.
While quarantining alone in her studio
apartment, Jesse Holtermann befriended
a spider she named Henrietta and decided
to make a movie, entirely fi lmed on
an iPhone, about a woman in quarantine
who makes friends with an arthropod.
“It’s a true quarantine fi lm. I did everything:
I wrote it, I shot it, I acted in it, I
edited it, found music for it,” Holtermann
said.
Celine Bassman, a ballet dancer who
collaborated with Kim Cummings on
“Ordinary,” explained that their short is
an experimental dance fi lm in which she
dances “ugly,” straying away from the rigidness
of the ballet world.
“Also, just like being a woman to live up
to the beauty standard which is so rigid,”
Bassman said. “Th ese are two standards
that are just impossible to live up to, and
I wanted to stray as far as I could from
those standards.”
For more information about the QWFF,
visit queensworldfi lmfestival.org.
Photos by Gabriele
Holtermann
“Couple of Guys”
actors Abigail Hawk,
Sal Rendino and Lukas
Hassel attend the
Queens World Film
Festival gathering
with fi lmmakers, volunteers,
and sponsors
in Flushing
Meadows Corona
Park. The film
festival runs from
June 23 to July 3.
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