Event Details
Upstate Women In Film & Television (UPWIFT) is a non-profit, volunteer-based organization that supports women in film, television and digital media. The organization endeavors to increase opportunities for women in the field by increasing public and industry awareness of women’s achievements and stature via providing news and targeted programs for members and the public. This collection of shorts was carefully curated by the UPWIFT organization. A Q&A with the filmmakers in attendance, moderated by UPWIFT President Sunny Edelman, will follow the screening.
Films
Jessica Alexandra Green
Making Room
A new mother looks for work while trying to reconcile her new identity with her old one.
Daniel Byers
Aguilucho:Dance of the Harpy Eagle
In the remote Darién Gap rainforest, indigenous communities face the advance of loggers and cattle ranchers, an existential threat to their way of life and the ecosystem upon which they rely. When a rare Harpy Eagle nest is discovered near their community, the Emberá tribe of Playa Muerto find an unlikely ally. By protecting their lands and the Eagle’s habitat, they can benefit from the ecotourism she attracts, and reconnect with their own traditional heritage.
Cara Yeates
Gone Before Your Eyes
Trapped in a surreal loop, an artist with Alzheimer’s struggles to paint
Samantha Jones
Transform Nation
What happens when the world shuts down and four teenage girls can’t go to school anymore? They find themselves.
Lisa Thomas
Change of Scenery
One year after the loss of her partner Julia gets up the nerve to bring herself to a gay bar only to encounter Nate, a former FBI agent.
Lisa Thomas
Gothic Spaghetti Western
The notorious Whip Totin’ Sister has been wanted internationally for sometime and is rumored to be in Sicily with the mob hot on her trail. Shot on 35mm in Catania, Sicily, the Gothic Spaghetti Western includes a suspicious cast of characters including an outlaw sister, a horse named Twister and features members of the New York based dark carnival band: The Dust Bowl Faeries.
Lisa Thomas
The Misadventures of Bucky & Beene
The Misadventures of Bucky & Beene follows the lives of two campy pirate radio DJ’s, Pepper Buckthorne who was once Miss Gay USA and her sassy younger sidekick, Jelly Beene who threaten the locals in upstate New York with their WRU-GAY in the morning radio show and befriend Sharon their free spirited albeit ditzy neighbor in the process.
Moderator:
Sunny Edelman, Actor, Casting Director, & President of Upstate NY Women in Film and Television (UPWIFT)
As a Classically trained actor, Sunny has directed and performed roles from Shakespeare to Clare Boothe Luce, working in regional, Off Broadway theaters, as well as in an Emmy winning television program and numerous Indie films. She received a B.A. in Theater Arts from S.U.N.Y New Paltz and studied with Iza Itkin, Robert Castle, Bob Luke and Peter Sklar. Sunny also took classes at the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-Upon-Avon, England.
Sunny is an Associate Casting Director for Hudson Valley Casting and has worked on such films as The Dead Don’t Die, I’m Thinking of Ending Things, What We Found and Driveways to name a few.
She has worked with a number of film festivals, in a few different roles. She was the events coordinator for The Hudson Valley International Film Festival and The Catskills International Film Festival. Festival Director of the North By Northeast Film Festival and host at The New York State Film Festival. Ms. Edelman is both honored and excited to be working at the Lake Placid Film Festival.
A fierce advocate for women in film, Sunny is currently the President of Upstate NY Women in Film and Television.
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