Red Carpet Celebs at Monadnock Int'l Film Festival in Keene April 4-6

[From the Monadnock International Film Festival:]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT:  Laina Barakat, Director, Monadnock International Film Festival at 603. 757.3929 or email at monadnockiff@gmail.com.

RED CARPET CELEBS AT INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL IN KEENE APRIL 4-6

The inaugural Monadnock International Film Festival will launch in downtown Keene, New Hampshire on April 4-6 with films shown at The Colonial Theatre and the Redfern and Putnam theatres at Keene State College.  The festival boasts five feature films, two documentaries, a shorts program consisting of 7 offerings between 3 and 22 minutes each, a documentary panel and a television panel.

Directors and film stars confirmed at this time to walk the red carpet during the festival include:  Ken Burns (Central Park Five, Jonathan Daniels Award), Kim Nguyen (War Witch), Adam Nee (Book Club), Matthew Gray Gubler (Criminal Minds, The Learning Curve), Alex Mallis (SPOILS), William Sanderson (Deadwood, True Blood, Blade Runner), Sam Huntington (CSI, NY Law & Order, Veronica Mars), Phil McCarty (The Learning Curve), Jeremy O’Keefe (Somewhere Slow), Jessalyn Gilsig (Somewhere Slow, GLEE, The Practice) Laura Wagner (It Felt Like Love), Ronen Rubenstein (It Felt Like Love).

Features include: Tribeca Film’s War Witch, the 2012 Canadian drama that took ten years to write and was filmed in the Congo, about a 12-year-old girl captured by rebel forces and the three years she spent enslaved to a life of guerrilla warfare;  The Kings of Summer, 2013 Sundance favorite picked up by CBS Films, about teen friends who define their own brand of independence, directed by Jordan Vogt Roberts and starring Alison Brie, Nick Offerman, Nick Robinson, Gabriel Basso, Marc Evan Jackson and Megan Mullally; It Felt Like Love, another Sundance favorite by award-winning filmmaker Eliza Hittman in her feature film debut about the pitfalls facing girls who rush into adolescence and grow up too fast, with newcomers Gina Peirsanti and Giovanna Salimeni;  Somewhere Slow, 2013 Sundance favorite starring Jessalyn Gilsig about a 40-year-old woman learning how to break rules in order to live the life she desires;  and the restored Jean Renoir 1939 masterpiece, The Rules of the Game from Criterion classic films collection.

Two documentaries focus on ecological and social controversy.  Central Park Five represents a new documentary film style for Ken Burns and revisits the wrongful imprisonment and injustice suffered by five young men who were falsely accused of the 1989 rape and beating of a 28-year-old woman in Central; and Fatih Akin offers Polluting Paradise, examining what happens when a landfill is built on Black Sea shores.

Panel members feature television celebrities Matthew Gray Gubler who stars as Dr. Spencer Reid, the behavioral analyst in “Criminal Minds,” William Sanderson of “True Blood” and Jessalyn Gilsig of “Glee”; Dayton Duncan, Florentine Films (Lewis & Clark, Civil War, Baseball, Jazz); Keene native Alex Mallis (SPOILS); and Rae Dawn Chong (Jeff Who Lives At Home).

Tickets:  $10 per screening, $45 Film Pass (all films and panels), $75 VIP Pass (all films, panels, opening reception and after-parties).  Tickets purchased at www.moniff.org or through the Colonial Theatre box office (www.thecolonial.org, 603.352.2033). The Monadnock International Film Festival is a non-profit organization, started in June 2011, whose mission is to bring world-class film and filmmakers to New England’s Monadnock Region.   The festival is in partnership with Arts Alive!, The Greater Keene Chamber of Commerce, W.H.A.T.’S. Keene, and over 50 area businesses.