The McDonnell Theater at the ArtYard in Frenchtown, N.J., hosts the Film Festival of Joy.
The event, which runs through July 17, is curated by Amy Heller and Dennis Doros, the co-founders of Milestone Films, and began with an opening reception on Wednesday that gave attendees a chance to meet the curators.
The festival features a wide range of film genres, topics and events, which include silent comedies with live music by Ben Model, homemade versions of Hollywood movies in “The Swedish Film Festival” and a performance by Paterson-based gospel singers, the Anointed Friends, before the film “Say Amen, Somebody.”
The festival’s curators intend for its theme to contrast with the isolation and sadness experienced by many during the COVID pandemic. They view watching film as an experience that brings people together in a positive way.
“After the long years of pandemic isolation, alienation, and anxiety, we wanted to celebrate the great happiness of being able to be together again. Watching, laughing, crying together in an audience is different (and better) than experiencing a film alone,” explained Heller via email. “We chose films that (for us) expressed a number of different flavors of joy.”
The festival’s “flavors or joy” address a diverse array of personal experiences through which one can feel joy, such as the the joy of romantic love, laughing out loud and the joy of discovery. The curators hope the event and the range of films presented will encourage attendees to appreciate the importance of sharing communal experiences and view more diverse films in the future.
“For some audience members, the experience of watching a film that is black and white, or silent with live musical accompaniment, or in another language maybe be a new one. We hope it will fuel their desire to see and enjoy more novel cinematic explorations,” said Heller.
Heller and Doros emphasis on encouraging the viewing of diverse films in the festival reflects the motto of Milestone Films: “We like to mess with the canon.”
Heller and Doros, who have been married for 32 years, started Milestone films in 1990 as an independent distributor that, since 2007, has focused on rediscovering and releasing important films that were created outside of Hollywood, with an emphasis on films by and about African Americans, Native Americans, LGBTQ people and women.
Some notable films released by Milestone are “Bon Voyage” and “Aventure Malgache” by Alfred Hitchcock, “Killer of Sheep” by Charles Burnett and “The Exiles” by Kent Mackenzie.
Heller and Doros have received many notable awards from film critic organizations for their work, including the first Legacy of Cinema award from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association “for their tireless efforts on behalf of film restoration and preservation,” and two Film Heritage Awards from the National Society of Film Critics, the first time a distributor was chosen for two in the same year.
Tickets for the films can be found at artyard.org.
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