The cultural highlights in our region in coming days include an international film festival; a rock festival featuring living legends; novelists paying tribute to Edith Wharton; a soul singer from Nashville, and a whole lot more.
Yo-Yo Ma, Bruce Dern, Karen Allen, Douglas Trumbull, Noah Baumbach, Gregory Crewdson, Jake Paltrow and Kent Jones will be on hand for the 11th annual Berkshire International Film Festival, running today through Sunday at venues including the Triplex Cinema and the Mahaiwe in Great Barrington and the Beacon Cinema in Pittsfield, Mass. The BIFF will showcase 70 of the latest in independent feature, documentary, short, and family films from some 26 countries. The international span of the festival includes films from Germany, Afghanistan, Brazil, Australia, Iran, England, India, France, China, Italy, Israel, Austria, Norway, Hungary, Argentina, Iceland, and others.
Authors Sophie McManus and Stephanie Clifford will discuss the influence of Edith Wharton on their debut novels on the Terrace at The Mount, Wharton’s home in Lenox, Mass., on Sunday at 4pm. McManus’s “The Unfortunates” and Clifford’s “Everybody Rise” are both informed and inspired by Wharton’s 1905 novel, “The House of Mirth.”
Game On/Game Over, a nine-minute looping video described as “a playful but thought-provoking mashup of animation and live action,” will be the centerpiece of a solo exhibition of works by award-winning filmmaker and artist Daniel Brody in the BerkshireNow gallery space at Berkshire Museum, opening with a reception tonight from 5 to 8pm, in conjunction with Pittsfield’s First Fridays Artswalk. The exhibit, also featuring a collection of recent abstract drawings and paintings by Brody, remains on view through Sunday, August 21.
Nashville-based singer Ruby Amanfu brings her unique blend of country-tinged soul and pop to Club Helsinki Hudson on Sunday at 8pm. On her recent album, “Standing Still,” Amanfu’s songs range from the noirish jazz of “Anyone Who Knows What Love Is,” with a hint of Patsy Cline by way of Norah Jones, to a funky, steamy version of “Where You Going” by Jimmie Dale Gilmore, given a “Wrecking Ball”-era Emmylou Harris treatment. Amanfu has also been named one of “Nashville’s 25 Most Beautiful People” by Nashville Lifestyles and one of the “50 Best-Dressed Southerners” by Southern Living.
Works by Marguerite Bride and Karen S. Jacobs are featured in “Berkshire Visions: Two Artists, Two Mediums,” at the Old Chatham Country Store & Café today through Wednesday, July 27. An opening reception for the artists takes place on Sunday from 3 to 5pm. The exhibition features representational watercolors by Bride and abstract oil paintings by Jacobs.
Beck, Wilco, the Avett Brothers and Gov’t Mule headline the 12th annual Mountain Jam, which takes place at Hunter Mountain right now through Sunday. With an increasing emphasis on indie-rock and Americana, the festival will also include appearances by Umphrey’s McGee, Brandi Carlile, Jason Isbell, Gary Clark Jr., Michael Franti & Spearhead, Courtney Barnett, Chris Robinson Brotherhood, and Lettuce, among many others.
Seth Rogovoy is editor of Berkishire Daily and the Rogovoy Report, available online at rogovoyreport.com