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Adirondack Film Society Launches Monthly Film Series To Lead Into Lake Placid Film Forum

Pixabay/Public Domain

The Lake Placid Film Forum’s umbrella organization the Adirondack Film Society is planning a monthly series of films to lead up to next summer’s film forum.

The Adirondack Film Society and Lake Placid Film Forum are implementing a new format that includes monthly film screenings at the Lake Placid Center for the Arts. Adirondack Film Society President John Huttlinger says it will culminate in the three-day Lake Placid Film Forum in June, which includes a student filmmaking competition.  “We think we’re embarking in a new direction. Something that’s a little bit more year-round oriented.  The Sweet Hereafter launched all of this in 1999 and this being sort of a rebirth it was a fitting film to launch the rebirth.”

The monthly screenings begin next Friday with the 1997 film The Sweet Hereafter, based on the novel by Russell Banks, who will introduce the film.
The Sweet Hereafter tells the story of a rural community after a school bus hits a patch of ice and crashes into an icy lake killing most of the children.
         
Banks is a resident of the Adirondacks and a co-founder of the Lake Placid Film Forum.  “The film has become a kind of marker film for film students now. A whole new generation of young film students and directors either haven’t seen the film or they’ve studied it. And it’s become a kind-of  classic in its own time. And so I figured what the heck let’s look at it again in a fresh light. And also it’s a marker for us who have involved with the film forum over the years because it was, in a way, the opening event. And it was the inspiration initially for the whole program. It just seems like a nice way to kick off this  new set of screenings.”
 
The Adirondack Film Society’s John Huttlinger says the intent is to select the types of films that will be shown at the summer film forum.  “That will give people the opportunity to have access to those kinds of films and the Q&A and the educational aspects that go with the programming on a year-round basis. And it would keep our ideas out in front of people on an on-going basis leading up to the film forum. So we’re hoping that we will generate a good amount of local interest for that event in June and people will just come to expect that they’re going to see the monthly series, but just a lot more of it a three to four to five day period along with the student film making competition.”

Banks adds: “What we hope too is that it will help build a community of people here in the region of year-rounders, not just summer folks and not just people who travel in from outside, but year-rounders who care about movies and good movies and don’t get a chance to see them otherwise. It’ll build loyalty in a way as well as having an outreach to the region.”

The film society plans to have each film’s director, cast or crew discuss the making of each film at the screening or via Skype.