(FRENCHTOWN, NJ) -- ArtYard's Film Festival of Joy! runs from July 13-17, 2022. This is a celebration of film designed to bring joy back after two-plus years of pandemic isolation. The festival includes joyful shorts, features, and documentaries with guest filmmakers and live music performances.
Each day features a unique theme exploring types of joy — Romantic Joy, Joy of Laughter, Joie du Cinema, Real Joy, Animated Joy, and Joyful Noise. The films are held Wednesday through Sunday at ArtYard’s McDonnell Theater in Frenchtown, NJ.
The festival is curated by Amy Heller and Dennis Doros, co-founders of Milestone Films and premiere purveyors of classic obscure and restored gems of cinema.
The Festival kicks off with an exclusive opening reception at 6:30pm on Wednesday for Full Joy pass holders. The reception features joyful surprises and a chance to meet the curators.
Tickets are available for puchase online or in-person at ArtYard’s Box Office, located inside the lobby at 13 Front Street, Frenchtown. Hours are 11:00am to 5:00pm Wednesday through Sunday.
July 13 - Romantic Joy. Join them on the opening night of the Film Festival of Joy as they explore Romantic Joy through two films — Something Good Negro Kiss and I Know Where I’m Going. Hear from film historian Allyson Nadia Field, who will introduce Something Good and tell us how it was made and found.
Something Good, Negro Kiss - This short film brings us moments of Black love from 1898 as a couple holds hands and kisses.
I Know Where I’m Going - Joan Webster (Wendy Hiller), a very determined young English woman, boards a train to marry a rich industrialist on an island in the Hebrides. But much to her frustration, the trip is delayed again and again by bad weather and stormy seas. Perhaps the spirit of Scotland has other plans for her — in the form of handsome Torquil MacNeil (Roger Livesey). Film greats Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger shot this magical love story on the Isle of Mull. Martin Scorsese has called I Know Where I’m Going a perfect film. And it is.
July 14 - Joy of Laughter. The second evening of the Film Festival of Joy features four silent comedies with live music performed by one of the nation's leading silent film accompanists, Ben Model. Model will improvise on keyboard while four short features are screened — The Scarecrow, High and Dizzy, Horse Shy, and Pass the Gravy.
For nearly 40 years, Model has created and performed several hundred live scores for silent films on piano and theatre organ. A resident film accompanist at the Museum of Modern Art (NY) and at the Library of Congress’ Packard Campus Theatre, Model was the first to take the silent film experience online during the COVID pandemic, launching a weekly livestream called The Silent Comedy Watch Party.
The Scarecrow - Comic genius Buster Keaton is a farmhand who shares a cottage full of ingenious gadgets with his rival for the farmer's daughter. Hijinks ensue, including Keaton’s narrow escape from a “mad” dog, an inadvertent proposal, and aand j motorcycle wedding!
High and Dizzy - Newly-minted doctor Harold Lloyd gets roped into a friend’s moonshine business and ends up tipsy on a building ledge high above the street — where he encounters a sleepwalking patient.
Horse Shy - Ineffectual bumbler Edward Everett Horton makes a hilarious attempt to learn to ride a horse in a fox hunt, in order to impress the daughter of his host.
Pass The Gravy - A hilarious comedy about rival fathers who must make peace when their children get engaged. Everything goes awry when comedian Max Davidson’s son cooks the beloved prize-winning rooster belonging to the other father for a joint family dinner.
July 15 - Joie du cinema! To celebrate the third evening of the Film Festival of Joy, join them for a screening of The Young Girls of Rochefort, an effervescent musical about a dance instructor and music teacher and a tribute to Hollywood optimism. They’ll also screen selections from the 22nd Sweded Film Festival, amateur recreations of famous films. To pay homage to the theme, they’ll award a token of appreciation to the audience member dressed in the best homemade costume of a Hollywood film.
The Young Girls of Rochefort - Jacques Demy followed up The Umbrellas of Cherbourg with an even more effervescent musical. Twins Delphine, a dance instructor and Solange, and a music teacher (played by real-life sisters Catherine Deneuve and Françoise Dorléac), long for big-city life. And when a fair comes to their quiet port town, so does the possibility of escape. With its jazzy Michel Legrand score, pastel paradise of costumes, and divine supporting cast, the film is a tribute to Hollywood optimism from 1960s French cinema’s preeminent dreamer.
Selections from the 22nd Sweded Film Festival - Sweded Films are amateur recreations of famous films using limited resources and technology inspired by the 2008 comedy film Be Kind Rewind. This Row House original reel is composed of the best classic movies, re-made by amateurs who replace A-list stars and CGI with whatever is laying around their houses and a ton of creativity. It’s odd, unexpected, and a whole lot of fun. The 2022 reel includes Swedes of The Goonies, Misery, The Truman Show, The Lord of the Rings, and more!
July 16 - Real Joy. Saturday at the Film Festival of Joy features two documentary screenings exploring the real-life stories of Occupy Wall Street and the music of Afro-Cuban religious ritual, each with talkbalks with the filmmakers.
First up with a 3:00pm screening is All Day All Week: An Occupy Wall Street Story by filmmaker Marisa Holmes who was centrally involved in the Occupy movement and shot footage from its beginning through the Zuccotti Park eviction. Holmes joins them for a talkback after the film. After a break, join them for a 7:30pm screening of Tierra Sagrada by filmmaker Ned Sublette offering a vibrant and immersive Afro-Cuban religious ritual. Sublette joins us after the film.
All Day All Week: An Occupy Wall Street Story - In the summer of 2011 a group of activists set out to #Occupy Wall Street. Using social media and self-organization, their action became a global movement; within weeks there were more than 1,000 occupations worldwide. People came together to oppose a corrupt political and economic elite and to call for real democracy. Documentary filmmaker Marisa Holmes was centrally involved in the Occupy movement and shot footage from its beginning through the eviction of OWS from Zuccotti Park. Her beautiful and moving film gives an intimate view of aspects ignored by traditional media, shedding light on the movement's highs and lows. All Day All Week tells the story of Occupy Wall Street from the perspective of those who lived it.
Tierra Sagrada - A vibrant and immersive journey into the music of Afro-Cuban religious ritual, Tierra Sagrada was made pre-pandemic in January 2020 in west-central Cuba. The documentary takes the viewer into sacred spaces in a region of Cuba where captive Africans were brought in massive numbers as late as the 1860s. Tierra Sagrada features wall-to-wall singing, drumming, and movement leading up to the dramatic experience of spirit possession. Filmed in urban house temples, rural groves, and public fiestas in and around Matanzas and Sagua La Grande — places that have not previously been seen on film — it presents ancestors, elders, and youth, and a variety of African-descended drums.
July 17 - Animated Joy. Don’t miss this free family-friendly afternoon celebration of Animated Joy on the final day of the Film Festival of Joy. They will screen six kid-friendly short animations— Feed the Kitty, The Animal Movie, Begone Dull Care, Bridgehampton, Hair Piece, The Wrong Trousers.
Feed the Kitty - Animator Chuck Jones’s cat-and-dog comedy features a ferocious bulldog bewitched by a tiny fearless kitten. (Screening of Feed the Kitty is a free bonus feature as apart of the Festival of Joy: Animated Joy).
The Animal Movie - A little boy joyfully explores the world with a series of animal companions.
Begone Dull Care - Animation genius Norman MacLaren painted on the film stock itself to create a gorgeous and dizzying counterpoint to Oscar Peterson’s piano score.
Bridgehampton - John Canemaker’s hand-painted animation celebrates a year of natural beauty.
Hair Piece: A Film For Nappy Headed People - Ayoka Chenzira’s riotous, insightful satire uses animation and collage to convey the self-image predicaments Black women experience when pressured to conform to Eurocentric beauty standards.
The Wrong Trousers - Everybody’s favorite stop-motion superheroes, Wallace and Gromit (along with a pair of “techno-trousers”) take on villainous penguin, Feathers McGraw.
July 17 - Joyful Noise. Join them to close out the Film Festival of Joy with a night of jubilation and song featuring a live gospel choir. The evening kicks off with a live performance by the award-winning Anointed Friends, a Paterson-based gospel group founded by Roz Thompson who will be joined by Brittany Dawson, Tiffany McCutchen, Tyeshia Reels. Then they’ll screen Say Amen, Somebody, one of the most acclaimed music documentaries of all time following the father and matron of gospel and earth-shaking performances.
Say Amen, Somebody - One of the most acclaimed music documentaries of all time, Say Amen, Somebody is George Nierenberg’s masterpiece — a joyous, funny, deeply emotional celebration of Black culture, featuring the father of Gospel, Thomas A. Dorsey ("Precious Lord, Take My Hand"), its matron, Mother Willie Mae Ford Smith, and earth-shaking performances by the Barrett Sisters and the O'Neal Twins.
ArtYard, located at 13 Front Street in Frenchtown, NJ, is an incubator for creative expression and a catalyst for collaborations that reveal the transformational power of art. They are an interdisciplinary alternative contemporary art center comprised of an exhibition space, theater, and residency program, dedicated to presenting transformative artwork, fostering unexpected collaborations, and incubating original new work.
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