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Local interest

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The festival will begin at the Palace Theatre at 7 p.m. Thursday with a 30th anniversary screening of the film “Cool Runnings,” which tells the story of the 1988 Winter Olympic Games Jamaican bobsled team. The screening will feature guest appearances by Chris Stokes, who was on the 1988 team, and Saranac Lake native John Morgan, a sportscaster who had a cameo in the film.

“We think (‘Cool Runnings’) will be great fun for this area,” Adirondack Film board chairman Gary Smith said.

The screening will also have merch for both the festival and Jamaican bobsled for sale, as well as book signings and a Q-and-A session with Stokes and Morgan. “Cool Runnings” will have an encore screening at 11:30 a.m. Saturday. The encore will not have guests.

Smith said that another film of “special local interest” is “Russell Banks: I Write To Be A Better Person,” a documentary by Dennis Mueller that follows the life and career of author and Lake Placid Film Festival co-founder Russell Banks. The documentary is still in progress, and the audience will be able to see an early cut of the film. Mueller will speak after the screening, which is scheduled for 11 a.m. on Saturday at the Palace.

“A Dreamer’s Search,” which depicts artist Rockwell Kent’s 1918 move from New York City to Alaska, will be screened at the Palace at 3 p.m. on Saturday. Kent later moved to Jay in 1927, where he lived until his death in 1971. He also had a studio in AuSable Forks. Writer and director Eric Downs will be in attendance at the screening.

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Premieres

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The festival is hosting two upstate New York premieres. The first, a documentary called “The Stones and Brian Jones,” examines the life of Rolling Stones co-founder Brian Jones, who died in 1969 at the age of 27. It will be shown twice at the Palace: At 8 p.m. Friday and 3:30 p.m. Sunday. Smith said that the documentary is “great fun.”

Ken Loach’s “The Old Oak” will also have its upstate New York premiere at the festival. Loach, who directed the Palme d’Or-winning films “The Wind That Shakes the Barley” and “I, Daniel Blake,” told The Hollywood Reporter in April that “The Old Oak” would probably be his last film. It follows the patrons of an English pub who find their lives changed by the introduction of Syrian refugees to their community. Screenings will be at 4 p.m. Friday and 1:30 p.m. Sunday at the Palace.

“Christmas for Three,” a Christmas romantic comedy by Candice Cain, will have its world premiere at the festival. Cain will be in attendance for the 2 p.m. screening on Saturday, along with star Kenney Myers and associate producer Sandra K. The film follows a bachelor who, after becoming the guardian of a young boy, falls in love with his social worker.

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Anniversary screenings

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“Cool Runnings” is not the only film receiving an anniversary send-up. “The Exorcist” and “Charlotte’s Web” both turn 50 this year and will be screened at the Palace, with “The Exorcist” receiving both a midnight showing on Saturday and an encore at 6:30 p.m. Sunday. “Charlotte’s Web” will be screened at the more family-friendly showtime of 1 p.m. Sunday.

“You Can Count on Me,” a 2000 film produced by Barbara DeFina, will be screened at 4:30 p.m. Saturday. DeFina will be in attendance at the screening. On Friday at 5:30 p.m., she will be honored at a red carpet cocktail event at the High Peaks Resort, during which she will also participate in a conversation with NYU professor and film executive Paul Hardart. The red carpet cocktail event is ticketed.

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Branching out

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Smith said that the festival’s collaboration with the Catalyst Story Institute in Minnesota is new this year.

“Catalyst deals exclusively with episodic content, so we have a number of sessions on comedy and drama and particularly skewed to this region is one on sports films,” he said. “So that is a new element for us. They’re essentially TV pilots that people have put together and submitted for judging, and those are showing through the weekend as well.”

The festival will also include educational sessions such as “From Page to Pre-Production” and “Making Your Film (Career) Upstate: Regional Perspectives” for budding local filmmakers or those with an interest in how films make it to the screen. There will be “speed consultations” with film experts available for attendees who want some career guidance.

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Strikes and scheduling

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The festival’s planning process was complicated this year by the ongoing Screen Actors Guild/American Federation of Television and Radio Artists strike, which began on July 14, and the Writers Guild of America strike, which lasted from May 2 to Sept. 27. While on strike, union actors are not allowed to grant interviews about any work or promote any film or television projects. Union writers were also not allowed to discuss any projects, though their strike is now over. This means that the fall festival circuit has seen an unusual lack of stars and has had to adapt their panels to be geared more toward those behind the camera.

“It pushed us back quite a bit because there was always indecision about what we could screen, what we could talk about, what screenwriters and artists could pitch, and that was always sort of a tightrope on what was acceptable with the unions,” Smith said. “Nobody wanted to undermine what the unions were doing and everybody was playing it very safe. So, some of these have come out because they’re non-commercial, some of them have come back because of the settlement of those aspects of the strike, and so we are moving ahead with a full program — although with somewhat fewer entries than we might have had if we had had the full year to assemble them.”

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How to attend

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All-access festival passes are available to purchase at adirondackfilm.org. Individual tickets to screenings will be on sale in person during the festival.

A full festival schedule can be found at adirondackfilm.org/lake-placid-festival/lake-placid-festival-2023.

For more information or questions regarding the festival, contact info@adirondackfilm.org.