New York City’s newest film festival, BAMcinemaFEST, kicks off tonight in Brooklyn with the opening night presentation of Cruz Angeles’ Brooklyn-based love story Don’t Let Me Drown.

The sixteen-day programme of new independent films and repertory classics will end on July 2.

The festival will offer 14 New York premieres including Andrew Bujalski’s Beeswax, Jody Lee Lipes’ Brock Enright: Good Times Will Never Be The Same, Nicolas Winding Refn’s Bronson, Tze Chun’s Children Of Invention, and Lynn Shelton’s Humpday. Nearly all directors will be on hand for Q&As.

There will also be four shorts programmes with a total of 29 new American and international shorts.

The festival will also offer an all-night film marathon, an evening with Arnaud Desplechin and a performance by Ireland’s 3epkano providing a score to Fritz Lang’s Metropolis.

The offerings also include a free outdoor screening of Catherine Gund’s food justic documentary What’s On Your Plate? on June 27.

Repertory selections include The Leopard, Dead Man, Marketa Lazarova, and Confessions Of A Chinese Courtesan.

BAM, or the Brooklyn Academy of Music, is now celebrating 10 years of repertory screenings. The four-screen BAM Rose Cinemas opened in 1998.

“As a programmer, it is a pure joy to have the freedom and the platform to present such a diverse range of
films and events under one banner,” said Florence Almozini, BAMcinematek’s program director.

Further information is available online at BAM.org/BAMcinemaFEST.

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