A Season of Film

Ola Film Fest Expands to North Fork

As OLA of Eastern Long Island prepares to celebrate its 15th annual Latino Film Festival with an expansion to the North Fork in early November, the Hamptons Take Two Documentary Film Festival, now in its 11th year, has changed its name to the Hamptons Doc Fest, and is preparing a weekend chock full of docs in late November and early December.

OLA has been devoted for decades to promoting the richness of Latin American’s cinematic culture, and this year’s festival, which includes screenings in the auditorium of the Greenport School, at the Parrish Art Museum, Guild Hall and at Bay Street Theatre, continues that tradition.

The festival opens on Friday, Nov. 9 with a bilingual museum tour at the Parrish Art Museum at 5:30 p.m., followed by the screening at 7 p.m. of the Chilean drama “A Fantastic Woman,” winner of the 2018 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.

“A Fantastic Woman” is the story of Marina, a transgender woman who works as a waitress and moonlights as a nightclub singer, is distraught over the death of her older boyfriend. Tickets are free for Parrish members and $12 for non-members. Producer Juan de Dios Larraín will join the Parrish audience via Skype for live Q&A after the film.

On Saturday, Nov. 10 at 7 p.m., the festival will screen “La Palabra de Pablo (Pablo’s Word),” a seductive thriller from El Salvador at Guild Hall in East Hampton. Loosely inspired by Shakespeare’s Othello, the film tells the story of a broken contemporary Salvadoran upper middle-class family struggling with jealousy and revenge. Tickets are $10 for general admission and $20 for preferred seating.

There will be a post-show Q&A with actor Carlos Aylagas and director Arturo Menéndez, who will be flown in from El Salvador for this screening.

On Sunday, Nov.11, the festival will screen “Coco,” the story of a 12-year-old boy named Miguel who is accidentally transported to the Land of the Dead, at  the Greenport School at 2:30 p.m. This G-rated film, in Spanish with English subtitles, will be shown along with the short film from Mexico, My Fear, by Manfred López Grem. Admission is free, and attendees are invited to come early to enjoy an art exhibit by Greenport students, inspired by the Mexican Day of the Dead tradition.

The festival closes at Bay Street Theatre in Sag Harbor with a screening of “Antes Que Eu Me Esqueca (Before I Forget), at 6 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 11, about an octogenarian who decides to forsake his comfortable retirement to become the owner of a strip club. The film starts at 6 p.m. Tickets are $10 for general admission and $20 for preferred seating.

HT2FF Becomes Hamptons Doc Fest

The Hamptons Take 2 Documentary Film Festival is launching their second decade of docs with a new name, a new logo, a new slate of award-caliber documentary films.

They’re describing the new name, Hamptons Doc Fest, as “short, succinct, edited to reflect our passion for the non-fiction genre. Our new logo, brilliantly designed by the studio of Walter Bernard, projects the arc of storytelling directly to the art of the documentary.” The festival also has a new website, hamptonsdocfest.com.

This year’s festival will be held Nov. 29 through Dec. 3 at Bay Street Theatre in Sag Harbor. This year’s opening night film will be “Every Act of Life,” directed by Jeff Kaufman, to be screened on Thursday, Nov. 29 at 8 p.m.

The film is a tribute to Terrence McNally, the four-time Tony winning playwright and ardent fighter for LGBTQ rights at a time when that was not the norm. The son of an alcoholic beer distributor in southern Texas, Terrence traveled the world as tutor to John Steinbeck’s children; suffered an infamous Broadway flop in 1965 at age 24; and went on to write dozens of groundbreaking plays and musicals about sexuality, homophobia, faith, the power of art, and finding meaning in every moment of life. At 80, he is currently working on three new plays.

Mr. McNally will be on hand for a question-and-answer session after the film.

The festival’s Saturday night gala, on Dec. 1 at 7 p.m., honors Sheila Nevins, the former president of HBO Documentary Films and winner of several Emmy, International Documentary Association and regional documentary festival awards.  The evening will include screenings of two films Ms. Nevins executive produced: “The Number on Great-Grandpa’s Arm” and “Triangle: Remembering the Fire.”

On Friday, Nov. 30 at 8 p.m. the festival will screen “Carmine Street Guitars,” co-presented with the Sag Harbor Cinema Arts Center, about a guitar shop struggling to resist the gentrification that has killed many small businesses and music shops in New York City’s Greenwich Village.

Stay tuned for more details on the full program at eastendbeacon.com later this month.