The 30th Annual Boston Film Festival has unveiled the program of movies that will be featured during this year’s lineup. The festival, which will run September 24-28, 2014 and screen all films in Theatre 1 at the Revere Hotel Boston Common, will feature four world premiers and 32 movies. This year’s program will spotlight the alarming environmental global crisis throughout its five days of events.
The closing day/night program on September 28 will showcase a “Call to Action on the Environment.” The program will feature the world premieres of ‘Zemene,’ ‘Breaking Free: The Shale Rock Revolution’ and the Boston debut of ‘Slingshot.’ The closing day/night program will emphasize the growing specter of global destabilization that’s presented by the environmental crisis that threatens major ecosystems worldwide.
This year’s festival will also feature several films that have Boston and Massachusetts ties. ‘Zemene’ was directed by Boston native, Melissa Donovan, and fellow Boston resident Beth Harrington helmed ‘The Winding Stream.’ Director Lisa Copland of Uxbridge directed a short documentary about the Boston Marathon bombing, ‘26.2 Miles Closer to Living.’ Question and answer sessions with the film’s directors and talent will follow each screening.
Ray Liotta narrated the festival’s Boston based Centerpiece film, ‘Playing for the Mob.’ The movie tells the story of mobster Henry Hill, who the actor played in Martin Scorsese’s hit 1990 film, ‘Goodfellas.’the film focuses on Hill’s participation in orchestrating the fixing of Boston College basketball games in 1978 and 1979.The details of the scandal are revealed for the first time on film through the testimony of the players, the federal investigators and the actual fixers, including Hill, who died shortly after he was interviewed. After the movie’s screening, a panel discussion will follow with co-directors Joe Levine and Cayman Grant, as well as Jim Sweeney, a former BC basketball player, and Ed McDonald, the prosecutor of the BC-point shaving case.
Tickets for this year’s Boston Film Festival are available for purchase on the festival’s website. all access VIP passes may be purchased via the festival’s hotline, at 617-523-8388. For more information on the festival, visit its Facebook and Twitter pages.
Written by: Karen Benardello