20th Annual Coney Island Film Festival Goes Virtual

The 20th annual installment of the Coney Island Film Festival (named one of the "25 Coolest Film Festivals" by MovieMaker Magazine) in partnership with xerb.tv, streams online, worldwide, 24 hours a day, from September 22 - October 2, 2020. This year's virtual festival features 95 films in 14 programs. Categories include Drama Short, Comedy Short, Feature, Documentary Feature, Documentary Short, Horror, Sci-Fi, Music Video, Experimental, Animation, Pandemic related films, and two program blocks of films Made in Coney Island! Q+A's with the filmmakers, will be streamed live, nightly, from September 24th to October 1st.

"While there's nothing like experiencing films in a theatre with a live audience, film lovers have embraced the online watch at home experience, with New York City theaters being closed during the pandemic", said Festival Director Rob Leddy. "With our overlapping two venue screenings at Coney, there's no way for our audience to see every film in the fest, but now they can, and they have Eleven days to watch all of the films at their convenience anywhere with an internet connection, that and being able to reach a worldwide audience, is exciting to us. Add live nightly Q+A's and the experience is like being there".

Highlights include Beer Boom, co-directed by Eric W Schleyer and Andrew Coury. A wave of craft brewers are revitalizing the New York beer scene and taking their industry back -- Beer Boom chronicles the modern-day David vs Goliath story of the craft beer explosion and the people who are risking everything to make it happen. Fill The Frame, directed by Tim Huynh, follows eight contemporary New York street photographers and why the art inspires them. Covid Nurses, directed by Gabriel Garton, a documentary that gives space to four New York City nurses on the front lines of the Covid-19 crisis, to meditate on their thoughts, experiences, feelings and concerns as the country begins to lift restrictions. Middletown, directed by Jay Leonard, four estranged friends are content to blow off their 20th high school reunion, but plans change when they learn that one of their once inseparable quartet has committed suicide. Now they must all return to Middletown and return to each other to navigate their complicated relationships and mourn the loss of a friend and their youth...or they may just get drunk and avoid it all weekend instead.

Joshua Michael Payne's Doesn't Fall Far, A Father (Academy Award Nominee, Eric Roberts) and a Son each have a secret. When both secrets come to light in the span of an evening, the two men must decide how to move forward in an attempt to salvage their relationship. In Rachel Harrison Gordon's Broken Bird, Birdie, a biracial girl raised by her Jewish mom, spends a rare day with her father (Chad L. Coleman - The Walking Dead, The Wire) while preparing for her Bat Mitzvah. She overcomes her doubts, and decides to risk inviting him back into her life. Birdie confronts what independence means as she steps into adulthood on her own terms. Better Half, co-directed by Pete Johnson and Adam Jones. After 40-years of co-dependent marriage, a husband (Tom Mardirosian - Oz, Bosch) makes a life changing decision to ensure that he will never have to endure another waking moment with his wife (Ronnie Farer - Donnie Brasco, Safe). The Hour After Westerly co-directed by Nate Bell and Andrew Morehouse, Davis Harwell (Peter Jacobson - House, Ray Donovan) is a meticulous man whose life has grown comfortably dull. But when he nods off at the wheel and wakes up a full hour later with no memory of what happened to him, he is presented with a tantalizing mystery. Why does he have visions of a lighthouse, a row of cottages, and a beautiful woman (Shannyn Sossamon - The Rules of Attraction, Wayward Pines) he's never met before? Davis sets out to find the answer, but what he discovers is far more disturbing than he bargains for.

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