Architecture & Design Film Festival: New York Features Docs About Building a Better World

Details

Parent Category: Film Festivals

Category: Previews

Published on Monday, 13 October 2025 13:50

Written by Brad Balfour

Featuring cinema centered around the world we live in and the people who design it, the Architecture & Design Film Festival: New York returns this October 14 to the 18th. Running at the Village East by Angelika, the festival includes documentaries, panel discussions, and even a Brutalist trivia contest with US, NY, and World Premieres.

Films include I Have A Name, which brings audiences face-to-face with the unhoused crisis through the eyes of artist and activist Jon Linton. What began as a 2007 photo project on the streets of Phoenix has evolved into a national movement, now captured in this powerful film. Through the simple act of asking unhoused individuals their names, Linton creates portraits that restore dignity and visibility to those too often overlooked. Following the film is a conversation with global design leaders Bisi Williams and Bruce Mau of Massive Change Network. 

The Space Architect introduces us to the trailblazing architect Constance Adams, whose groundbreaking work at NASA reimagined how humans might live in outer space. After earning degrees from Harvard and Yale, Adams left behind a career designing skyscrapers to focus on spacecraft and prototypes for lunar and Martian habitats. At age 53, knowing she was dying of cancer, Adams enlisted the help of filmmaker Rebecca Carpenter to preserve her story. Filmed just four days before her death, The Space Architect captures Adams reflecting on her extraordinary career and her final, passionate focus towards Earth—where she hoped to apply her knowledge to address the urgent challenges of the climate crisis. At once heart-wrenching and hopeful, the film offers a moving meditation on a life driven by purpose and curiosity. 

Changing Lanes tracks how after a beloved teacher is tragically killed in a hit-and-run accident in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, a grassroots movement emerges to transform a notoriously dangerous four-lane boulevard into a safer, two-lane street with protected bike lanes. While many applaud the proposed road diet, it also sparks a backlash—led in part by a powerful local business owner. As government support begins to waver, neighbors unite to challenge entrenched interests and fight for a safer Greenpoint.  Changing Lanes makes a compelling call to action for democracy at street level. 

To learn more, go to: https://adfilmfest.com/adff-ny/

Architecture & Design Film Festival New York
October 14 - 18, 2025

Village East by Angelika
181-189 2nd Ave
New York, NY 10003

63rd New York Film Festival: Biopics, New Filmmakers, & More

Details

Parent Category: Film Festivals

Category: Previews

Published on Wednesday, 13 August 2025 14:16

Written by Brad Balfour

Lincoln Center’s massive cinema showcase, the New York Film Festival, returns for its 63d instalment September 26 to October 13. The Spotlight portion of the festival showcases films about great creative minds from great directors: Richard Linklater’s Blue Moon about a night in the life of lyricist Lorenz Hart and Nouvelle Vague, a film set during the production of Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless. Mr. Scorsese from Rebecca Miller is a five part chronicle of the life of Martin Scorsese told through interviews and archival footage. From Ben Stiller comes a film about the lives of his comedian parents, Stiller & Meara: Nothing Is Lost. The Spotlight Gala selection is Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere, Scott Cooper’s biographical drama that captures the early-’80s period when Bruce Springsteen created the raw, acoustic songs that became his landmark album Nebraska.

With a focus on new and adventurous voices in international filmmaking, the Currents slate includes 16 feature films and 24 short films in five programs, representing 28 countries. The Currents Centerpiece selection is the U.S. premiere of Mare’s Nest by Ben Rivers (Two Years at Sea which screened at NYFF49), an enigmatic road movie set in a post-apocalyptic world ruled by children. 

“In a film landscape that is so often homogeneous by design, this year’s Currents lineup is energizing for being a showcase of the boundless possibilities of cinematic language,” said Dennis Lim, Artistic Director, New York Film Festival. “Resurrecting old technologies and subverting new ones, the filmmakers and artists here use an ingenious array of styles and forms to investigate the past and illuminate the present, in the process reminding us of all that cinema can do.”

Also part of the festival is Jim Jarmusch’s Father Mother Sister Brother as the Centerpiece Selection, Bradley Cooper’s Is This Thing On? and Anemone, which features Daniel Day-Lewis in his first on-screen performance in eight years.

To learn more, go to: https://www.filmlinc.org/nyff/ 

63rd New York Film Festival
September 26 - October 13, 2025

Lincoln Center and Other Venues in NYC

Music & Film Come Together at LIMEHOF Music Documentary Film Festival

Details

Parent Category: Film Festivals

Category: Previews

Published on Wednesday, 06 August 2025 09:48

Written by Brad Balfour

The Long Island Music and Entertainment Hall of Fame (LIMEHOF) in Stony Brook, New York is bringing together film and music with the LIMEHOF Music Documentary Film Festival. Running August 8 - 10 the festival features 24 music documentary films to screen, featuring The Beatles, Harry Chapin, Zombies, Steppenwolf, Public Enemy, Ron Delsener, Garland Jeffreys, and many more. These films come from around the world and embody musical genres such as classical, hip-hop, rock, jazz, ska, blues and folk, and many others. 

One of the opening day’s short films is Coming Home: The Guggenheim Grotto Back in Ireland. Director and actor Will Chase, producer Deborah Lopez and singer Ingrid Michaelson are expected to attend. This Q&A is expected to be followed by a live music performance by Mick Lynch. Director Robert McCullough Jr. and members of the Bronx Boys Wrecking Crew are expected to attend the screening of The Bronx Boys – The Evolution of B-Boy Culture. To My Rescue, It Was The S1Ws (A Public Enemy Story) will also screen, with director Janol Ture and Hip-Hop Legend DJ Johnny Juice (Public Enemy), who will join the Q&As and perform live following both films. The closing night spotlight film is Hung Up on a Dream: The Zombies Documentary.

“This music documentary film festival is the perfect way to extend the mission of the Long Island Music and Entertainment Hall of Fame—to preserve the past, celebrate the present, and ignite a love for music in future generations,” said LIMEHOF Vice Chairman Tom Needham who is organizing the film festival as Executive Director with film festival Artistic Director Wendy Feinberg.

To learn more, go to: https://www.limusichalloffame.org/limehof-music-documentary-film-festival/

LIMEHOF Music Documentary Film Festival
August 8 - 10, 2025

Long Island Music & Entertainment Hall of Fame
97 Main Street
Stony Brook, NY 11790