Glimmerglass Film Days in Cooperstown, NY Goes virtual, Opens with THE SEER AND THE UNSEEN

Glimmerglass Film Days in Cooperstown, NY, will present a virtual film festival, complete with filmmaker interviews and panels, from November 5 – 11.

“Our theme this year — A ROAD LESS TRAVELED — evokes the words from Robert Frost’s poem, ‘I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference,’ suggesting solitude, non-conformity, doing the unexpected, and making a real difference,“ says Film Days curator Margaret (Peggy) Parsons, who is also founder and director of the film program at the National Gallery of Art.

Film Days–a program of Otsego 2000, an environmental and preservation advocacy non-profit based in Cooperstown, NY–will present the festival via an online platform. Viewers will be able to stream films and filmmaker panels and watch on their television, computer, tablet, or phone. This is the eighth year of the festival, but its first online.

“This year’s theme highlights the ways in which people blaze new paths and find new ways of expression and solutions to problems, from the personal to the existential,” says Joey Katz, assistant programmer of Film Days, who worked with Parsons and the Film Days Steering Committee to select the films.

“Film Days explores our complex connection with the natural world, and we interpret that broadly, so you’ll find films about the arts, community, identity, social justice, the environment, traditions, and innovations,” says Ellen Pope, executive director of Otsego 2000. Films are from the United States, Australia, Austria, Canada, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Lithuania, Mexico, Mongolia, Serbia, and the United Kingdom.

Film Days begins Thursday, November 5 at 6 pm with the Opening Film THE SEER AND THE UNSEEN (Sara Dosa, 2019, 84 minutes) a film from Iceland about invisible elves, financial collapse, the environment, and the surprising power of belief.

On Friday, November 6, Film Days presents DIANA KENNEDY: NOTHING FANCY (Elizabeth Carroll, 2019, 75 Minutes), CROSSING COLUMBUS (Cathy Lee Crane, 2020, 75 minutes), DARK WATERS (Todd Haynes, 2019, 126 minutes), and DEAR PHILADELPHIA (Renee Osubu, 2020, 30 minutes). There will also be a free screening of DRIVING WHILE BLACK: RACE, SPACE AND MOBILITY IN AMERICA (Ric Burns and Gretchen Sorin, 2020, 120 minutes), which was presented as a work-in-progress to a sold-out crowd at Film Days in 2018. The film is based on Dr. Gretchen Sorin’s scholarship on the role that the automobile played in the lives of African Americans from the Jim Crow era through the Civil Rights movement and beyond. PBS stations will air DRIVING WHILE BLACK on October 13, so Film Days gives viewers a bonus opportunity to see this work. Dr. Sorin is a Distinguished Professor and director of the Cooperstown Graduate Program SUNY Oneonta. She and Ric Burns will take part in an online discussion and Q&A of their film on Saturday, November 7.

Saturday’s offerings feature two Werner Herzog films: FAMILY ROMANCE, LLC (2019, 89 minutes) and NOMAD: IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF BRUCE CHATWIN (2019, 89 minutes) as well as NOVA LITUANIA(Karolis Kaupinis, 2019, 96 minutes), MOSSVILLE: WHEN GREAT TREES FALL (Alex Glustrom, 2019, 76 minutes), and award-winning shorts from the THOMAS EDISON BLACK MARIA FILM FESTIVAL. There will also be a presentation of a work-in-progress IMAGINING THE INDIAN: THE FIGHT AGAINST NATIVE AMERICAN MASCOTING (Aviva Kempnerand Ben West).

Sunday, November 8 showcases the film HAIDA MODERN (Charles Wilkinson, 2019, 85 minutes) about Indigenous artist Robert Davidson, whose works are sought after by leading museums and private collectors even as he helps to revive Haida cultural traditions and communities. Cooperstown’s Fenimore Art Museum has multiple Haida works of art, most notably its totem pole, which Davidson’s brother Reg Davidson carved. November 8^th films also include: HENRY GLASSIE: FIELD WORK (Pat Collins, 2019, 105 minutes), THE BALLAD OF SHIRLEY COLLINS (Rob Curry and Tim Plester, 2017, 94 minutes), COLLODION: THE PROCESS OF PRESERVATION (Eric Overton, 2019, 78 minutes), and THEN COMES THE EVENING (Maja Novaković, 2019, 28 minutes).

On November 9, Director Peter Hutchison returns to Film Days with his film HEALING FROM HATE: BATTLE FOR THE SOUL OF A NATION (2019, 85 minutes). He will take part in an online interview. Monday at Film Days also features: IN MY BLOOD IT RUNS (Maya Newell, 2019, 84 minutes), ANOTHER LIFE (Jan Prazak, 2019, 72 minutes), LANDFALL (Cecilia Aldarondo, 2020, 90 minutes), and the SHORTS + CAKE program that includes: CHASING GHOSTS (Eric Bendick, 2019, 16 minutes), BROKEN ORCHESTRA (Charlie Tyrell, 2019, 12 minutes), BETYE SAAR: TAKING CARE OF BUSINESS (Christine Turner, 2020, 9 minutes), HUNTSVILLE STATION (Jamie Meltzer and Chris Filippone, 2020, 14 minutes), and A LIVING RIVER (Jon Bowermaster, 2019, 23 minutes).

Tuesday, November 10 offers VEINS OF THE WORLD (Byambasuren Davaa, 2019, 96 minutes),

I AM A TOWN (Mischa Richter, 2019, 83 minutes), DEER 139 (Morgan Heim and Jayme Dittmar, 2019, 55 minutes) and MIDNIGHT OIL (Bilal Motley, 2020, 30 minutes). On November 11, the final day of the festival, the three Film Days Audience Choice Award winners will be available to view.