(MOUNTAINSIDE, NJ) -- On September 20, Arthouse Film Festival will return for ten weeks to its home base New Jersey theatres: AMC Mountainside and AMC Monmouth Mall. Many surprise pre-release premieres are in the works, like a special screening of The Many Saints of Newark, the greatly anticipated, decade-in-the-making prequel to The Sopranos, followed by a not-to-be-missed Q&A, moderated by Chuck Rose.
If you are not one of the thousands of New Jersey film buffs who have attended in years past, just imagine seeing a prestige studio or festival-winning gem before release to the public, then the lights come up, and there in front of you are the creators of the film, ready to answer questions and discuss their work.
Oscar winners and nominees Alan Arkin, Frank Darabont, Jesse Eisenberg, Ethan Hawke, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Melissa Leo, Viggo Mortensen, Chazz Palminteri, John Sayles, Aaron Sorkin, Fisher Stevens and David Strathairn have joined Dylan Baker, Jim Breuer, Famke Janssen, Danai Gurira, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Derek Luke, Mary Stuart Masterson, David Morse, Connie Nielsen, Joe Pantoliano and Kevin Smith as guest speakers who have come to share their insights with festival participants.
COVID-19 safety protocols will be followed, theater capacity will be limited, everyone must have ID and show proof that they have been fully vaccinated for at least 14 days with an FDA-authorized vaccine, (any request for a medical exception must be received and approved before 9/13/21). For details and more information, visit www.ArthouseFilmFestival.com or call 732-870-6012.
The festival is open to anyone, but seating is limited, so early enrollment is advised. Subscription is $146 for five weeks or $257 for all ten weeks. After September 13, rates will go up. Also being offered is a specially priced flex ticket so users may choose any eight out of ten nights for their convenience.
The festival has hosted 1,956 movie premieres with 1,194 live guest appearances over the past 30 years.
“The program will always be flexible in order to take advantage of opportunities as they arise,” said festival director Chuck Rose. “Wonderful surprises and fantastic celebrities can pop up out of nowhere, so we try to keep the schedule as fluid as possible.
“Even before we started in 1991, I began working to create an international VIP network of actors, directors, screenwriters, producers, journalists and film industry pros whose jobs involve creating and evaluating the cream of Sundance, Cannes, Toronto, Telluride, Venice, Berlin, SXSW and the other important film festivals. We also work to ferret out potential hits in the development and production stages so we are ready to pounce on the best films first.”
Confirmed films and those under consideration for the upcoming festival include: The Many Saints of Newark with Michael Gandolfini, Ray Liotta, director Alan Taylor; Mayday with Grace Van Patten, Juliette Lewis, director Karen Cinorre; Golden Voices with Mariya Belkina, Vladimir Friedman, director Evgeny Ruman; Bergman Island with Mia Wasikowska, Tim Roth, director Mia Hansen-Love; Hive with Yilka Gash, director Blerta Basholli; Nightmare Alley with Cate Blanchett, Bradley Cooper, director Guillermo del Toro; Strawberry Mansion with Penny Fuller, Grace Glowicki, directors Kentucker Audley, Albert Birney; A Taste of Hunger with Katrine Greis-Rosenthal, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, director Christoffer Boe; The Velvet Queen with Vincent Munier, Sylvain Tesson, director Marie Amiguet; Becoming Costeau, director Liz Garbus; The First Wave, director Matthew Heineman; King Richard with Will Smith, Jon Bernthal, director Reinaldo Marcus Green; House of Gucci with Jared Leto, Adam Driver, director Ridley Scott; Love is Love is Love with Rosanna Arquette, Kathy Baker, director Eleanor Coppola; and more to come!
Arthouse Film Festival was founded by Chuck Rose in 1991. Since then, Rose has curated and staged over 2,000 movie premieres, importing and interviewing over 1,200 actors and filmmakers from all over the world.
His film festivals and symposia have been sponsored by Universal Pictures, Paramount Pictures, the Screen Actors Guild Foundation, Rutgers University, Kean University, Caldwell University and more than a dozen other film industry, academic and arts organizations.
Inspiration for Arthouse Film Festival grew out of Rose’s experiences at the University of Southern California where Professor Arthur Knight screened a variety of not-yet-released movies followed by discussions with actors and filmmakers. Specifically, the seed was planted after an evening when Professor Knight’s surprise guest was Alfred Hitchcock. Rose remembers, “Everything changed after that. Just being in the room with Hitchcock was life altering. His simple, yet brilliant explanations of technique, and his droll, but hilarious anecdotes about directing Ingrid Bergman, Cary Grant, Grace Kelly and the rest, thrilled and motivated a pack of know-it-all film students. Hitchcock and Knight had more than a glass of wine with dinner, so the gloves were off, and no one was spared.”
Spending time on both coasts, Rose has authored 30 screenplays, directed Vietnam Vets starring Danny Aiello, worked in the story department at Orion Pictures, served as a Contributing Editor at Movies USA, and written feature articles on the film industry for The Hollywood Reporter.
He has held faculty positions at Seton Hall University, Adelphi University and The New School where he developed a program in Film Script Analysis adopted by executives at HBO, ABC and many independent production companies.
Rose is an alumnus of the Warner Bros. Writers Workshop, and holds a Master of Arts in Cinema History, Criticism and Aesthetics from the University of Southern California and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Film Production from New York University.
