A musical genius gone too soon, a living legend of the No Wave scene, pipe organs, and guineas pigs: the New Haven Documentary Film Festival, or NHDocs, is bringing this eclectic mix of subjects together as this year’s film festival takes on the profound, the personal, and the universal — and pre-games it all with, of course, pizza.
Although the festival officially begins a week later, a special free screening event is scheduled on Tuesday, Aug. 3 in the parking lot next to Sally’s Apizza on Wooster Street to get everyone hungry for more.
“It’s sort of a kickoff, so we sort of remember how to present films and people remember how to see them in public,” said Gorman Bechard — filmmaker and executive director of NHDocs — with a smile. “It’s like a warm-up,” added Katherine Kowalczyk, director of NHDocs.
The movie being shown is Bechard’s own Pizza, A Love Story, which made its debut at the festival in 2019. The screening is free and tickets are not needed, though attendees will have to buy their own pies.
The festival runs from Tuesday, Aug. 10 to Sunday, Aug. 15, kicking off with a sneak preview of another of Bechard’s films, Where Are You, Jay Bennett? It will be shown Tuesday at Cafe Nine and followed up with a Q&A with Bechard, as well as a musical tribute to the musician’s work both solo and with Wilco.
This one is close to Bechard’s heart and close to being done. “It’s 98.62 percent finished,” he said. “It’s probably well known that it takes me a while to let go of films,” he added, noting it took him 11 years with Pizza, A Love Story.
“This is on Wilco. This is a band I’ve seen 70 times. And it’s on the other genius in Wilco that most people don’t know about. So, I decided I wanted to do one sneak peek so I can read the audience reaction before I finalize it for its world premiere” — on Bennett’s birthday, Nov. 15, in Chicago. “And of course, my brother in arms Dean Falcone has put together a brilliant collection of local musicians to do a tribute to Jay’s music.” Eighty seats are available for this one, and Kowalczyk urged those interested to get their tickets now as they are “selling fast.”
Haley Copes photo
Last year’s opening night in the Sally’s parking lot
The festival’s official opening night, Wednesday, Aug. 11, finds NHDocs back in the Sally’s parking lot for the films The Matchbox Man, Bechard’s short about a Matchbox car collector, and Vinyl Nation, a movie from director Kevin Smokler that looks at vinyl records and the people who love them. In 2020 NHDocs had its opening night in this same location and had much success with it.
Cafe Nine will then host three more NHDocs events. On Thursday, Aug. 12, the festival presents Five Funny Films…Five Funnier Women, hosted by NHDocs’s own Haley Copes, who is also a filmmaker and stand-up comedian. Five short films will be presented, followed by a Q&A with some of the filmmakers. Then Copes and four other women will perform stand-up routines. “This so far is the fastest selling of the nights,” noted Bechard, adding that there are 100 seats available for this one.
The final two Cafe Nine events occur on the final day of the festival, Aug. 15. The first is a double feature during the Sunday Buzz matinee that includes A Sexplanation, a funny and thought-provoking film that discusses sex, discussions about sex, and so much more, and Karen Dalton: In My Own Time, a film about the folk singer from the ‘60s and ‘70s “who to me was one of the five greatest female singers of all time” said Bechard. “It’s a beautiful documentary,” he added. “Let me put it this way, and for me this is saying a lot: I wish I had made it.”
The second event for Sunday at Cafe Nine is NHDocs’s closing night, which features Lydia Lunch: The War Is Never Over, the final film in the festival’s Beth B retrospective as well as a Q&A with director Beth B and a live spoken word performance from the legendary Lydia Lunch herself. Bechard could barely contain his excitement for this one; his connection with Beth B started with a Polaroid that has been in his office since 1986 showing the marquee of the old Bleecker Street Cinema, made famous in Woody Allen’s Annie Hall. The theater was considered “the most important independent cinema in the country back in that era,” Bechard said. In the photograph, the marquee reads “Beth B Salvation Midnight Friday and Saturday Psychos in Love.” Bechard called the filmmaker last year after hearing that she did a Lydia Lunch film and this year set up a showing of the film and more.
“I said, ‘what if we even take it farther?’” he said. “You’ve made a lot of docs, you’re in New York, let’s bring you up and let’s show some of your films and do a retrospective of your work. It just so happens that Kino-Lorber was doing a restoration of a lot of her films, so it was the perfect time.”
The retrospective includes not only the Lunch film at Cafe Nine, but three features — Exposed, Call Her Applebroog, and Breathe In/Breathe Out — and a short called High Heel Nights that are all being shown at the New Haven Free Public Library.
The festival also includes some of the elements put in place last year during stricter Covid-19 restrictions, such as online screenings. Fifteen to 20 features will be shown online and another 20 or so shorts, plus all the student films in the festival, which is an additional 20 or so shorts. “We might have a few surprises … something that is live may end up online too, but we’ll know when we know,” added Bechard.
Live screenings are up from 16 last year to 38 this year, and include — in addition to Sally’s, Cafe Nine, and the library — Crepe Choupette on Whitney Avenue (fujetsu-do, a film about family and food and a collection of shorts from the past year) and Park of the Arts just off Whitney and Audubon Street, which is the site of two events including the film Storkman (“It’s one of our favorites,” Kowalczyk said) as part of Compassionfest night on Saturday night.
At that event patrons can get food and drinks at Koffee? and there will also be vendors including vegan food trucks. Tickets start at two dollars for that night, keeping in alignment the festival’s goal to have as many events be as affordable as possible.
“It’s not for all of New Haven unless we make it affordable for all of New Haven and accessible for all of New Haven,” said Kowalcyzk.
The library is pay what you can, “and that’s the majority of the films,” said Bechard, showing six films on Wednesday and seven each day Thursday through Saturday. The Park of the Arts events have a suggested donation.
That said, there is also a sliding scale of different ticket tiers, so “it’s the exact same ticket, and you can pay 25, 50, 75, or 100 dollars if you want to support the arts — and we have a lot of people, thankfully, who do that,” Bechard said.
“Obviously, this is still us doing it for the love of film,” added Kowalcyzk. “but if we have a little bit of support from the community, we always give it right back to them.”
The most expensive ticket (and one of the events that is selling fastest, according to Kowalcyzk) is for Friday night’s feature, Organ Stops: Saving the King of Instruments, a film about pipe organs and the people trying to save them, that will be shown at St. Paul and James Episcopal Church on the corner of Chapel and Olive Streets. Held in conjunction with the NHSO and Yale’s Institute of Sacred Music, this event includes organ music played by Nathanial Gumbs of Yale prior to the film. Afterward there will be a Q&A with director James Dawson and a duet with the organist and trumpet player Michael Flynt from the NHSO. Kowalcyzk called it the “piece de resistance” of the festival.
“Musicians coming together: we love doing that,” said Bechard.
“Music, movies, and pizza are really key, that’s the cornerstone of this festival,” added Kowalczyk. “That’s what New Haven is. That’s what NHDocs is.”
“We have a wonderful collection of films that cover every single topic, from racism to LGBT issues to the environment,” said Bechard. There are also films about animals — from storks to dogs to guinea pigs — and films with local connections, such as Blue Skies, about an animation studio formerly located in Greenwich. Variety and diversity are key factors for NHDocs in deciding what to offer their audience.
“We are the festival that brings something to Connecticut at affordable prices and speaks to every group,” added Bechard. “We are the most diverse and affordable. We have a passion and a love for what we do.”
“Watch the films, enjoy the films,” said Kowalczyk. “Just come out and be a human being and enjoy other human beings,” she said. “That’s what we really want. Everybody come out, have a conversation and have fun.”
NHDocs runs from Aug. 10 to Aug. 15 with both online and in-person offerings. Schedules and tickets for both, as well as all other festival information, can be found at the NHdocs website.