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Actors & directors reflect on MFI's summer film program launch & screenings at Peconic Landing

Ralph C Friday, September 14, 2012

Actors and directors reflect on Manhattan Film Institute’s summer film program launch and screenings at Peconic Landing

MFI says they’ll be back next summer!

GREENPORT, N.Y. (September 14, 2012) – “Peconic Landing created this sort of Eden of filmmaking, and the energy of it all and the embrace from all the residents were really incredible,” said actor/director Tony Goldwyn of his experience with the inaugural summer film program of the Manhattan Film Institute (MFI) at historic Brecknock Hall on the grounds of Peconic Landing.

MFI’s website (www.manhattanfilminstitute.com) has numerous testimonials of appreciation from both students and faculty of MFI, “a boutique conservatory with a world-class faculty,” about this first summer of film camp. Among the offerings: a curriculum of film classes that Peconic Landing residents could audit, a series of four film screenings open to the public and hosted by actors/directors/writers associated with the films, and film showings of all 20 films produced during the summer camp.

Goldwyn said many groups around the country have tried to do what MFI did, and the film program at Peconic Landing was by far the best with which he’s been acquainted. He rates it, “probably next to Robert Redford’s Sundance Institute. MFI put together really topflight directors – all of whom have a presence in Manhattan – together with actors, writers and directors of all ages. So you had a teenager’s screenplay being worked on with older actors. It was really magical.”

History was born at the summer film camp, where they shot 20 films in two weeks, then showed them all in a day with screenings at Greenport Theater and Peconic Landing. “These students made some incredible films, and you’ll see these young filmmakers on the big screen in years to come,” said Dominic Antignano, Peconic Landing cultural arts coordinator (and curator for the Outdoor Living Gallery, a permanent selection of sculptures from world-renowned artists which is open to the public daily for self-guided tours, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. through October). “Programs like this are essential to our mission. We bring in cultural programs like theater, ballet and opera – offerings as diverse as the people who live at Peconic Landing. They are really the distillation of the world – a generation that changed the world – but when they were in the film classes, they were as inquisitive as the young students.”

Peconic Landing’s 160-seat auditorium was filled for each of the four film screenings, with writer and Sundance winner Ben York Jones hosting Like Crazy. In addition, writer/actor Chazz Palminteri hosted A Bronx Tale and Goldwyn, his most recently directed film, Conviction. Writer/actor Joe Pantoliano worked with the Resident Health Committee and facilitated a program on depression awareness, mental illness and behavioral healthcare via his independent film, Canvas, and a robust Q&A.

Larry Moss, acknowledged as one of the greatest acting teachers in the world, taught a week-long Actors Retreat attended by students from around the world, including Peconic Landing residents, many who are actors and star in resident productions.

“When I screened Conviction, the Q and A at the end was just incredible,” said Goldwyn, whose friendship with one of MFI’s founders goes back 30 years. That would be actor Tony Spiridakis, currently writing several pilots and teaching directing and acting at Dodge College of Film and Media Arts at Chapman University in Orange, Calif. “Tony has a gift for creating an atmosphere that is infectious,” Goldwyn said, “and while this was an inaugural effort, it seemed like a fully born creature when it launched from Tony’s head.”

Spiridakis explained, “These celebrities are part of MFI’s faculty, and they are also family. I share more than 30 years with these men, not including my ex-student, Ben York Jones, who isn’t even 30 years old yet. We intend this to be an ongoing institute to bring filmmakers together – cross-generational, cross-racial – and we intend to be back next summer.”

For more information about Peconic Landing and all of the partnerships and programs it has become so well-known for, please visit www.PeconicLanding.org.