Get patriotic for New York cinema at IFC Center’s ‘Declaration of Independents’ festival
NYC-based IndieCollect is ensuring indie films aren't lost to time
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: if you’re feeling (justifiably) iffy about going full patriot for the United States’ 250th birthday this year, why not celebrate New York City patriotism instead?
There are a bunch of great ways you can do that (come to our “NYC vs. USA” live show at Caveat on July 7, for instance) and a new one kicks off next week: IFC Center’s “Declaration of Independents!” series. Billed as a “salute to indie filmmakers who asserted their creative freedom during a formative era of American independent cinema,” the series features a stacked nine-day, 20-film lineup of American indie movies made between 1979-1989, running from July 1-9.
“We really wanted to do something in response to the kind of nationalistic patriotism that’s being associated with the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence,” said Sandra Schulberg, president of the New York-based film preservation organization IndieCollect, which collaborated with IFC to put “Declaration of Independents!” together. “I wanted to counterpoint that by showcasing the real diversity of America, which is reflected authentically in independent cinema.”
The current lineup was winnowed down from list of over 1,000 seminal American indies, and, unsurprisingly, a huge chunk of the final selections were made in New York, including:
