We are proud to announce that Barney’s Version, a Sony Pictures Classics’ release, will screen at Guild Hall on October 7th as the Opening Night Film of the 2010 Festival.

Richard J. Lewis’ Barney’s Version, produced by Robert Lantos (Eastern Promises, Being Julia), is based on the Mordecai Richler novel. The film stars Paul Giamatti, Dustin Hoffman, Rosamund Pike, Minnie Driver, Rachelle Lefevre, Scott Speedman and Bruce Greenwood. Giamatti plays the titular Barney and presents a view of his life that is at times hilarious and, at others, heartbreaking. In the film, Barney Panofsky is a seemingly ordinary man who lives an extraordinary life. Barney’s candid confessional spans three decades and two continents, and includes three wives one outrageous father (Hoffman), and a dangerously dissolute best friend (Speedman).

As a reminder, tickets to the 2010 Festival go on sale September 18th. To buy your Festival pass now, click HERE.

Check back with us in the upcoming days for more announcements, including our full slate of 2010 Festival films!

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A stellar line-up of talent, including Marcia Gay Harden, Frances McDormand, Joel and Ethan Coen and John Turturro will fete Ben Barenholtz at The Hamptons International Film Festival / IndieWIRE Industry Toast on Saturday, October 9^th during the festival. The festival will also present a special 20th anniversary screening of Miller’s Crossing the first film Barenholtz executive produced and Marcia Gay Harden’s first film, on Sunday, October 10th. Other announced speakers include Eammonn Bowles, Annette Insdorf, Bingham Ray, Stephanie Sharis, and Willie Reade.

A revered figure among independent filmmakers, Barenholtz has been a key presence in the independent film world as an exhibitor, distributor, and producer since the late 1960s when he owned and operated New York City’s Elgin Theatre. As a distributor, he released many seminal debut films from directors such as David Lynch, John Sayles, Guy Maddin and Joel and Ethan Coen, as well as award winning foreign films such as Tacchella’s Cousin cousine.

UPDATE: ADVANCED TICKET SALES – SOLD OUT (8/20/10)

HIFF SummerDocs – THE LAST PLAY AT SHEA

Saturday, September 4^th @ 8pm

Screening followed by Q&A with Billy Joel. Hosted by Alec Baldwin.

The Hamptons InternationalFilm Festival (HIFF), working in association with Guild Hall, concludes it’s three-part Summer Docs series with a screening of The Last Play at Shea. The film will screen at Guild Hall in East Hampton on Saturday, September 4th at 8:00pm

Returning SummerDocs host Alec Baldwin will introduce the film and participate in a question and answer session with music legend Billy Joel immediately following a screening of the film.

The intersecting histories of a landmark stadium, a volatile baseball team, and a music legend are examined in a film that charts the ups and downs of the New York Mets and the life and career of Long Island native Billy Joel.  Directed by Paul Crowder, the film is set against the backdrop of New York City, early 60s to present, and the soundtrack of Joel’s final Shea concerts in 2008. The Last Play At Shea weaves interviews with players and performers with exclusive concert footage—featuring special guests Paul McCartney, Tony Bennett, Garth Brooks, John Mayer and Roger Daltrey, among others.  Long time Joel friend and former band mate, Jon Small, directed the concert footage, filmed at each of Joel’s sold out Shea Stadium Shows.  The shows staged on July 16 and July 18, 2008, before a combined 110,000 fans, were the last performances ever to play the historic stadium.  Steve Cohen and Nigel Sinclair produce The Last Play At Shea, in conjunction with Billy Joel’s Maritime Pictures and Spitfire Films.

Children’s Short Film Program - August 19th, 4-5pm - FREE!

Guild Hall - 158 Main Street, East Hampton

HIFF & Guild Hall Children’s Short Film Program is a compilation of films from around the globe curated by 10 year children’s programming veteran, Patti Greaney. Including both animation and live action films, this program is designed to inspire a child’s imagination. While exposing them to other worlds and cultures, each short film will offer glimpses into how other civilizations live and how their citizens may speak different languages, but still have similar interests — giving young minds the opportunity to realize there is a wonderful larger world out there. Even though this group of films is billed as a ‘children’s program’, it’s truly created for the child in all of us.

Patti Greaney is an independent film producer and executive producer of film and evolutionary content at Giraldi Media. She is the founder of the successful StarChefs.com, the largest professional culinary site on the internet. Her latest project is the Out of Hand Festival, a partnership with the School of Visual Arts, an online, international, student competition for mobile content. Patti has now curated children’s short film programs for six years.

SUITABLE FOR ALL AGES. The program is one hour in length.

Hokus Pokus by Anna Samoylovich. A magicians wish does not always come true. Denmark / Animation /  4:13

The Happy Duckling by Gil Dolev. Follow a story of a young boy in his struggles against a STALKING DUCK!!  In this pop-up world expect the unexpected! Surprises a plenty behind every flap you open and every tab you pull. Scotland  / Animation / 9:35

Malice in Wonderland by Ross Bolinger. Two sheets of paper side by side, each containing a single character. One is ever joyous and carefree while the other, acutely observing the actions of the first, broils with envy. USA / Animation / 3:17

Maggie and Mildred by Holly Klein. Mildred is left to look after Maggie and the two of them now have the whole house to themselves. It doesn’t matter if they are discovering old furniture, saving a young prince or baking huge cakes – every room is full of adventures. USA / Animation / 4:00

Cocoon Child by Sonja Rohleder. A poetic film about the imagination of an autistic child showing the mo ment where the inner world connects with the world at large. Denmark / Animation /  5:00

Cyber by Stefan Eling. And, who said computer games were for couch potatoes? Germany / Animation /  5:00

The Little Crow with the Naked Bottom by Raimke Groothuizen. The little crow has a problem. The solution brings on teasing from friends but ultimately serves an even better purpose. Nederlands  / Animation / 5:00

Goldfish by Joe Wein. Third-graders are on a mission to save their classroom’s goldfish but everything they know is working against them… USA  / Love Action / 12:30

Dinosaur Song by Christian Robinson. A young boy takes us on a journey about the life of a dinosaur. USA / Animation /  3:00

Birds on a Wire by Jarbas Agnelli. Reading a newspaper, Jarbas Agnelli saw a picture of birds on the electric wires. He cut out the photo and decided to make a song, using the exact location of the birds as notes (no Photoshop edit). He was curious to hear what melody the birds were creating. Brazil  / Animation / 1:25

Runaway Train by Cordell Barker. Happy passengers are having a great time on a crowded train, oblivious to the fate that awaits them around the bend. The ensuing crisis leads to a class struggle that is as amusing as it is merciless. naturally there are victims, but in the end everyone is equal. Canada  / Animation / 9:11

The Hamptons International Film Festival (HIFF), working in association with Guild Hall, continues its 2nd Annual three-part “Summer Docs” series with the 2^nd screening in its series this summer, a screening of Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith’s, The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and The Pentagon Papers. The enthralling 2010 Academy Award® nominated documentary will screen at Guild Hall in East Hampton on Saturday, August 7^th at 8pm. Tickets for the screening are available purchase at www.guildhall.org or at the Guild Hall Box Office.

Returning SummerDocs host Alec Baldwin will introduce the film and participate in a question and answer session with Daniel Ellsberg, former United States military analyst who precipitated a national political controversy in 1971 when he released the Pentagon Papers, a top-secret Pentagon study of US government decision-making about the Vietnam War, to The New York Times and other newspapers, and former Washington Post journalist, Carl Bernstein, who was an integral person in exposing the Watergate scandal.

“It is a huge honor to have Daniel Ellsberg, Carl Bernstein and this prestigious, Academy Award® nominated film with us at Guild Hall to continue our successful SummerDocs series,” says Hamptons International Film Festival Executive Director Karen Arikian.   “The series is flourishing with the support of not only these acclaimed films but also with the continued support of board member Alec Baldwin,” adds Arikian. “Daniel Ellsberg and Carl Bernstein coming to the Hamptons community to discuss the film with our host Alec Baldwin is a testament to the importance of documentary filmmaking and its voice,” says Director of Programming, David Nugent.

The Most Dangerous Man in America catapults us to 1971 where we find America in the grip of a familiar scenario: a dirty war based on lies.  And Dr. Daniel Ellsberg, one of the nation’s leading war planners, has the documents to prove it.  Armed with 7000 pages of Top Secret documents; he leaks the truth about the Vietnam War to The New York Times and risks life in prison to end the war he helped plan.  It is a story that held the world in its grip, with daily headlines, the top story on the nightly news for weeks on end.

The tale is told by Ellsberg — as narrator, in current interviews and riveting archival footage — and a cast of supporting characters who “lived” the Pentagon Papers episode including Ellsberg’s wife and son, “co-conspirator” Tony Russo, historian/activist Howard Zinn, journalists Hedrick Smith and Max Frankel, attorneys Lenny Weinglass and James Goodale, Watergate principals Egil “Bud” Krogh and John Dean, and — in a rarely seen interview and his own secret White house tapes — President Nixon himself.