The Hamptons International Film Festival, celebrating its 16th anniversary, has become a destination event for a wide array of film talents, industry attendees and local audiences with a penchant for independent and international cinema. The Festival, which this year will present 122 films, including 14 World Premieres and 23 North American Premieres, runs through this Sunday, October 19

The Golden Starfish Awards Competition is the heart of the Hamptons International Film Festival. There are two competition categories, one for narrative films and the other for documentaries.

Golden Starfish Narrative Competition:

· ’77 ( USA , World Premiere) Dir. Patrick Read Johnson - with John Francis Daley, Colleen Camp, Austin Pendleton. Part autobiography, part fever-dream, ’77 is the inspired true story of a young man’s cinematic awakening, and a cinephile's delight.

· BOOGIE (Romania, North American Premiere) Dir. Radu Muntean – with Dragos Bucur, Anamaria Marinca, Mimi Branescu, Adrian Vancica. This Romanian film follows a young husband and father of a three year-old on a weekend holiday. When he runs into a couple of high school buddies, Boogie longs to relive his past days of freedom, yet needs to come to terms with his new responsibilities.

· DANCERS (Denmark , North American Premiere) Dir. Pernille Fischer Christensen – with Trine Dyrholm, Anders W. Berthelsen, Birthe Neumann. When dance instructor Annika falls in love with shy electrician Lasse, she begins receiving a series of malicious, anonymous phone calls that slowly reveal her boyfriend’s dark past. Ignoring her mother’s wishes, Annika’s continues with a relationship that potentially threatens her staid, comfortable life.

· MY MOTHER, MY BRIDE, AND I (Germany , US Premiere) Dir. Hans Steinbichler – with Matthias Brandt, Monica Bleibtrau, Maria Popistasu. In the German film My Mother, My Bride and I the loaf-like Erwin, a 41 year old man who has never left his mother’s embrace, takes a young, fawn-like bride in Romania, much to mother’s dismay, and then must decide what he is willing to risk to keep her.

· TROUBLED WATER (Norway/Sweden, North American Premiere) Dir. Erik Poppe - with Pål Sverre Valheim Hagen, Trine Dyrholm, Ellen Dorrit Petersen, Trond Espen Seim. Jan Thomas has served his eight year term for the murder of a young boy, and is released back into society a rehabilitated man. He begins to believe that he has truly left his past behind him – but now a boy is missing, and someone has been watching Jan.

· VASERMIL ( Israel , East Coast Premiere) Dir. Mushon Salmona – with David Taplitsky, Adiel Zamro, Nadir Eldad. This Israeli drama depicts the lives of disaffected and struggling teenage boys confronting the volatile elements of clashing cultures and generations. When a football coach takes the boys in hand, they learn new meanings for the term ‘streetwise,’ and are confronted with choices that chart the course of their futures.


Golden Starfish Narrative and Shorts Competition jurors include: Elvis Mitchell (Film Critic, Host of “The Treatment”), Chistoph Terhechte (Director of International Forum of New Cinema, Berlin International Film Festival), Victoria Burrows (Casting Director – Burrows / Boland Casting).


Sandy Mandelberger, Film New York Editor