Stony Brook Film Festival announces lineup, including 2 movies with LI roots
Elliott Murphy in "The Second Act of Elliott Murphy," a documentary that will be screened at the Stony Brook Film Festival, which runs July 20-29. Credit: Stony Brook Film Festival
The Stony Brook Film Festival has announced this year’s full lineup of titles, including two features with deep roots in Long Island.
One is “The Second Act of Elliott Murphy,” a documentary on the Rockville Centre-born singer-songwriter whose fans and collaborators include Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel and Phil Collins but whose career has gone almost entirely unnoticed in America. (Murphy, who is based in France and was knighted there in 2015, plans to appear in person at a screening of the film.)
The festival will also hold the world premiere of the documentary “To the Edge of the Sky,” directed by the Stony Brook-raised brothers Jedd and Todd Wider, whose production credits include Alex Gibney’s Oscar-winning “Taxi to the Dark Side.” The Widers’ new film follows four families battling the FDA for access to a drug intended to help those with the rare genetic disease Duchenne muscular dystrophy.
The festival’s recent turn toward international films will continue with screenings of “The King’s Choice,” a Norwegian drama set during the Nazi occupation of Oslo; the Finnish coming-of-age story “Little Wing,” about a 12-year-old girl searching for the father she has never met; and “Ethel & Ernest,” a British animated film based on Raymond Briggs’ graphic novel about his parents’ relationship from the 1920s through the 1970s.
The 22nd annual Stony Brook Film Festival runs July 20-29 at the Staller Center for the Arts at Stony Brook University. For more information call 631-632-2787 or go to stonybrookfilmfestival.com.
