Woodstock Film Festival Gets Weird With Horror Shorts, Ice Cream and Pizza
Woodstock Film Festival Gets Weird With Horror Shorts, Ice Cream, Pizza and a World Premiere
The Woodstock Film Festival is leaning into the strange side of its 27th edition with a genre-focused shorts program combining horror, supernatural storytelling and the unexpected addition of food inspired by the films themselves.
Set for Saturday, Oct. 17, the program will feature six shorts, including the world premiere of Stray Girls, a Jordan Peele-produced film starring Jerry O’Connell and a new short co-starring Happy Death Day actress Rachel Matthews.
The festival is also extending several of the stories beyond the screen. With food emerging as an unlikely connection between some of the selections, attendees will receive ice cream tied to Prime and pizza inspired by Marge. The food will be provided by vendors from the Hudson Valley community.
Marge follows Sadie after an accidental pregnancy forces her to revisit memories of being raised by a serial killer. Rachel Matthews and Devon Ross (Irma Vep) co-star in the film, which will have its East Coast premiere at Woodstock.
The genre lineup also includes Spilled Milk, built around a familiar childhood joke that takes a considerably darker turn. Trey Carver’s father left to get milk and never returned. Twenty-three years later, Trey tracks him to a remote convenience store, where a figure known as the Milk Man is waiting for their reunion.
Jerry O’Connell (The Donor Party) stars as the Milk Man in the short from director Jared Leaf (Churchy). Jordan Peele serves as a producer, while Scott “Kid Cudi” Mescudi, Brandon Perea and Rodney Van Johnson also appear. Woodstock will host the film’s Hudson Valley premiere.
Coyote follows a Palestinian surgeon traveling home after a long shift whose drive along a desolate West Bank road takes an unexpected and potentially life-altering turn. The short comes from British-Palestinian filmmaker Said Zagha and will receive its New York premiere.
In Prime, Claire is struggling with the violent death of her mother when she joins what initially appears to be a utopian farming collective in upstate New York. Drawn toward the group’s charismatic founder, Claire begins discovering cracks in its idyllic image and secrets hiding beneath the community’s surface. The film will have its Hudson Valley premiere.
The program travels to 1990s coastal São Paulo with Seus Babies. The film centers on a mother struggling to keep her family together when she encounters a mysterious force calling from the sea. Her attempt to repair her fractured family takes an increasingly uncanny turn as an unusual harmony begins to exert its influence. Woodstock will host the film’s New York premiere.
Rounding out the block is the world premiere of Stray Girls. The film follows 18-year-old Layla, whose sheltered existence in a Muslim neighborhood in New Delhi changes after she meets the rebellious Nasrine. The friendship exposes Layla to new possibilities and desires, but after she is shamed for moving beyond the expectations of her community, her rebellion develops a magical dimension.
Stray Girls is one of 22 shorts receiving world premieres during this year’s Woodstock Film Festival.
The festival’s complete short-film program includes 110 narrative, documentary and animated selections. Woodstock is also an Oscar-qualifying festival across all three short-film categories: Live Action, Animated and Documentary, allowing qualifying award winners to become eligible for Academy Award consideration.
The 27th Woodstock Film Festival runs Oct. 14-18, with screenings and events taking place across Woodstock, Rosendale, Kingston and Saugerties in New York’s Hudson Valley.
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