6/4/09

Stony Brook's fest has the 'Answer'

'Little Traitor,' 'Blindness' also to screen

Stony Brook U. has announced the slate for its 14th annual Stony Brook Film Festival, including three world and three U.S. feature premieres.

Fest will open with the first New York-area screening of helmer John Hindman's Jeff Daniels-Lauren Graham starrer "The Answer Man" and will close with "Little Traitor," a period drama set in 1947 Palestine, directed by Lynn Roth and starring Alfred Molina.

"Blindness: Saramago in China" will unspool publicly for the first time at the festival; the pic follows a Beijing-based theatrical adaptation of author Jose Saramago's Nobel-winning tome "Blindness," focusing on rights negotiations between reps from the piracy-addled Asian nation and the novelist's representative.

Other world premieres include Jonathan Gruber's Rosalind Russell docu "Life Is a Banquet," narrated by Kathleen Turner, and "Tickling Leo," scribe-helmer Jeremy Davidson's drama about a Holocaust survivor played by Eli Wallach.

U.S. premieres include Canadian writer-director Michael MacKenzie's romantic drama "Adam's Wall"; German hyphenate Marc Meyer's kidnapper comedy "Family Rules"; and "Country Wedding," the first pic from Icelandic helmer Valdis Oskarsdottir.

Fest will also host the local preem of "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Undead," a "Hamlet"-heavy vampire comedy featuring Ralph Macchio and Jeremy Sisto and set in a production of the Bard's masterpiece that has been overrun with bloodsuckers.