Feature Films 2025
The following films will be screened during the Albany Film Festival.
When My Sleeping Dragon Woke
Director: Judah-Lev Dickstein and Chuck Schultz, USA | 2022 | 1 hr 20 min
Screening and discussion with director Chuck Schultz and Sharon Washington
10:45 a.m. - 12:45 p.m., Campus Center West Multi-Purpose Room
​
A little girl lives in a custodial apartment hidden inside a New York City Public Library, where her father’s job is to stoke its coal furnace 24/7. Four decades later, the little girl-turned-actor Sharon Washington chooses the theatre to write her modern-day fairy tale filled with real and imagined dragons, family secrets, forgiveness, and a life filled with books.
The Neighborhood that Disappeared
Director: Mary Paley and John Romeo, USA | 2014 | 1 hr 35 min
Screening and discussion with writer/director/producer Mary Paley
12:00 p.m. - 2:00 p.m., Performing Arts Center, Main Theatre
​
In 1962, one of the most massive urban renewal projects in American history removed the cultural and ethnic heart of Albany, NY. An arrangement made by first term Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller and longtime Albany Mayor, Erastus Corning the 2nd, displaced almost eight per cent of the City's diverse population, razed more than a thousand buildings, dislodged 3,600 households, and closed 350 businesses. The South End of Albany was a polyglot of cultures and customs, and because it has disappeared, its former residents, their children and their grandchildren. can never go home again. The Neighborhood That Disappeared will tell the story of intrepid immigrants and others that were uprooted by politicians who failed to value the community that they built.
Harriet Tubman: Visions of Freedom
Director: Stanley Nelson, USA | ?? | 54 min
Screening and discussion with co-director Nichol London
1:30 p.m. - 3:00 p.m., Campus Center West Multi-Purpose Room
​
Explore the nuanced portrait of Harriet Tubman, the “Conductor” of the Underground Railroad, who risked her own freedom and life to free others from slavery.
Desperately Seeking Susan
Director: Susan Seidelman, USA | 1984| 1 hr 44 min
Screening and discussion with director Susan Seidelman
2:15 p.m. - 4:30 p.m., Campus Center West Auditorium
​
A bored New Jersey suburban housewife's fascination with a free-spirited woman she has read about in the personal columns leads to her being mistaken for the woman herself.
It Starts With Us
Director: Paul Camarata, USA | 2024 | 29 min
Screening and discussion with director Paul Camarata
3:15 p.m. - 4:15 p.m., Campus Center West Mult-Purpose Room
​
A short documentary about Fran Brown, the new, celebrated head coach of the Syracuse University football team. He was raised in Camden, New Jersey, matriculated first at Hudson Valley Community College as a 19-year-old, and is now a 41-year-old, rising star football coach. A very New York/New Jersey story about a truly humble, life changing superstar.
Cajita
Director: Luis Gispert, USA | 2024 | 1 hr 23 min
Screening and discussion with director Luis Gispert and film editor/producer Ryan Murphy
3:30 p.m. - 5:30 p.m., Campus Center West Mult-Purpose Room
​
Based on a true story this intimate, tale follows Tomás an immigrant laborer who fled his country by shipping himself in a crate years before the story starts. Tomás now lives off the grid, performing odd jobs for an upper-middle-class family, and saving money to eventually buy a home for the family he left behind. A series of events forces Tomás out of his solitary life to engage with people of his community in search of something lost. However, this journey reflects Tomás own social and emotional turmoil: even though he emigrated to the US, he has psychologically never left his crate.
Flagmakers
Director: Cynthia Wade and Sharon Liese, USA | 2022| 35 min
Screening and discussion with co-director Sharon Liese
4:30 p.m. - 5:30 p.m., Campus Center West Multi-Purpose Room
​
A meditation on the American dream, follows workers at the country's largest maker of American flags and flagpoles, including the refugees and immigrants who have risked everything to come to the USA.