2024 Chain NYC Film Festival closes the evening of Sunday Aug. 4

In an era in which people are opting to stay home and stream a new movie rather than travel to the theatre, the Chain 2024 NYC Film Festival experienced a record number of in-person participants since the COVID lockdowns.

The 12th annual event screened 163 new independent films over the course of two weeks.

"Our audience has diversified and grown and that extends to our film festival," said Rick Hamilton, managing director of the Chain Theatre and Chain NYC Film Festival. "We are on track to have our best attendance since the COVID shutdown."

The festival opened on July 25 with a selection of international short films and will close on Sunday August 4 after a block of sci-fi and drama short films that start at 2pm. Tickets can be purchased online or at the door.

On Saturday August 3, documentary aficionados can choose from two tracks that start simultaneously at 2pm. One is a variety of short documentaries and the other is "Sound of Hope" about using classical music education as a weapon against poverty, ignorance, and crime.
At 4pm, 5pm, 7pm, 8pm and 8:30pm, the festival continues with a full-length documentary called "His Name is Ray" and a collection of shorts about romance, heartbreak, mental health and other topics.

"One aspect that was new this year was a creative view of the pandemic from a distance," Hamilton told Patch. "Filmmakers seem to be taking a different look at how that affected us. They almost seemed haunted by the specter of what we went through during that time."

The Chain Theatre is located at 312 West 36 Street in Manhattan where the film festival takes place on the 3rd and 4th floors.

"Roswell Delirium," a sci-fi thriller starring Anthony Michael Hall of "The Breakfast Club" and "Sixteen Candles" fame, was among the ten full-length documentaries, eighteen documentary shorts, four narrative features and remaining shorts, web series and pilots that were selected to screen this year.

"Bloody Fury," a gory Western short film starring Academy Award nominee Bill Nighy, was also a highlight along with "Adult Children of the American Revolution," starring Matrell Smith who is a lead in the upcoming feature film, "The Piano Lesson," directed by Denzel Washington's son Malcolm.

"Chain has built a reputation for being a home where theatre artists and filmmakers can tell their story, their way," Hamilton added. "We're happy that audiences leave thrilled at the communal experience of watching indie films on the big screen and hearing from our filmmakers at our talkbacks."

The New York City festival is one of Film Freeway's top one hundred. The popular website is used by filmmakers around the world to submit their work for festival consideration.