"Handia/Giant" opens CCNY's fifth annual TAFFNY film festival

Week-long festival, June 7-15, led by CCNY’s Division of Interdisciplinary Studies, brings documentaries, panels and lectures to film audiences interested in the Americas

“Giant” (“Handia”) is the opening film for the fifth annual The Americas Film Festival of New York (TAFFNY). The event, a cultural project of The City College of New York’s Division of Interdisciplinary Studies at the Center for Worker Education (CWE), runs from June 7-15.

“TAFFNY is in its fifth edition and through the years it has been growing,” said Dr. Juan Carlos Mercado, dean of the Division of Interdisciplinary Studies. “This year, we wanted to honor the students and faculty of City College’s MFA program in film, one of the oldest film schools in the U.S. and the only public institution in New York City to offer a BFA in film.

The film school was founded in 1941 by Dada artist and filmmaker Hans Richter and was originally the Institute for Film Techniques. Among the list of people who studied or took classes at CCNY’s film program are Woody Allen, Judd Hirsch, Stanley Kubrick, Jackie Mason, Richard Schiff, Eli Wallach and Ben Gazzara.

TAFFNY aims to create a new culture of cinematography appreciation by providing a dynamic space for the public and artists to meet, reflect on multiculturalism and diversity in our society, while promoting the work of new and emerging filmmakers. TAFFNY presents feature-length films, documentaries and shorts and animations that represent the rich diversity of cultures, languages and stories of the Americas.

The festival will also offer workshops, debates and lectures. It will host The Americas Short Film Competition, exclusively dedicated to the promotion and exhibition of short-length audiovisual works by emerging filmmakers.

TAFFNY closes on Friday, June 15 at 6 p.m. with the Awards Ceremony of The Americas Short Films Competition at the National Museum of the American Indian, which is followed by the New York premiere of “Out of State” by Native Hawaiian filmmaker Ciara Lacy. “Out of State” is a character-driven documentary that chronicles the experience of two men who find their cultural identity while housed in a private prison, thousands of miles from their island home of Hawaii.

The Americas Short Film Competition is exclusively dedicated to the promotion and exhibition of short-length audiovisual works by emerging filmmakers. The festival’s competition will showcase films with a maximum length of 20 minutes that portray contemporary concerns of filmmakers living in the region. This year, TAFFNY screens 40 short films in competition for The Americas Award in the categories of animation, documentary, experimental and fiction.

The Americas Panorama is an exciting program that will bring the richness of the cultures of The Americas through eight award winning, feature-length films in fiction and documentary.  The films reflect the multiplicity of stories and identities that form the “American” experience, ranging from documentaries that explore the complexities of community in a globalized world to stories, both personal and social, of perseverance, memory and love.

TAFFNY is a cultural project of the Division of Interdisciplinary Studies at the Center for Worker Education of The City College of New York, in collaboration with the National Museum of the American Indian and Instituto Cervantes. TAFFNY is made possible with the generous support of its partners and sponsors: the CCNY President’s Office, the CCNY Division of Humanities and the Arts, the CCNY Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership, CUNY Bildner Center for Western Hemisphere Studies, Telemundo 47, Ron Barceló,  Goya Foods, Consulate General of Argentina, NYU’s King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center, Ines Rosales, Aceites Castillo de Canena, Begonia Sangria, Ole Imports, and Event Model Agency.

For more information and the schedule, please visit www.taffny.com or email Professor Carlos Aguasaco at caguasaco@ccny.cuny.edu  . 

About The City College of New York
Since 1847, The City College of New York has provided a high quality and affordable education to generations of New Yorkers in a wide variety of disciplines. Today The Chronicle of Higher Education ranks CCNY #2 among public colleges with the greatest success in ensuring the social mobility of our student body; at the same time the Center for world University Rankings places it in the top 1.2% of universities worldwide in terms of academic excellence. More than 16,000 students pursue undergraduate and graduate degrees in eight professional schools and divisions, driven by significant funded research, creativity and scholarship. CCNY is as diverse, dynamic and visionary as New York City itself.  View CCNY Media Kit.