Boston Calling Alert: The first Boston Calling Film Festival announced, curated by Natalie Portman!
We’re just a month away from the ninth installment of Boston Calling, a festival that has featured everyone from Beck to Lorde to Halsey (playing the opening slot of the day!) and this year will be headlined by The Killers, Jack White and closing it out with Eminem. Something unique about this year’s festival though is the addition of a series of special programming curated by actress, producer, director Natalie Portman inside the festival’s arena. Portman isn’t new to the Boston area, she took a well known break from acting to graduate with a bachelor’s degree in Psychology at Harvard University and returned to be the commencement speaker in 2015. While she was curating this experience for last May’s run of the festival, she did have to back out, she was nine months pregnant after all, but she is fully making up for it with her programming for this year’s festival.
While her daily programming during the festival has been known, it was just announced last night that in the three days prior to the festival, May 22nd-May 24th, Portman will be returning to Harvard Square in the form of the first Boston Calling Film Festival which will be taking place at the Brattle Theatre (40 Brattle Street, Cambridge, MA). Just a ten minute walk or so from where the rest of the festival will be taking place the following weekend, it’s a perfect preamble to what is to come from the festival this time around.
The schedule is as follows below, limited tickets went on sale at 10 this morning as well at brattleonline.com:
Tuesday, May 22nd:
4:15 pm: Lolita
7:15 pm: The Holy Girl
9:30 pm: Diary of a Teenage Girl
Wednesday, May 23rd:
4:30 pm: Jeanne Dielman
8:30 pm: Belle de Jour
Thursday, May 24th:
7:30 pm: I Am Not A Witch
9:30: The Exorcist (extended director’s cut)
As can be seen, there is something for everyone in this festival which “showcases a series of films that explore similar themes from the perspective of either male or female directors”. Which can also be said for this year’s line up which boasts 54 performances over three days. Keep checking in with us leading up the festival! We will be continuing to post coverage up until the start of the festival, be it the top ten things you should see/do/eat at the festival to further details that come out about the festival to interviews with some of the acts playing!
